The Greek and Eastern Churches/Part 2/Division 2/Chapter 3

by Walter Frederic Adeney

 

CHAPTER III

THE OUTLYING BRANCHES OF THE GREEK CHURCH

 

Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, 1901; Malan, History of the Georgian Church, 1866; Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren, 1876, and Das Fürstenthum Bulgarien, 1891; Miller, The Balkans, 1898; La Macedoine, 1900; von Mach, The Bulgarian Exarchate, 1907; Mijatovich, History of Modern Servia, 1872; Comte A. de Gubernatis, La Servie et les Serbes, 1898; Silbernagl, Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand sämtlicher Kirchen des Orients, 1904.

 

The independence of the Church in Greece is not without precedents. One of the most interesting is afforded by the Church of Cyprus, the history of which is exhaustively described in Mr. Hackett's learned work.^[1] That Church, which was founded by Paul and Barnabas, claimed to be independent of patriarchal interference on the ground of its apostolical origin and its ancient usage. Nevertheless, the patriarch of Antioch endeavoured to bring it into subjection to his authority; and therefore it sent an appeal to the council of Ephesus on the question (a.d. 430), which resulted in a decision in favour of the independence of Cyprus. It was decreed that, "if it be not in accordance with ancient custom for the bishop of Antioch to hold consecrations in Cyprus, as the most religious men who are in attendance at this holy council have assured us in their memorials and orally, the presidents of the holy churches which are in Cyprus shall enjoy, freed from molestation and hindrance, the right of performing for themselves the consecrations of the most holy bishops according to the canons of the holy Fathers and ancient custom" (Canon viii.). The caution of the council in making this decision conditional is very remarkable. But no patriarch of Antioch in later times was able to produce evidence rebutting the statement of the Cypriolites concerning the "ancient custom."

In the reign of Zeno (a.d. 474–491), Peter the Fuller, then patriarch of Antioch, revived the claim to authority over Cyprus, and the emperor favoured his cause, till the alleged appearance of St. Barnabas in a vision, leading to the discovery of his bones in a chest under a carob tree, silenced all opposition. Nevertheless, a certain connection with Antioch was preserved, Cyprus receiving the holy chrism from the patriarch of that city, but of necessity in those later times when only patriarchs could consecrate it. Therefore they were misled who took this fact as a sign of general subjection. Subsequently Cyprus became famous as the see of the Church writer Epiphanius. In the year 647 the island was conquered by the Arabs, the chief city Constantia destroyed, the metropolitan church profaned, and many of the citizens massacred. So cruel was the Mussulman oppression that a great number of the inhabitants, led by their archbishop John, left Cyprus and settled in the province of the Hellespont at the invitation of the emperor, Justinian ii. There they preserved their ecclesiastical independence, as an orthodox Church, now within the confines of the patriarchate of Constantinople, but no more under its jurisdiction than they had been previously under that of Antioch, The migration of these "pilgrim fathers" was not a success. They were not destined to anticipate the story of the Mayflower and the founders of New England. Many perished on the journey. The remnant who landed did not stay long; they soon returned to Cyprus, where they lived on as best they could under the Mohammedan rule, but still as a distinctly organised Church.

Under Constantine Copronymus Cyprus was temporarily freed from the grasp of Islam (a.d. 743). But it was recaptured early in the ninth century by the famous Harun-al-Rashid. Yet even subsequent to this misfortune it enjoyed a measure of liberty, so that it was used as an asylum by fugitives from Moslem oppression in Palestine and Syria. After undergoing various vicissitudes of fortune Cyprus was finally wrested from the Arabs by the emperor, Nicephorus Phocas (a.d. 963–969). It now remained under the Byzantine rule till it was taken possession of by the English king, Richard i., and then used for some time as a strategical centre from which the Crusaders could invade Syria. Richard sold the island to the Templars, who in turn gave place to the Knights of St. John.

