Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/830

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744

GREEK


744


GREEK


more such villages are now deserted, and their mosques in ruins.

VII. The Church in Enslaved Greece. — Greeks outside the kingdom are practically all Orthodox. They form a great part of the Patriarchate of Constan- tinople, the aristocracy of the Patriarchates of Alex- andria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and the whole Ortho- dox population of Cyprus. In all these parts except Cyprus the same evolution is taking place. For many centuries the Greeks had it all their own way. All the important offices — those of patriarchs, metro- politans, archimandrites — were never given to the native Orthodox Christians, but were kept in the hands of a little group of Greeks generally sent out by the Phanar. In each case the awakening of national senti- ment during the nineteenth century has produced this result: the natives (Slavs, or Wallachians, or Arabs) are making tremendous, and now always successful, efforts to throw off the yoke of these Greeks and to have bi.shops of their own races, the Liturgy in their own tongues. And everywhere the Greeks are waging a hopeless war in the name of Con.servatism to keep their predominance. Russia steps in everywhere, always on the side of the natives; so each year the Greek element has to retire, and the Greeks get more and more angry. This has produced the appalling combination of schisms and the degrading wrangles that rend the Orthodox Church.

In the Patriarchate of Constantinople the Bulgars have made a formal schism since 1872. They have an exarch at Constantinople, and his exarchist bishops dispute the jurisdiction of the Greek (patriarchist) hierarchy all over Macedonia. There are now exar- chist bi.shops at Ochrida, Uskub, Monastir, Nevrokop, Veles, Strumitza, Debra. In all the other dioceses, save five, they have priests and churches. This is the greatest schism. The Greek does not like Latins or Protestants; but he hates the Bulgarian schismatics far the most of all. For this ciuestion see R. von Mach, "Der Maclitbereich des bulgarischen Exarchats in der Turkei" (Leipzig, 1900); D. M. Branco, "La MacMoine et sa population chrdtienne" (Paris, 1905) ; Fortescue, " Orth. Eastern Church ", pp. 310-32.3. At Alexandria things are better. The Orthodox patri- arch, Photios, is of course a Greek (he lias had a stormy career — "Orth. East. Church ", 285-280); but he has taken the trouble to learn Arabic and allows the Liturgy to be celebrated in Arabic to some extent; also he hates the Phanar and is unceasingly engaged in quarrels with his brother of Constantinople. So his subjects are fairly content. There is a schism at Anti- och. After a long line of Phanariot patriarchs, the Arabs at last succeeded in getting an Arab patriarch, Meletios, in 1899. He was at once excominuuicatcd by Constantinople, apparently for not being a Greek. He died in 1906 and again, in spite of the frantic efforts of the Greeks, another Arab, Gregory Hadad, succeeded him. Gregory is excommunicate, too, for the same reason ; and the See of Antioch, to the infinite scandal of all respectable Orthodox Christians, is still in schism with Constantinople ("Orth. E. Church", 287- 288). The trouble at Jerusalem may be read in all the newspapers. The Patriarch Damianos is a Greek; he has always been disliked by the Arabs, now he has begun to try to conciliate them, so his Greek Synod has deposed him for being civil to_ Arabs, and the Arabs will not have him because he is a Greek. The latest reports say that he is still in the palace, guarded by Turkish soldiers ; and his monks and Synod con- sider him no longer patriarch (op. cit., 289-290). In Cyprus, though they are all Greeks, they have a schism too. Since 1900 the quarrel of the two pretenders to the archiepiscopal see, Cyril of Cyrenia and Cyril of Kition, has disturbed the whole Orthodox world. There are endless ramifications of this quarrel. For eight years every (Cypriote newspaper has had a daily leader about T4 iKK\7j<na<rTiKiv Zi)t7;/io; the ludicrous


scandal gets worse every month, and is likely to last so long as both the claimants survive.

