Excerpts from

12. Epilogue.

The Patriarchate of Constantinople never recovered from the events of 1821. The Patriarch still remained at the head of the Orthodox milet; but his administration was supervised more closely and his powers were steadily curtailed. He could still appear in 1908, at the opening of the Parliament which Sultan Abdul Hamit was forced to summon, together with his fellow-hierarchs, as a high official of the Ottoman Empire. But the triumphant Young Turks had no use for the milet system and planned its abolishment. The victory of the Allies in 1918 raised hopes in Patriarchal circles. But they hoped not that the previous power should be restored to the Patriarchate, but rather that Constantinople should be given to the Greeks, in consummation of the Great Idea. It was a vain hope, ruined by the genius of Kemal Ataturk. The Greek defeat in Asia Minor meant that the Turks would recover Constantinople; and Ataturk’s conception of government had no place for the milets. Henceforward the Patriarch’s authority was purely ecclesiastical. He became merely the chief bishop of a dwindling religious community in a secular state, whose rulers mistrusted and disliked him for his faith and for his race. His flock, restricted now within Turkey to Istanbul — the name Constantinople was forbidden — and its suburbs, could look to him for moral guidance and spiritual comfort. But that was all that he could give them. His condition in no way improved in the following decades.

Throughout the nineteenth century, after the close of the Greek War of Independence, the Greeks within the Ottoman Empire had been in an equivocal position. Right up to the end of the Balkan War in 1913 they were far more numerous than their fellow-Greeks living within the boundaries of the Kingdom of Greece, and on an average more wealthy. Some of them still took service under the Sultan. Turkish government finances were still largely administered by Greeks. There were Greeks in the Turkish diplomatic service, such as Musurus Pasha, for many years Ottoman Ambassador to the Court of St James. Such men served their master loyally; but they were always conscious of the free Greek state, whose interests often ran counter to his. Under the easygoing rule of Sultans Abdul Medjit and Abdul Aziz, in the middle of the century, no great difficulties arose. But the Islamic reaction under Abdul Hamit led to renewed suspicion of the Greeks, which was enhanced by the Cretan question and the war, disastrous for Greece, of 1897. The Young Turks who dethroned Abdul Hamit shared his dislike of the Christians, which the Balkan War seemed to justify. Participation by Greeks in Turkish administrative affairs declined and eventually was ended.

For the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople the position throughout the century was particularly difficult. He was a Greek but he was not a citizen of Greece. By the oath that he took on his appointment he undertook to be loyal to the Sultan, even though the Sultan might be at war with the Kingdom of Greece. His flock, envious of the freedom of the Greeks of the Kingdom, longed to be united with them; but he could not lawfully encourage their longing. The dilemma that faced Gregory V in the spring of 1821 was shared, though in a less acute form, by all his successors. He no longer had any authority over the Greeks of Greece. Hardly had the Kingdom been established before its Church insisted on complete autonomy under the Archbishop of Athens. It was to Athens, to the King of Greece, that the Greeks in Turkey now looked for the fulfilment of their aspirations. Had the Christian Empire been restored at Constantinople the Patriarch would indeed have lost much of his administrative powers; but he would have lost them gladly; for the Emperor would have been at hand for him to advise and admonish, and he would have enjoyed the protection of a Christian government. But as it was, he was left to administer, in a worsening atmosphere and with decreasing authority, a community whose sentimental allegiance was given increasingly to a monarch who lived far away, with whom he could not publicly associate himself, and whose kingdom was too small and poor to rescue him in times of peril. In the past the Russian Tsar had been cast by many of the Greeks in the role of saviour. That had had its advantages; for, though the Tsar continually let his Greek clients down, he was at least a powerful figure whom the Turks regarded with awe. Moreover he did not interfere with the Greeks’ allegiance to their Patriarch. Whatever Russian ambitions might be, the Greeks had no intention of ending as Russian subjects. As it was, the emergence of an independent Greece lessened Russian sympathy. Greek politicians ingeniously played off Britain and France against Russia, and against each other; and Russia found it more profitable to give her patronage to Bulgaria: which was not to the liking of the Greeks.

