Excerpts from

4. The Church and the Churches.

Constantinople and Rome.

The Turkish conquest left the Greek Church with a sense of des­pair and of isolation. In the struggle for survival, with practical difficulties in the field of education, it had no time and no energy for theological adventures. The Patriarch Gennadius had indeed continued to write on theology during the few remaining years of his life. But with the following generation the Church began to turn in on itself. The educated laity whose philosophers and scholars provoked discussion were gone. The Orthodox with their apophatic tradition never desired new developments in doctrine. Their doctrine and tradition embodied eternal truths. It was only when these were challenged that they felt the need to establish fresh formulae. But now, in their isolation, they received no new challenge. For about a century after the fall of Constantinople their learned clerics merely repeated opinions and arguments that had already been given to the world by earlier and greater theologians.

The one challenge that continued from the past was provided by the Church of Rome. Rome still earnestly desired to bring the Eastern Churches into her fold. The union signed at Florence, whether or no it could ever have been implemented, had been cut short as far as Constantinople and the Patriarchate were con­cerned by the fall of the city. But there were still many Greek lands that were under Latin rule, Naxos and the Duchy of the Archipelago, the Genoese island of Chios, Rhodes, under the Knights of Saint John, the Kingdom of Cyprus, soon to pass to the Venetians, and their possessions, Crete and the Ionian Islands and ports round the coasts of the Greek peninsula. In time the Ottoman Empire would absorb them all, except for the Ionian Islands; and they would return into the authority of the Patriar­chate. But, until they won religious liberation by passing into the dominion of an infidel master, the Orthodox in these districts had to submit to varying degrees of persecution. In most of them the Orthodox congregations were obliged to admit the authority of the Roman hierarchy but otherwise were allowed to follow their own ritual and customs without interference. It was in the larger islands, where there was an established Orthodox hierarchy, that trouble occurred. In Cyprus, where the Orthodox had suffered many disabilities, their situation had been improved in the fifteenth century by the passionately Orthodox queen of John II, Helena Palaeologaena; but after the Venetian occupation of the island in 1489 there was continuous trouble between the authori­ties and the Greek clergy. There was similar trouble in Crete, where the Venetian authorities considered that the Greek clergy fomented resistance and therefore laid heavy fiscal burdens on them, confiscating much of their property. Relations between the Greek and Latin hierarchies in Genoese Chios were always strained. On the other hand, in the Ionian Islands the Venetian policy was far more lenient, while by the end of the fifteenth cen­tury the Greek colony in Venice was allowed complete freedom of worship. In the Ionian Islands the Greek and Latin clergy were on remarkably cordial terms. The hierarchies remained separate; but intermarriage and even inter-communion were not infrequent.³⁴⁰

The Patriarchate of Constantinople, with so many members of its flock under Latin domination, could never forget the rivalry of Rome. Yet it was forty-five years after the meeting of the Council of Florence before the union signed there was officially repudiated at Constantinople. Anti-Western feeling ran high there during those years. The bitterness of the controversy and the failure of the West to send help when it was needed were unforgotten. Many practical-minded Greeks feared, also, that any gesture of friendship towards the West might worsen their relations with their new masters. But the Church authorities, with more pressing problems on their hands, did not trouble to legalize a situation that everyone accepted. It was only in 1484 that the Patriarch Symeon, in his third and most stable period of office, summoned a Council to meet in the Patriarchal Church of the Pammacaristos, to which the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem sent representatives. To judge from what survives of the Acts of this Council, its immediate object was to decide upon the correct ritual for the reception into the Orthodox Church of converts from Rome. The Turkish conquest of territories that had been under Latin rule meant that many Greeks who had been obliged to submit to the authority of Rome could now revert to the faith of their fathers and their compatriots. There seems to have been some controversy over the proper procedure and over the question whether Greeks who had admitted Papal supremacy but had retained their own ritual required the same treatment as Greeks who had followed the Latin ritual. But, as this was the first Council of an Oecumenical status to meet since the Council of Florence, its first action was to declare that the Council of Florence had not been canonically summoned or composed, and that its decrees were therefore invalid. The attendant bishops then settled down to discuss the ritual problem. It was decided that in all cases rechrismation, together with a solemn abjuration of Roman heresies, would suffice. It was not considered, at this time, that rebaptism was necessary.³⁴¹

