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Objective: The aim of this article is the presentation and brief analysis of some historical cases, unknown in the broader medical bibliography, of child sexual abuse in Byzantine Society (324-1453 A.D.)., Method: The original texts of the Byzantine historians, chroniclers and ecclesiastical authors, written in the Greek language, were studied in order to locate instances of child sexual abuse., Results: Although the punishment provided by the laws and the church for cases of child sexual abuse were very strict, a number of instances of rapes under cover of premature marriages, even in the imperial families, are revealed in these texts. Furthermore, cases of child prostitution, pederasty, and incest are included in the historical texts and some contemporary authors confirmed the presence of many such cases in all classes of Byzantine society., Conclusion: The research of original Byzantine literature disclosed many instances of child sexual abuse in all social classes even in the mediaeval Byzantine society which was characterized by strict legal and religious prohibitions.

In the last century and a half, public and professional awareness of sexual abuse has emerged and been suppressed repeatedly. The 20th-century suppression of the problem has been linked to Freudianism, sexual modernism, and gender politics. Recent awareness of sexual abuse differs from awareness in the past because of the significant amount of current research attesting to the prevalence of sexual abuse and its injurious impact on human development. However, in the contemporary mental health professions, the courts, and the media, there has emerged an influential backlash against the latest discovery of child sexual victimization that utilizes arguments employed during earlier periods of suppression. Knowledge of the earlier cycles of discovery and suppression can assist professionals in understanding and countering present attempts to deny or minimize the problem of child sexual abuse.