Trisagion; but it is all ordered and disciplined, and the desired result is awe and faith, rather than energy and action.
Nevertheless, while so much was done to make the central facts of Christianity as embodied in the life-story of Christ vivid and impressive by means of elaborate appeals to the sensuous imagination, it was not here that people found satisfaction for their strongest religious appetites. Through much of our period preaching was still prominent, Bible reading has always been encouraged in the Greek Church. People could go to the churches and read the Bibles there for themselves. Unlike the modern Roman service in an unknown tongue, the Greek service was conducted in Greek, the language of the people. All the ancient services were carried on in the languages spoken by the congregations engaged in them. In spite of this fact the intellectual element was not the most prominent, nor did the ideas so skilfully interwoven into the rich symbolism of the liturgy really grip the people who watched the ceremonial and took part in the reponses. This is proved by what we have seen in the historic controversies of the Byzantine age. Relics were deemed more important than ritual, icons than liturgy. To treasure a saint's bone or kiss a picture of Christ—this was what most concerned the Greek Christian of the Byzantine period in the matter of religion. The best teachers of the Church deprecated the fetishism of relic worship; but they were powerless to stem the tide of superstition that swept over East and West alike.
After this the stoutest Protestant may regard the invocation of the Virgin and saints, and even the worship offered to them, as intelligent in comparison with such childish superstition. A new mythology sprang up, and legends of the saints took the place of pagan myths. Thus the martyr Phocas, a gardener at Sinope in Pontus, superseded Castor and Pollux as the sailors' guardian. On board ship he had his portion set for him at table and then sold, the proceeds being given to the poor as a thankoffering for a prosperous voyage.