As the sixteenth century advanced the bitterness began to die down. Partly this was due to the Greek students who went to study at Venice, many of whom travelled to other parts of Italy and found themselves, so long as they behaved with tact, perfectly welcome in Catholic circles. Partly it was due to the glamour attached to the position, if not to the unromantic person, of the Emperor Charles V, who seemed to be the one potentate able and willing to lead a Crusade that would rescue the Greeks. Orthodox Greeks in Venice, such as Antony the Exarch, believed that nothing should be done to alienate Charles, who was known to be a staunch Catholic.³⁴² The Peloponnesian scholar, Arsenius Apostolis — or Aristobulus, which was probably his name before he took holy orders — the son of Michael Apostolis, who, after a scholarly career at Venice, had himself consecrated as Archbishop of Monemvasia by two unqualified priests, and then tried to make terms with the Patriarchate to be recognized as holder of this Greek see, and who wrote alternately flattering and abusive letters to the hierarchs of both Churches, became a leading advocate of Habsburg intervention. He elaborated his scheme in a long epistle to Charles, at the end of which he signed himself:’ Your Majesty’s dog’, adding that he barked for his supper. But Charles was never in a position to embark upon an aggressive war against the Turks.³⁴³ By that time the Greeks were no longer so isolated. As the sixteenth century advanced West European statesmen began to realize that the Ottoman Empire could not be regarded as a transitory phenomenon. It had to be recognized as a European power with which diplomatic contact must be maintained. A number of books began to appear describing the Turks and the organization of their state. The Christian minorities were numerous; it might be worth while to cultivate their good will. Trade between the West and the Ottoman ports began to expand; and the Western merchants demanded protection from their own government. At the same time, as the ruling Turkish classes took little personal interest in commerce, it was with Christian or Jewish merchants that the Westerners had to deal, especially with the Greeks, who were beginning to control the export trade. There was a revival of interest in the Greek problem.

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540. Within a few years Jesuits were working in Ottoman territory. These well-trained, cultivated and courteous men, taking a sympathetic interest in the difficulties of the minorities, could not fail to find a welcome in many Greek households and even to make friends with members of the hierarchy. They soon found an ally in the learned and saintly Metrophanes, Metropolitan of Caesarea; and, thanks to him, they made contact with the Patriarch Dionysius II (1546-55), who seems to have been anxious to reopen negotiations with the Papacy. Nothing came of it at the time; but, when Metrophanes himself was elected to the Patriarchate in 1565, he began to make cautious approaches to Rome. Metrophanes was generally admired and loved; and no one wished to take action against him. But at last, in 1572, the Holy Synod felt that he had gone too far along the path towards reunion. He was solemnly excommunicated and deposed, swearing that he would never attempt to mount the throne again. He did not keep his promise. In 1579, seven years after his deposition, popular pressure restored him to the Patriarchate. But he had learnt his lesson. During the nine months that elapsed before his death he refrained from further negotiations. The hierarchy was alarmed. Though his successor Jeremias II accepted gifts from Pope Gregory XIII and thanked him cordially, for some time to come any ecclesiastic who was suspected of Romanizing tendencies was promptly reprimanded.³⁴⁴ When the scholar Maximus Margunius, Bishop of Cythera, was found to be wavering on the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, he was advised by his superior, Gabriel Severus, head of the Orthodox Church at Venice, to send a statement to Constantinople to assure the Holy Synod that he had not deviated from Orthodoxy.³⁴⁵

But the Jesuit influence continued. It was helped by the foundation of the College of Saint Athanasius at Rome by Pope Gregory XIII in 1577 for the higher education of Greek boys.³⁴⁶ Though most of the students came from Catholic families in the Aegean islands, the Jesuits at Constantinople were able to persuade some Orthodox parents there to send their sons to it. Not all of them were converted to Catholicism in the course of their studies; but almost all of them, returned with a kindlier feeling towards Rome and a readiness to work for some sort of union. Soon the Jesuits founded schools within the Ottoman Empire. Well before the end of the century their establishment at Pera was running schools where boys could receive an excellent education at almost nominal fees; and similar schools were set up at Thessalonica and Smyrna. Not all these establishments were successful. The one founded at Athens in 1645 met with very little sympathy there and was soon moved to the friendlier atmosphere of Chalcis.³⁴⁷ It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that there was a Catholic school in Athens, the school run by the Franciscans at the Lantern of Demosthenes, where Lord Byron lodged in 1810.³⁴⁸

In Constantinople itself these schools were very successful. Of the Orthodox boys who attended them many became Catholics, and in some cases their whole families were also converted. They had the useful effect of stimulating the Orthodox authorities into making greater efforts over education.³⁴⁹