We may regret that the Patriarchate was not inspired to alter its role. It was, after all, the Oecumenical Patriarchate. Was it not its duty to emerge as leader of the Orthodox Oecumene? The Greeks were not alone in achieving independence in the nineteenth century. The Serbs, the Roumanians, and, later, the Bulgarians all threw off the Ottoman yoke. All of them were alive with nationalistic ardour. Could not the Patriarchate have become a rallying force for the Orthodox world, and so have checked the centrifugal tendencies of Balkan nationalism?

The opportunity was lost. The Patriarchate remained Greek rather than oecumenical. We cannot blame the Patriarchs. They were Greeks, reared in the Hellenic tradition of which the Orthodox Church was guardian and from which it derived much of its strength. Moreover in the atmosphere of the nineteenth century internationalism was regarded as an instrument of tyranny and reaction. But the Patriarchate erred too far in the other direction. Its fierce and fruitless attempt to keep the Bulgarian Church in subjection to Greek hierarchs, in the 1860s, did it no good and only increased bitterness. On Mount Athos, whose communities owed much to the lavish, if not disinterested, generosity of the Russian Tsars, the feuds between the Greek and Slav monasteries were far from edifying. This record of nationalism was to endanger the very existence of the Patriarchate in the dark days that followed 1922.

Now, owing to the very fact of these disasters, the Patriarchate can be oecumenical once more. In the country of his residence the Patriarch’s congregation is small; for the Greeks have almost all, willingly or unwillingly, left Turkey for Greece, where they are under the ecclesiastical rule of the Archbishop of Athens. The Patriarch of Alexandria is responsible for the Orthodox in Africa, and the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem for those in Asia. But the large and widespread Orthodox congregations in Western Europe, in Australia and in the Americas depend canonically on the Patriarch of Constantinople; and this gives him now the authority to be the real spokesman for Orthodoxy and, if God wills, to play a leading part in bringing closer friendship between the great branches of the Church of Christ.

Nevertheless the importance of the Greek tradition in the survival of Orthodoxy during the Ottoman period must not be forgotten. Throughout all its vicissitudes the Church was determined to keep its flock conscious of the Greek heritage. The monks might be suspicious of pagan learning and of attempts to revive the study of philosophy; but everyone who called himself a Greek, whatever his actual racial origins might be, was proud to think that he was of the same nation as Homer and Plato and Aristotle, as well as of the Fathers of the Eastern Church. This faith in the Greek genius kept hope alive; and without hope few institutions can survive. The Greeks might be languishing by the waters of Babylon; but they still had their songs to sing. It was Orthodoxy that preserved Hellenism through the dark centuries; but without the moral force of Hellenism Orthodoxy itself might have withered.

Hellenism provided hope for this earth. But the true strength of the Orthodox lay in their conviction that so long as they remained loyal to the teaching of Christ they would find beyond this vale of tears real and eternal happiness. More than any other branch of the Christian Church the Orthodox have been mindful of the injunction to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. This has enabled them to submit — too easily, critics have thought — to the secular authority of infidel or godless governments; but it has also enabled them to keep apart the things which are God’s and to cling to them with integrity. It might have been more heroic to protest and to face martyrdom; but, if all the members of a Church are martyred, there will be no Church left on earth. As it was, there were martyrs during these centuries, who suffered in defense of their religious integrity. But it was not for men of religion to plunge into worldly politics. The Patriarch was, indeed, forced to assume a political role by becoming ethnarch of the Orthodox milet. But it was his duty, both as a religious leader and as an official of the Ottoman Empire, to discourage political activity in his flock; and this gave him a difficult role to play at the time of the movement towards Greek independence. The Patriarchate was blamed for not being in the forefront of the movement. But it was not in the Orthodox tradition that prelates should be warrior politicians. The great Fathers of the Church, such as Basil, would have been horrified by the gallant Peloponnesian bishops who raised the standard of revolt in 1821; nor would they have approved of the politically minded Cypriot ethnarchs of our own day.