After the scandalous capture of Constantinople by the Franks, like the rest of the Greek Church, Cyprus was annoyed by the impertinent pretensions of Western prelates. At a meeting of the Latin clergy now domiciled in Cyprus, it was decreed among other things that no Greek should be ordained as a priest or admitted into a monastery without the consent of his feudal superior, who of course was a Latin. The orthodox clergy were required to swear fealty to the Latins. They appealed against this exaction to the Greek patriarch of Constantinople—now residing at Nicæa—and he forbade them to yield. The result was much distress and confusion for the Greeks in Cyprus, which led them at last to petition for definite union with the patriarchate of Constantinople, a proposal to which many difficulties were raised owing to the alleged contamination of their Church with Western usages (a.d. 1405–1412). The monk Bryennios, who had been commissioned to enquire into the situation, argued strongly against the union, declaring that for his own part he would rather suffer a thousand deaths than see the orthodox Church united to the Cypriolite. Thus this unhappy Church, which in the old days had fought for her independence of Antioch, was now forced to remain apart when she sought union with Constantinople. The Venetian occupation made no difference to the strained ecclesiastical situation. Cyprus was still submitting against her will to papal intrusion on the one hand, and yet repudiated on the other hand by the Eastern Church because of that intrusion.

In the year 1570 the island was captured by the Turks, an event which was not altogether evil, since it put an end to the tyranny that the Roman Catholic Church had exercised over the Greek Christians for four centuries. At first the Ottoman rule was mild; the Cypriolites were allowed the free use of their churches, the right to ransom their monasteries, permission to acquire property, and the supremacy of the orthodox over all other Christian bodies in the island. No indulgence was shown to the Latins. The Greek bishops were constituted guardians of the Christian community, and in process of time the influence of the archbishop overshadowed that of the Turkish governor. But he had continual trouble with Turkish rapacity and misgovernment. We cannot follow out the weary story. The last scene of cruelty is the worst. It occurred early in the nineteenth century. Archbishop Cyprianos had exerted himself in promoting education and improving the condition of his flock. When the Greek war of independence broke out, Cyprianos and his clergy were accused to the Porte of complicity in the rebellion. On the 9th of July in the year 1821 the archbishop and three metropolitans were saddled like horses in front of the governor's palace; bits were roughly forced into their mouths, breaking their teeth; they were driven along with spurs, and finally hanged on trees. Nearly all the Christians of eminence were also massacred. One account gives 470 as the number of the victims. At length deliverance came. In the year 1872 Cyprus passed into the hands of the British government. Since then the Greek Church in the island has been entirely free. There is an English missionary church; but of course this has no official status, and unlike the old Latin Church it has neither power nor desire to interfere with the ancient orthodox Church of Cyprus.