It was owing to their friendship with Jesuit fathers that two Patriarchs in the early seventeenth century, Raphael II and Neophytus II, showed an interest in union and even started a correspondence with the Papacy. Raphael kept his correspondence secret; but in 1611 his successor Neophytus, then in his second term of office, thought that the time had come to test public opinion. That spring a Greek priest from Southern Italy preached under Patriarchal licence a lenten sermon in which he openly advocated union with Rome. Cyril Lucaris, the future Patriarch, was in Constantinople at the time and was asked by angry members of the Synod to preach a counterblast. Neophytus himself seems to have repudiated the over-eager Italian. But the Synod was highly suspicious; and the atmosphere was strained for some months, until Neophytus died the following January. But his successor, Timothy II, was reported to be friendly to Rome and in 1615 wrote a letter to Pope Paul V, acknowledging him as his superior; but he never made any open declaration of submission. The career of Cyril Lucaris showed that there was a powerful party within the hierarchy which was prepared to accept Roman supremacy. Cyril’s opponents, the Patriarchs Gregory IV, Cyril II and Athanasius III, all declared themselves for Rome. Of his successors Parthenius II, when Metropolitan of Chios, wrote to Pope Urban VIII to render obedience to him, though he seems not to have continued the correspondence after his accession to the Patriarchate. Joannicius II kept up a correspondence with Rome but prudently avoided any act of submission.³⁵⁰

Roman missionaries had many successes in the provinces. In 1628 Ignatius, Abbot of Vatopedi on Mount Athos, visited Rome and there suggested that a priest should be sent to establish a school for monks on the Holy Mountain. In response to his request a former student at the College of Saint Athanasius, Nicholas Rossi, arrived on the Mountain at the end of 1635 and opened a school at Karyes. The Turkish authorities, however, were not pleased to see Western influences infiltrating into the Mountain. In 1641 they obliged Rossi to move his school to Thessalonica. On his death there the following year the school faded out. But in 1643 the Holy Synod of the Mountain wrote to Rome to ask whether a church there could be handed over for the use of visiting Athonite monks. In return they would offer a skete or kellion for the use of Basilian monks from Italy.³⁵¹

A number of distinguished seventeenth-century provincial prelates announced their submission to Rome, including three Metropolitans of Ochrid, one of Rhodes and one of Lacedaemon. Conversions continued into the eighteenth century. The great monastery of Saint John at Patmos twice announced its submission, in 1681 and in 1725; and other monasteries did likewise: though sometimes the motives were diplomatic rather than spiritual.³⁵² But in Constantinople itself Roman propaganda grew less effective. The Anglican chaplain John Covel tells of a visit that he received soon after his arrival at Constantinople from a young Greek priest from Venice who, believing Covel to be a Catholic, revealed to him a plot organized by the French Embassy and the Jesuits to remove the actual Patriarch, probably Methodius III, and replace him by the more sympathetic Metropolitan of Paros. Nothing seems to have come of it.³⁵³ Athanasius V, a distinguished musicologist who was Patriarch from 1709 to 1711, was suspected of Roman tendencies; and similar suspicions were harboured against one or two of his successors.³⁵⁴ The growing influence of Russia made the Orthodox less eager to seek for friends in the West. Even the works of the great Greek Catholic scholar, Leo Allatius, had very little effect on Orthodox readers at Constantinople.

It was in the Patriarchate of Antioch that Rome enjoyed its greatest success. While the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem seemed to have worked well during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with their brothers of Constantinople, the Patriarchs of Antioch seem to have felt some jealousy and preferred to go their own way. It was an area in which Catholic missionaries had worked since the time of the Crusades and in which they were well established. In 1631 the Patriarch Ignatius II of Antioch made an informal act of submission to Rome. His successors, Euthymius II and Euthymius III, were both on the friendliest terms with Roman missionaries; and Euthymius Ill’s successor, Macarius III, who reigned from 1647 to 1672, not only sent his secret submission to Rome in 1662 but also publicly toasted the Pope as his Holy Father at a dinner at the French Consulate at Damascus later that year. The Patriarch Athanasius III was said to have sent a secret submission to Rome in about 1687; but if he did so he repented of it, probably under the influence of his formidable brother of Jerusalem, Dositheus, whose anti-Latin activities he imitated. Cyril V similarly submitted in 1716. In 1724 when Athanasius III, who had returned to the Patriarchate, died, the pro-Roman hierarchs at Damascus hastily elected a certain Serapheim Tanas, who had been educated at Rome, to succeed him as Cyril VI, while the anti-Roman party, with the approval of the Holy Synod at Constantinople, elected a young Greek monk, Sylvester. For the next three decades there were two rival Patriarchs of Antioch, neither of them able to control the whole of the Patriarchate, or even to remain for long at the Patriarchal palace at Damascus. Cyril VI predeceased Sylvester, who therefore won in the end, but only when a large portion of his congregation left the fold to form a separate Uniate Church.³⁵⁵ Similar tactics were attempted in about 1750 in Egypt, where an Arab priest called Joseph Babilas, consecrated as Bishop of Alexandria by Seraphim Tanas, claimed to be Patriarch, with the support of the Roman missionaries. He attracted a number of followers for a time; but his movement faded out, largely owing to the energy of the Orthodox Patriarch, Matthew Psaltis, and his friend the lay theologian Eustratiuos Argenti.³⁵⁶