The business of the Patriarch was to see that his Church endured. Liberty of worship was more important to him than secular liberty. On the ecclesiastical front he could play politics, to preserve his Church from being absorbed by the great and ambitious Church of Rome, and to seek allies from amongst the vigorous new Protestant Churches, and to ensure the loyalty of the daughter-Church in Russia. Yet even on that front the Orthodox remained on the defensive, seeking not to attack but to maintain what they believed to be their traditions and their rights. They were ready to listen to the overtures of the Protestants, but, except in the eccentric case of Cyril Lucaris and his school, they regarded the Protestants as bringing possible aid against Roman aggression, and also as sources of material assistance. The integrity of the true faith was not to be touched: though in fact the negotiations led to a desire to give to the articles of faith a precision alien to the old apophatic outlook. It was a temporary desire. In the main the Orthodox saw the truths of their faith as eternal. They were not going to alter them for any earthly advantage.

The history of the Orthodox Patriarchate during the long captivity of the Great Church is lacking in heroic bravado. Its leaders were men who found it wise to avoid publicity and outward splendour and grand gestures. If they often indulged in intrigue and often in corruption, such is the inevitable fate of second-class citizens under a government in which intrigue and corruption flourish. The grand achievement of the Patriarchate was that in spite of humiliation and poverty and disdain the Church endured and endures as a great spiritual force. The Candlestick had been darkened and obscured, as the Englishman Peter Heylyn, who disliked the Greeks, noted in the early seventeenth century, but God had not taken it away. The light still burns, and burns brighter. The Gates of Hell have not prevailed.

1 For a general account of the Orthodox Churches and their attitude to theology see S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church; N. Zernov, Eastern Christendom; P. Evdokimov L’Orthodoxie; and two excellent short summaries, J. Meyendorff, L’Eglise Orthodoxe, and T. Ware, The Orthodox Church. The only summa theologiae fully accepted by all the Orthodox is John of Damascus’s Πηγη Γνωσεως (often known as De Fide Orthodoxa), which leaves many theological issues untouched. For statements of doctrine which are considered as being perfectly Orthodox but need not be accepted in all details see below, p. 347, n. 2.

2 The best concise interpretation of economy is given in R. L. Langford-James, A Dictionary of the Eastern Orthdox Church, pp. 47-9.

3 See Bulgakov, op. cit. pp. 9-17.

4 Dion Cassius, Historia Romana (ed. U. P. Boissevain), n, p. 452.

5 See S. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem, passim.

6 For the Christological controversies and the quarrels between the Patriarchates see the chapters by A. Bardy in A. Fliche and V. Martin, Histoire de l’Eglise, rv, pp. 163ff., and by A. Gardner in Cambridge Medieval History, 1, pp. 4873.”; also Zernov, op. cit. pp. 39-80.

7 See below, pp. 134, 152. For the vast literature on Iconoclasm see the bibliography in Cambridge Medieval History, rv, 1 (new edition), pp. 840-8.

8 For a full bibliography of the schism, ibid. pp. 942-52.

9 See D. M. Nicol, ‘The Fourth Crusade and the Greek and Latin Empires,’ ibid. pp. 279-330.

10 See G. Ostrogorsky, ‘The Palaeologi,’ ibid. pp. 331-88. 15

11 See S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, passim.

12 See J. Gill, The Council of Florence, passim; D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West, pp. 84-111.

13 For the Apostolic Succession of the priesthood see P. Evdokimov, L’Orthodoxie, pp. 161-4.

14 The whole question of the apostolicity of the great sees has been treated at length by F. Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium.

15 For the emergence of the Patriarchates and their order and their disputes see A. Bardy in A. Fliche and V. Martin, Histoire de I’Eglise, passim; Dvornik, op. cit. passim; N. H. Baynes, ‘Alexandria and Constantinople: a study in Ecclesiastical Diplomacy,’ Byzantine Studies, pp. 97-115.