The Church of Georgia is another branch of the Greek Church, which long enjoyed a virtually independent organisation. The Georgians appear to be the most ancient race inhabiting the Caucasus, having no affinity either with the Aryan or with the Turanian families. They are famous for having preserved a line of kings for two thousand years, reigning sometimes independently and at other times under the suzerainty of Persia, of the Eastern Empire, and of Turkey. A similar individuality is to be seen in their Church, although it has always been considered as part of the great orthodox Church of the East. Claiming a fabulous origin under the patronage of the Virgin Mary and through the preaching of St. Andrew, it has been traced back to the third century, under the influence of a woman named Nonna, or Nina, a poor captive who is said to have converted the king, Miriam (a.d. 265–318). In the next century, under Constantine, Greek missionaries effectually Christianised the little isolated mountain kingdom; and from that time to this it has preserved its fidelity to the faith in spite of harsh persecution, first from the Persians, then from the Mohammedans.^[2] Miriam's son and successor, Bakar, is said to have been a zealous Christian who caused the gospel to be preached among his people, and had churches built in various places over the land. One of the most famous, the cathedral of Khoni, is ascribed to the next king—Muridat iii. The Georgians—or Iberians as they were also called, had bishops consecrated at Constantinople, and were reckoned in the patriarchate of Antioch. But their remoteness and national and racial distinctness led to their Church history running its own course, apart from that of the main body of the orthodox community. At the end of the fourth century. Bishop Abda having set fire to a Persian temple and refusing to rebuild it, the coimtry was invaded by the Persians. Near about the same time it was ravaged by the Roman forces and as a result its church broken off from connection with the Greeks. Muridat iv. came under the glamour of Julian's strange religion, which had so little fascination for that emperor's own subjects; but his son, Archil (413–446), carried on an active campaign against heathenism and heresy. The New Testament appears to have been translated into Georgian during the fifth and sixth centuries.^[3] About the same time Archbishop Mobidakh, a Persian by birth, introduced Arianism into Georgia and endeavoured to force it on the Church. He was deposed by a synod under the influence of Bishop Michael and the queen, Sandukhta, an earnest Christian woman who had built a church at Mtykhetha in honour of the proto-martyr, St. Stephen. Subsequently Zoroastrianism made some progress in Georgia; on the other hand, the conversion of one of the Magi named Rajden to the Christian faith, and his martyrdom among his own people by being nailed to a cross and there torn to pieces, had a counter influence. The Church of Georgia was now organised under its chief bishop, who bore the title of Catholicos of Mtykhetha and of Iberia. He does not appear to have been responsible to any of the four patriarchs after the year 556, when P'harsman iii. separated the country from the Byzantine authority. During the reign of the same king a great impulse was given to Christianity in Georgia by the arrival of thirteen preachers from Syria. An air of mystery surrounds them. They are said to have reached Mtykhetha by crossing a river dry shod. Their advent and influence suggests the coming of the friars to England. The real miracle was the spiritual awakening that accompanied their mission. Their reputed burial-places are marked by churches still standing.

The story of the Georgian Church is a record of repeated persecutions. After the successive Persian persecutions under the Magi came the Mohammedan flood of conquest and its consequent sufferings for the Christians. In the ninth century the district of Ap'bkhazia, which stood politically separate from Georgia under its own king, also had its own catholicos, so that the Georgian Church now consisted of two mutually independent provinces. In the same century an Iberian convent was founded at Mount Athos It still exists and is now the third in importance among the monasteries of the Holy Mountain. David iii., known as "the Reformer," coming to the throne in the year 1089, called together a synod which purged the Church of the Monophysite and other heresies. He showed himself a strong ruler both as regards Church and State. Now came the most flourishing days of Georgia — during the eleventh and twelfth centuries—when Georgians of some eminence in science and literature did their work. Among them were Arsenius, theologian, physician, metaphysician, and poet, called from the caves of Shiomgiusk to be court chaplain; Ephrem, his schoolfellow; George, the founder of the school at Tiphlis and translator of Scripture; Theophilus, the "creator of hymnology" in Georgia; John Taitcha, whose writings are said to be preserved at Mount Athos; and Demetrius the Solitary of Garedj. The reign of Queen Tamar in the second half of the twelfth century has been reckoned the golden age of Georgian literature, both ecclesiastical and civil. Then followed a time of overwhelming calamities during the devastating invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, when Christians of all classes and ages were burnt alive in the churches, and pyramids of human heads marked the progress of his soldiers. Mtykhetha was reduced to a heap of ruins, its cathedral, said to have been a most beautiful building, sharing in the general destruction, and all the inhabitants remaining in the city killed. The number of deaths attributed to this pest of humanity in Georgia alone was estimated at 300,000.