Books and tracts were still written by the Orthodox condemning the doctrines and usages of Rome. But the controversialists merely repeated arguments that had frequently been put forward before. On the procession of the Holy Spirit they added little to the views given by Photius in the eighth century and frequently repeated ever since. Their attack on the use of unleavened bread at the Sacrament followed similarly traditional lines. The Greek theologians tended now, however, to be more critical of the Roman doctrine of Purgatory than their predecessors had been. Even Mark of Ephesus had been unwilling at the Council of Florence absolutely to condemn the doctrine, though he maintained that man cannot know what God intends to do with the souls of the departed. But to Maximus the Haghiorite and to Meletius Pegas it seemed unlawful and arrogant to assert the existence of Purgatory. Meletius introduced a newer note when he condemned the refusal of the Latin clergy to administer communion in both kinds to the laity. This refusal, though it was totally contrary to Orthodox tradition, had been curiously ignored by his predecessors. It may be that Meletius, most of whose polemical writing was for the benefit of the Ruthenians, felt it necessary to provide elucidation on a subject that the more staunchly Orthodox took for granted. The main bone of contention remained the Papal claim to supremacy. But there again nothing new was added to the arguments.³⁵⁷

Perhaps the chief cause of bitterness between the Churches, particularly in the eighteenth century, concerned the ownership of the Holy Places in Palestine. This long and complicated story lies outside of our scope; but it has to be remembered that, ever since the Crusades, and even before that, there had been angry disputes over the custodianship of the shrines, disputes in which not only the Greeks and the Latins but also the Monophysite Churches, the Armenians, Copts and Jacobites, were involved; and the disputes have continued to this day. On the Orthodox side it was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, rather than his brother of Constantinople, who led the Greek cause. But, after the conquest of Palestine by the Ottoman Sultan, it was at his court at Constantinople that decisions were made. This was the source of endless intrigues at the Sublime Porte and continually fomented ill will between the Churches. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Greeks obtained from the Sultan orders that gave them the leading position both at Jerusalem and at Bethlehem. Their triumph was due to the advocacy of the great Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheus and his nephew and successor Chrysanthus, who were aided at the Porte by the Grand Dragoman, the Phanariot Alexander Mavrocordato. Mavrocordato had been a pupil of the Jesuits at the College of Saint Athanasius, and, in theory at least, he was no enemy of reunion. But, when the question of the Holy Places was in dispute, his Greek blood asserted itself, and he secured a settlement that greatly distressed his Catholic friends. The Holy Places played a permanently unholy role in destroying any atmosphere in which the idea of union or even of mutual tolerance and understanding could breathe.³⁵⁸

In spite of all the Jesuit efforts it is difficult to see how union with Rome could have been achieved. The differences in dogma and in ritual may have been in many ways trivial and even unintelligible to humbler folk. But, even if they could have been overlooked in a spirit of mutual tolerance, yet they did represent a difference in religious outlook. Even if the Patriarch of Constantinople could have humbled himself and admitted the Roman pontiff not only as his senior but also as his superior, he would in so doing have betrayed the traditions of his Church. The theory of the Pentarchy of Patriarchs might not be so ancient as many of the Orthodox believed, but the theory of the charismatic equality of bishops and of the right of a General Council alone to pronounce on doctrine went back to early Christian days. The Greeks could move a long way towards compromise, with the judicious use of Economy, but they could not accept the idea of Papal supremacy; and Rome, however far she might be willing to condone divergencies in doctrine and usages, could never yield on that. Moreover, though some Patriarchs, like some Emperors before them, might decide in all sincerity that union with the West was necessary for the welfare of the Orthodox world, in simpler circles, where the monks swayed opinion, below the ranks of the upper hierarchy, there was still too much bitterness. Memories of the Latin Empire lingered on, constantly fed by the persecution of the faithful in districts where Latins ruled. To these congregations, particularly in the provinces, Rome seemed the enemy. To them the Sultan’s turban was slightly less objectionable than the Cardinal’s hat. Then there was the Russian Church, the daughter grown wealthier than her mother, to whom the mother in her old age looked for sustenance. The Russians had their own good reasons for hating the Catholic West. They were more bitterly Orthodox than the Greeks. They would angrily repudiate any attempt at union, just as they had repudiated the attempted Union of Florence. Union would bring a schism in the heart of Orthodoxy. And, anyhow, would the Sultan allow his Greek subjects to ally themselves so intimately with the West? He would suspect every Greek as a traitor; and the results might well be disastrous for the Orthodox milet.

But there were other Churches in the West now, which had thrown off the domination of Rome. Might it be possible to reach some sort of inter-communion with them?