16 F. Dvornik, ‘Emperors, Popes and General Councils,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vi (1951), pp. 1-23; S. Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, pp. 90-2. Evdokimov, op. cit. pp. 159-61.

17 See Evdokimov, op. tit. pp. 159-61.

18 See P. Peeters, ‘Les debuts du Christianisme en Georgie,’ Analecta Bollandiana, 50 (1932), pp. 6-58, and ‘Histoires monastiques georgiennes,’ ibid. 36-7 (1917-18), pp. n6ff. The Georgian Church was officially under the Patriarchate of Antioch until the eleventh century. Sec also R. Janin, ‘Georgie,’ in Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, vi, coll. 1251-60.

19 D. Obolensky, ‘The Empire and its Northern Neighbours,’ Cambridge Medieval History, rv, 1 (new edition), pp. 473-518; M. Dinic, ‘The Balkans, 1018-H99,’ ibid. pp. 519-66, both with bibliographies. See below, pp. 379-80.

20 D. Obolensky, ‘Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xi (:957), pp. 21-78; W. K. Medlin, Moscow and East Rome, pp. 38-45, 62-6.

21 See below, p. 65.

22 L. Brehier, Le Monde Byzantin, II, Institutions de l’Empire Byzantin, pp. 507-13; Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Ceremoniis (C.S.H.B. edition), I, pp. 564-6: Pseudo-Codinus, De Officiis, M.P.G., clvt, coll. 176-7.

23 Brehier, op. cit. 11, pp. 477-86. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Ceremoniis (C.S.H.B. edition), 1, be. cit.; Symeon of Thessalonica, De Sacris Ordinationibus, M.P.G., clv, col. 440.

24 Brehier, op cit II, pp. 442-6, 489-90.

25 Ibid. pp 518-23.

26 Brahier, op. cit II, pp 489-506.

27 Ibid. pp. 517-18.

28 See below, pp. 79-80.

29 Brehier, op. at. n, pp. 466-7, 475-6.

30 H. Gelzer, Texte der Notitiae Episcopatum, pp. 3-10.

31 Taxeis of the early fourteenth and early fifteenth century are given in M.P.G. cvn, coll. 386-94, 397-404. For the list of 1437, ‘Terre Hodierne Graecorum’ (ed. S. Lambros), Neos Helknomnemon, vii (1910), pp. 36off. For the sees under Turkish domination see A. Waechter, Der Verfall des Griechentums in Kleinasien im XIVten Jahrhundert, pp. 61-5.

32 Brehier, op. cit. n, pp. 472-3.

33 For monastic origins see S. Schiwietz, Das Morgenlandische Monchtum, I, passim, esp. pp. 48-90, 148-225.

34 Justinian, Novellae (ed. K. E. Zachariae von Lingenthal), 1, pp. 133, 535, 538, 539, 554; A. Knecht, System desJustinianischen Kirchenvermogensrechtes, pp. 57-60.

35 C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Concils, revised and translated by H.Leclercq (Hefele-Ledercq), nr, 1, pp. j6orE, esp. pp. 568-9.

36 See A. Gardner, Theodore of Studium, esp. pp. 66 ff.

37 L. Brehier, Le Monde Byzantin, II, Institutions de I’Empire Byzantin, pp. 545-6.

38 Brehier, op. cit. n, pp. 550-9.

39 Ibid. pp. 564-5.

40 Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary (trans. M. N. Adler), pp. 11-14.

