My taxi driver in the Cycladic island of Syros is a bearlike character called Stelios. He gives me a bearlike hug; maybe this is because I call him “Emperor”, as a tribute to his family name, Palaiologos. It was the Palaiologi dynasty that were of course the last Byzantine emperors before the fall of Constantinople and there is no reason to suppose that the Syros family of that name are not their direct descendants.
I am surprised to discover that Stelios could be Catholic. Indeed, some of the Imperial Palaiologi themselves became Catholics, no doubt in part because it enhanced their prestige with Rome when they sought help against the Ottomans. Thomas, the Despot of Morea (in effect the modern Peloponnese) and brother of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, may have been one such convert; he married a woman who was born Catholic.