In conclusion, it is just to say a word about the state of Greece now, compared with what it was under the Turk. Western Europeans are disappointed with the kingdom. They seem to have expected it to leap to our level at once. The mutklled, and not always honest, finances of the Government, the ludicrous in- ternal politics, a widespread and not altogether un- just suspicion of Greek honesty and the odious type of Levantine Greek that one meets, have produced a strong reaction since the burst of Philhellenism at the time of the War of Independence. Much of this is no doubt deserved. If one lands in Greece from Europe one will notice many things that excite one's indigna- tion or laughter. But let anyone go to Greece after spending some time under the sultan's government; in spite of all Greek faults, the difference is simply enormous. Coming back from Asia or European Turkey, the traveller in Greece feels that he is in Eu- rope. However unsatisfactory things may still be, he has crossed the chasm that separates Europe and Christendom from Asia and Islam. Greece may be a long way behind France or England, in the same class of country ; she is simply part of another world com- pared with Turkey.

PoHLMANN, Grundriss der griechischen Geschichte nehst Quel- lejikunde (Munich, 1S96, 3rd ed. — has excellent bibliography): Lequien, Oriens Christianas (Paris, 1740, 3 vols. — still the standard work for the history of the sees); Hertzberg, (?e- schichte der Byzantiner und des Osmanischen Reiches (Berlin, 1883 — tells the storj; of Byzantine times); Krumbacher, Ge- schichte der byzantinischen Litleratur (Munich, 2nd ed. 1897 — contains an admirable summary of the political history by H. Gelzer, pp. 911-1067, biographical notices of all writers and exhaustive bibliography); Pargoire: L'Eglise byzantine de 627 ii S47 (Paris, 1905).

tor the schism, Hergenrotiier, Photius (3 vols., Ratisbon, 1867) is still the most complete and reliable account. Bre- HiER, Le Schisme oriental du XI' siccte (Paris, 1899); Will, Acta et scripta quce de controversiis eccl. grcecce et latinw scec. XI composita extant (Leipzig, 1861 — gives the documents).

The Orthodox have now a rival to Hergenrtither in Kremos, 'ItTTopia Tou Gxitry-aTQ^ (Athens. 4 vols., two of which are pub- lished, 1905, 1907): KYRiAKOs,'E«itATj(ria(TTi*cT)'I(TTopia (Athens, 3 vols., 1898) in the third volume tells the story of the establi-shed Church of Greece.

Schmidt, Kritische Geschichte der neugriechischen und der russischen Kirche (Mainz, 1854 — not very crifical; a vehement attack on the Erastian Holy Synods of these Churches): SlL- BERNAGL, Verfassung u. gegcnwartiger Bestand samilicher Kir- chen des Orients (Ratisbon, 2nd ed. by Schnitzer, 1904 — for the Greek Church see pp. 66-84J: Pitzipios, UEglise Orientate (Rome, 1855).

For the Greek Revolution and establishment of the kingdom, Phillips, The War of Greek Independence (London, 1897); Philemon, Aoki^lov 'laropiKov ircpi t^? iWijifiKriq 'Eiraro<7Ta(r€ws (Athens, 4 vols., 18,')9).

Statistics in Kophiniotis, 'H 'EKKKrjaia eV 'EAAa5i (Athena, 1897): Werner, Orbis Terrarum Calholicus (Freiburg im Br., 1890 — for the Catholic sees, cap. xv, pp. 117-119): Brailspord, Macedonia (London, 1906 — for the situation between Greeks and Slavs): Echos d' Orient (six times a year since 1897, pub- lished by the Augustinians at Constantinople; gives always the latest news about the Orthodox Church); Fortescue, The Or- thodox Eastern Church (London, 1907), and further bibliography there, pp. xv-xxvii; the Greek Church, pp. 312-316.

Adrian Fortescue.

Greek Catholics in America. — The Uniat churches of the Byzantine or Greek Rite were almost un- known to the United States some twenty-five years ago. Occasionally a priest of that rite from Syria came to America to ask assistance for his people who were struggling amid the Moslems, but while his visit was a matter of curiosity, his rite and the peoples who followed it were wholly unknown to American Catholics. To-day, however, emigration has in- creased to such an extent and is drawn from so many lands and peoples that there are representatives of most of the Eastern rites in America, ami particularly those of the Greek Rite. These have lately arrived in large numbers and have erected their churches all over the country. The chief races which have brought the Greek Rite with them to the United States are the various Slavs of Austro-Hungary, and they are now approaching such a position of material