41 O. Tafrali, Thessalonique au XIVe siecle, pp. 99-107.

42 See above, p. 41.

43 F. Miklosich and J. Muller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, iv, pp. 298-301;

T. Wiegand, Der Latmos, passim.

44 For Mount Athos see P. Meyer, Die Haupturkunden fur die Ceschichte der Athos-Kloster, passim.

45 E. Delehaye, Les Saints Stylites, passim.

46 Vita S. Lucae Junioris, M.P.G., cxi, coll. 441-80, passim.

47 See Nicetas Stethatus, Vie de Symeon le Nouveau Theologien, ed. I. Haussher and

G. Horn, with introduction, in Orientalia Christiana, XII.

48 For Nicaean foundations, see Nicephorus Blemmydas, Curriculum Vitae, et Carmina (ed. A. Heisenberg), p. 39. For Trebizond, Mgr Chrysanthos, Εκκλησια του Τραπεζουντος, pp. 471-8; Miklosich and Muller, op. cit. v, pp. 276-81.

49 R. Janin, La Geographie eccksiastique de l’Empire Byzantin, pt. I, III, Les Eglises et les monasteres, pp. 95, 222-3. For the Church of the Chora, P. A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami, I, pp. 316. Michael VIII’s one foundation was on the small isle of Oxya.

50 Miklosich and Miiller, op. cit. v, pp. 191-3.

51 See D, M. Nicol, Meteora, the Rock Monasteries of Thessaly, pp. 70 ff.

52 Meyer, op. cit. pp. 54, 190-4.

53 Ibid. pp. 203-10.

54 Ibid. pp. 57 ff.

55 For the position of the laity see D.J. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West, pp. 79-80.

56 For education see below, pp. 112 ff.

57 J. Gill, The Council of Florence, pp. 228-9.

58 For spiritual advisers in the late Byzantine period see S. Salaville, ‘Une lettre et un discours inedite de Theolepte de Philadelphie,’ Revue des etudes byzantines, v (1947), Pp- 101-15, and V.Laurent, ‘La direction spirituelle des grandes dames de Byzance,’ ibid, VIII (1950), pp. 64-84.

59 See below, pp. 69-70.

60 See J. B. Bury, ‘The Constitution of the Later Roman Empire,’ in Selected Essays, pp. 99-125.

61 L. Brehier, Le Monde Byzantin, a, pp. 54-62, for a good summary. See also

L. Brehier and P. Battifol, Les Survivances du culte imperial romain, p. 36.

62 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, M.P.G., xx, coE. io6off.

See F. Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, n, pp. 640 ff.

63 F. Miklosich and I. Muller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, n, pp. 188-92.

64 J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire (1923), I, pp. 402-4.

65 Bury, op. cit. I, p. 236.

66 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Ceremoniis (C.S.H.B. edition), 1, pp. 59, 131.

67 Ibid. pp. 3-5.

68 Justinian, preface to Novella VI (ed. K. E. Zachariae von Lingenthal), i, pp. 44-5.

69 Agapetus, Pope, Epistolae, M.P.L., lxvi, coll. 38-40.

70 John Chrysostom, In Matthaeum, M.P.G., ivn, coll. 8iff.

71 Ecloga Leonis, in Zachariae von Lingenthal, Collectio Librorum Juris Greco-Romani Ineditorum, pp. 10-ri.

72 John of Damascus, Opera, M.P.G., xcrv, coll. 1295-7, 1302.

73 Theodore Studites, Opera, M.P.G., xcix, col. 280 (Vita Theodori), and coll.

74 Epanagoge, ed. Zachariae von Lingenthal, Jus Graeco-Romanum, IV, pp. 181-4.

3 J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Consiliorum nova et amplissima Collectio, xi, col. 930.

75 Theodore Balsamon, Opera, M.P.G., cxxxviii, coll. 93, 1017-18.

76 Acta Maximi, M.P.G., xc, coll. 90, 117-18.

77 Leo Diaconus, Historia (C.S.H.B. edition), pp. 101-2.

78 Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire, I, p. 431: Leo Diaconus, op. cit. p. 78.

79 See below, p. 67.

80 See below, p. 68.

81 For Balsamon, see D.J. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West, pp. 58-9;

Demetrius Chomatianus, Responsiones. M.P.G., cxix, coll. 948-9.