GREEK
76S
GREEK
Lascaris by Michael VIII, Palsologus. Originally a
personal affair, it grew eventually into a theological
and canonical controversy.
(b) Hcnychasm. — With the fourteenth century we come upon Hesychasm (ii:7vxia, quiet ")> the greatest theological conflict of the Greek Church since the old times of Iconoclasm. Gregory Sinaita first spread this doctrine, which he had learned from Arsenius of Crete. Intrinsically, it offers nothing very remarkable. It is based upon the well-known distinction between the practical religious life, which purifies the soul by cleansing it from its passions, and the contemplative life, which unites the soul to God by contemplation, and is thus the ideal and end of religious perfection. Four or five successive stages lead the disciple from the practical to the contemplative mode of life. But while there was nothing startling in the theological principles of the new teaching, the method pointed out for arriving at perfect contemplation recalled the practices of Hindu fakirs, and was no more than a crude form of auto-suggestion. The alleged Divine splendour which appeared to the hypnotized subject, and was identified with that which surrounded the Apostles on Thabor, was really nothing but a conunon- place illusion. Yet this Thaboric brightness, and the omphalopsychic method of inducing it, gave a wide- spread reputation to the Hesychasts. No doubt the leaders of the party held aloof from these vulgar prac- tices of the more ignorant monks, but on the other hand they scattered broadcast perilous theological theories. Palamas taught that by asceticism one could attain a corporal, i. e. a sense view, or percep- tion, of the Divinity. He also held that in God there was a real distinction between the Divine Es.sence and Its attributes, and he identified grace as one of the Divine propria making it something uncreated and infinite. These monstrous errors were denounced by the C!alabrian Barlaam, by Nicephorus Gregoras, and by Acthyndinus. The conflict began in 1338 and ended oiily in 1368, with the solemn canonization of Palamas and the official recognition of his heresies. He was de- clared the "holy doctor"and "oneof the greatest among the Fathers of the Church", and his writings were proclaimed "the infallible guide of the (Christian Faith ". Thirty years of incessant controversy and discordant councils ended with a resurrection of polytheism.
Among the medieval Greek theologians the most famous are the ninth-century Photius, well-known for his anti-Latinism; Michael Psellos, in the eleventh century, an all-round capable writer, theologian, exe- gete, philologist, historian, scientist, poet, and, above all, philosopher; Euthymius Zigabenos, who com- posed, at the request of Alexius Coranenus, his " Dogmatic Panoply, or Armoury, Against all Errors; Nicholas of Methona, Andronicus Cameterus, anti- Latin polemical writers, particularly Nicetas .'Vcomi- natus (Akominatos), noted for his "Treasure of Orthodoxy ' '. John Veccos ( Beccos) and George Acro- polites tried to reconcile the teachings of both Latins and Greeks while other Greeks opposed the Latins with all their might. Among the opponents of Pala- mas were Barlaam, Gregoras, Akyndinos, John the Cy priot, and Manuel Calecas. The theological conflict went on both before and after the Council of Florence (1439); Mark of Ephesus and George Scholarios repudiated the Roman theology, which on the other hand, was adopted and upheld by Bessarion, Isidore of Kiev, Joseph of M. tlione, and Gregory Mammas.