Genghis Khan left the bleeding country disorganised and in hopeless confusion. She had scarcely begun to recover before the Turks commenced their incursions. Almost in despair, the queen, Eusudana, appealed for help to the pope, Gregory ix. (a.d. 1239). She received in response a mission of seven monks sent to convert her country to the papacy! In the year 1400 came Timour, with his sweeping deluge of ruin. Throughout all these troubles Georgia remained true to the faith and added continually to her glory of martyrdom. Alexander i. (a.d. 1414–1442) rebuilt the cathedral of Mtykhetha, a structure which is in existence to-day. A little later serious attempts were made by the papacy to bring Georgia into the Roman Church, but without any result. The fall of Constantinople left the Georgians at the mercy of the Mohammedans and without a friend. The bishops were silenced, the schools closed, the people harried by the Moslem Persians. At length this much persecuted nation turned to Russia for protection. In the first instance that course did not bring much relief. During the seventeenth century a succession of apostates from the Church ruled Georgia as Mohammedans. But in the year 1701, Wakhtang vi., a Christian, came to the throne; he enacted a series of laws on Christian lines, known as the "Code of King Wakhtang." Now followed a period of temporary prosperity. But the next sovereign was a Mohammedan, and after his reign Georgia suffered again and again from alternate Persian and Turkish tyrannies, in the midst of which troubles the Church was seriously disturbed by a mission of Capuchin monks and by other efforts to induce it to enter the Roman communion. For a time the current seemed to be setting in that direction, no doubt in despair of deliverance from intolerable oppression, except by help in the West. But ultimately Oriental orthodoxy triumphed.

In the year 1783, Georgia came under the protection of Russia, and the Church of Georgia was then united to the Russian Church. In the year 1800 the country became an integral part of the Russian Empire. Eleven years later the office of catholicos was abolished and the metropolitan then entitled "Member of the Synod and Exarch of Georgia." He is now known as "Exarch of Karthalinia and Kakheth."

The Church of Montenegro may be mentioned as from the first a virtually independent body in the orthodox communion. This little mountain State has the unique glory among its neighbours of never having been conquered by the Turks. Formerly its Vladika, or prince bishop, if not already ordained was required to obtain ordination from the orthodox metropolitan of Carlowitz. In the nineteenth century the ordination was transferred to the metropolitan of Russia. On the death of the Vladika Peter ii. (a.d. 1851) the offices of prince and bishop were separated.

It remains for us to note those limbs of the Greek Church which have been more recently severed from the parent stock on national grounds, although retaining their doctrinal orthodoxy.

One of the most important branches of the orthodox Church now independent of the patriarchate of Constantinople and organised as a separate national church is the Church of Bulgaria. Here a racial distinction lies at the root of the severance from the Greek authority. The Bulgarians are a Turanian race, akin to the Finns and the Tartars, who first appeared on the banks of the Pruth in the latter part of the seventh century. From the time of the conversion of Boris in the ninth century they have been a Christian people and part of the holy orthodox Church. They have an ancient literature dating back to the age of the founders and early organisers of their Church, Cyril and Methodius, which consists for the most part of translations of Greek theological works. Bulgaria became a centre of the activity of the Bogomiles, and therefore a scene first of religious revival and then of its too common sequel—persecution. Conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century, Bulgaria long suffered from the withering blight of the Ottoman tyranny in common with the other Oriental Churches. She was even in a worse plight than her neighbours. The misgovernment of the Phanariots and the despotism of the bishops who owed allegiance to the patriarch of Constantinople as a minister of the sultan were hard enough to be borne in Greece; but there the people had at least to deal with their fellow-countrymen. In Bulgaria the oppression was in the hands of an alien priesthood. The patriarch of Constantinople appointed Greek bishops, and they in turn Greek parish popes. The state of affairs may be compared to that of the Anglican Church in Ireland and Wales until recent times. But it was really ten times worse; for this alien priesthood was in the employ of the cruel, unjust, Mohammedan government of the Ottoman Empire. Thus the Bulgarians suffered from a double grievance—the intrusion of foreign Church leaders, and these men acting as servants of the Turkish tyranny under which they groaned—a Greek ministry serving the Turks.