Bois. La ' " irhaste in Echos d'Orient (Paris,
1!)00-01), 1-11, I'; .; 362; (1901) .50-60; Holl. En-
thti-iiasmns vti>l I:; i" '" im griechischen Muncktum (Leipzig, 1897); Le BAHiiiEii. SI. Chrislodule el la riforme des con- vents grecs au XI' sitcle (Paris. 1863); Meyer. Die Hauptur- kunden fur die Geschichle der Alhos Klfisler (Leipzig, 1894); Blaciios. La Presqu'ile de V Alhos, sea monasltrea el ses moincs d'aulTcfois el d'aui'ourd'hui (Paris. 1903); Ouspenskij, History of Alhos (Russian, Kiev. 1877-92); Petit, Aclea de Xenophon; Aden du Pantocrator: Actes d'Esnhigmrnou (3 vols., St. Peters- bure. 1903-190.5). — Fora further bibliography coiieerninKAtho.s, see VAli.HK in Uirl. de thiol, calh. (1900). s. v. Canalanlinople,
Eglise de; Bardenhewer, tr. Shahan, Palrology (St. Loula,
1908); Batiffol, La h'/^ern/wre ffrec^e (Paris, 1897); Fessler-
JuNGMANN, Instiluliones Patrologia: (Innsbruclc, 1890); Nico-
LAi, Griechische Lilteraturgeschichle: Die nachklassische Lit-
teraluT (Matigeburg, 1S7S); HiRSCH, Byzanlinische Studien
(Leipzig, 1876); Fabricius, Bibliolheca Grmca (Hamburg);
Krumbacher, Geschichle dcr byzant. Lilteratur (Munich,
1897).
(5) From 1453 to the Present Time. — Relations with the Catholic Church, the Protestants, etc. — The capture of Constantinople by the Turks marks the apogee of the CECumenical patriarchate and the Greek Churches subject to it. By establishing Gennadius Scholarius as the only patriarch of the Orthodox (Uiurches within the Ottoman Empire, Mohanmied II placed all the other peoples — Servians, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Allianians, and Anatolians — under the exclusive domi- nation of Greek bishops. No doubt the Servian and Bulgarian Clmrches of Ipek and Ochrida still existed, but, pending their final suppression in 1766 and 1767 respectively, they were hellenized and under Greek control, so that they were in reality but an extension of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople. More- over, the conquest of Egypt and Syria by Sultan Selim in the sixteenth century enabled the Greeks to control the honours and emohmients of the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch. In the seventeenth century the Patriarchate of Jerusalem was hellenized, and that of .\ntioch in the opening years of the eighteenth cen- tury. As for Alexandria, where the faithful were very few, its Greek titular always resided at Constanti- nople. In this way the Greek Church gained gradual possession of the immense Ottoman Empire; as the Turks extended their conquests the jurisdiction of the Greek patriarchs extended with them. This situation lasted until the first half of the nineteenth century. The whole Orthodox world was at that time CJreek, save in Russia, whose religious autonomy had been recognized in l.'iSO, and in the Austro-IIungarian Em- pire, where Servians and Rumanians constituted, from the end of the .seventeenth century, autonomous Churches, either Catholic or Orthodox. During the greater part of the nineteenth century the principle of nationality — long cherished at Constantinople, which had employed it against the popes when robbing them of jurisdiction over Illyricum and at one time over Southern Italy — was turned against the Greeks them- selves, especially against the Church of Constantinople. Every province or kingdom that shook oft' the Turkish suzerainty freed itself at the same time from the eccle- siastical yoke of the Phanar. Curiously enough, it was the Greeks of the Hellenic Kingdom who first set up, in the nineteenth century, an autonomous Church. The Servians and Rumanians were not slow to imitate them. The Bulgarians went farther and, while remaining Ottoman subjects de jure until Octo- ber, 1908, they established about forty years ago an exarchate of their own, independent of the Phanar, with jurisdiction not only over all Bulgarians in Bul- garia, but also over Bulgarians in Turkey. It is to be expected that the recent proclamation of a Bulgarian kingdom will modify this state of things. A Bulga- rian Church may be established within the limits of that kingdom, and a .second Bulgarian Church within the limits of Turkey in Europe. The creation of a Servian Chiu-ch for the Servians in Turkey is also pro- jected, so that the cecimienical patriarchate seems on the eve of dismemberment. In recent times, also, the rivalry of nationalities has passed over from Europe into Asia. In 1899 the Greeks were ejected by the Syrians from the Patriarchate of Antioch; in the same way they may soon lose Jerusalem. In Egypt similar divisions exist between the Greek- and Arabic-speak- ing elements; the latter, aided by their Mussulman fellow-countrymen, may eventually cast off the eccle- siastical contoI of the Greeks. In short, at no very distant date the Greeks, who have so long ruled the Orthodox world, will have to be content with the