At length patriotic or rather racial feelings began to stir in the breasts of the long-enduring Bulgarians. The revival sprang from a literary awakening, which was first seen in the work of Paisii, a Bulgarian monk of Mount Athos, who published a history of his people and their saints.^[4] This was followed by the autobiography of Bishop Sofronii,^[5] written in a modified Sclavonic dialect. Bulgarian schools were now established. That provoked the Greek clergy to establish schools of their own, and to attempt the suppression of Sclavonic literature in favour of the Greek. But the national movement spread. The Bulgarians addressed an appeal for support to the pope, and for a time some progress was made in connecting their Church with the Uniats. But this never went far, and it soon died out. The people's aspiration was for an independent Bulgarian Church. There were repeated attempts at insurrection; but they all failed. It was the Greek ecclesiastical tyranny, rather than the Turkish political despotism, against which the movement was agitating. The sublime Porte was astute enough to take advantage of this fact. It had no compunction in throwing over its own subservient slaves if by so doing it could divide and weaken the Christian element in the empire. On the 11th of March, 1870, the Turkish government issued a firman granting the Bulgarians a right to possess their own exarchate independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. He was to have jurisdiction over fifteen dioceses, and others were to be added if two-thirds of the population desired it. The patriarch strenuously opposed this measure, and delayed the execution of it for two years. In the year 1872 the first exarch was appointed; and the patriarch immediately excommunicated him. On the 23rd of April of that year the exarch, supported by three bishops, all lying under the ban of the patriarch, celebrated the communion in the Bulgarian church at the Phanar; on the 11th of May the Bulgarian Church was declared independent; and on the 16th of September the patriarch of Constantinople formally cut off all followers of the exarchate as schismatics.^[6]

The issue proved that the Turks had miscalculated their policy. The Christian cause was not weakened by the ecclesiastical severance of Bulgaria; on the contrary, it proved to be strengthened thereby. Schools spread; education advanced; the revival of Christianity, so long dormant and inoperative, but now quick and active, roused a spirit of energy and independence. The Porte was alarmed, and it showed its terror in the usual way by indulging in massacre. Then came the infamous "Bulgarian Atrocities," in which 15,000 persons were killed in the district of Philippopolis alone, while murders and outrages on men, women, and children went on in many other places. Mr. Gladstone roused the indignation of England and compelled the English government to end its shameful protection of Turkey. First Servia, next Russia invaded the Turkish Empire, the latter being completely victorious after an arduous struggle. In the year 1878 the treaty of San Stephano granted independence to Bulgaria; but under the influence of Lord Beaconsfield this was modified in the treaty of Berlin, held a few months later, when Bulgaria was divided into three parts, one of which was handed back to Turkey with pledges of protection of the Christians by the European powers—pledges which have never been effectually fulfilled. The Bulgarian exarch now resides at Constantinople.^[7]

Macedonia is closely associated with Bulgaria. It contains a mixed population of Greeks, Vlachs who represent the aboriginal Thracians, Albanians—the old lllyrians, Sclavs, Turks, and Bulgarians. Still included within the Turkish Empire, the Macedonian Christians are subject to the patriarch of Constantinople. But they were profoundly affected by the Bulgarian revival, which resulted in the establishment of bishoprics under the exarch of Bulgaria. Thus Macedonia shows a divided ecclesiastical allegiance. In the year 1886 a priest named Margaritis founded a gymnasium at Monastir on modern principles of education. This was done with the approval of the Porte and the sympathy of the French Roman Catholic missionaries, and with some signs of Austrian sympathy also. The tendency of such a movement was directly contrary to the obscurantism of the patriarch's policy. But it provoked an educational rivalry on the Greek side, and the Greeks under the patriarch also commenced to establish schools.

Servia, of which the original inhabitants were Thracians or Illyrians, was known to the Romans as Mœsia Superior, and incorporated by them in the province of Illyricum. It was won to Christianity under missionaries sent by the Byzantine emperor, Basil ii., and thus it became an integral part of the orthodox Church. But in the year 1043 Stephen Bogislav drove out the imperial governors, and seven years later his son Michael established the complete independence of the country, with himself as king, securing recognition of his sovereignty from the great pope, Gregory vii. Hildebrand was always ready to seize on a political opportunity of extending the influence of the papacy on the borders of the Eastern Church. We have here one illustration among many of the interaction of State and Church in the mutual relations of the Eastern and Western Churches. A people seeking independence and out of sympathy with the government at Constantinople would turn to Rome for aid, and would meet with a ready support, because the popes were on the watch for opportunities to slip into a province of the Greek Church as the protectors of some oppressed race. In this way the bad government of the imperial authorities at Constantinople led to the alienation of outlying branches of the patriarchate. But Servia did not go over to the Latin Church. It now became an independent branch of the Greek Church, holding anomalous, undefined relations with the main body of that Church, its essential union with which, as in other and similar cases, was guaranteed by its orthodoxy. One hundred years of struggle and two hundred years of power and prosperity were followed by the ruin of Servia and the death of her king, Lazar, at the battle of Kossovopolje in the year 1389, when the country was made tributary to the Turks. Its total subjugation was only a matter of time, and this was completed in the year 1462 by the victorious Mohammed ii., when it became a Turkish vilayet ruled by pashas. Servia was now not only groaning under the tyrannical rule of the Ottoman government; she was long to be the battle-ground in the wars between Turkey and Hungary. After Prince Eugene's victories a portion of the country was made over to Austria by the treaty of Passarowitz (a.d. 1718); but twenty-one years later it was recovered by Turkey. At length, in the year 1804, Servia attained its liberty in consequence of an insurrection headed by the swineherd, Kara Gyorgyé (i.e. "Black George"). The troubles which overwhelmed Europe during the Napoleonic wars furnished the Turks with an opportunity to recover some of their lost ground, and they again took possession of Servia. This advance of Turkey westward was one of the dangers attending those wars that has not been sufficiently appreciated. In Servia the work of liberation had to be done over again. On Palm Sunday iu the year 1815 the Serbs rose and struck for liberty a second time, their leader being Milosh Obrenovich, After a contest of five years the sultan was compelled to grant autonomy. Servia is now an independent kingdom. It will be well understood that under these circumstances she does not own any allegiance to the patriarch of Constantinople. In point of fact, the Greek Church in Servia is entirely self-governing. It is organised under a synod of bishops presided over by the archbishop of Belgrade, who is the metropolitan of Servia; and it is divided into five dioceses. There are forty-eight monasteries of the Oriental Church in the country.

The Greek Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina is still further removed from the interference of Turkey or the Constantinople authorities, since these provinces are now under Austrian rule. About one-half of the population is of the orthodox Church, the other half being equally divided between Roman Catholics and Mohammedans, except that there are some Jews. The orthodox Church—while at one with the Greeks in doctrine—is entirely self-governing, under four metropolitans.

A survey of the situation thus produced affords a striking illustration of the essential difference between the Eastern and the Western Churches. No such detached, independent churches as we see here belonging to the orthodox communion would be possible under the papacy.^[8] Rome is most fearful of schism, Constantinople of heresy. Rome will nave no dealings with a church that is not obedient to the pope; Constantinople will send its chrism to a church that does not own allegiance to its patriarch, so long as that church is strictly orthodox. Individual patriarchs have excommunicated insubordinate bishops—as in the case of the Bulgarian exarch. That is only natural; for even patriarchs are men. But the Church as a whole admits the Christianity of all the orthodox in its several branches, and the transmission of the holy oil—a thing impossible in the West—is a pleasing sign of this admission. That is so in spite of many racial quarrels and partisan differences, which after all only lie on the surface and do not break the bonds of the deep-seated union of the holy orthodox Church.

 

1. A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus.
2. The claim put forth for St. George as a missionary and patron saint of Georgia is due to ignorance of the origin of the kingdom's name and wholly without foundation. "Georgia" is derived from the Persian Gurj. So we have Gurjistan = Gurgland = Georgia.
3. See Scrivener, Introduction, 4th edit. vol. ii. pp. 156–158.
4. Istoria Slaveno Bolgarska.
5. Life and Sufferings of the Sinful Sofronii.
6. von Mack, The Bulgarian Exarchate, p. 18.
7. Silbernagl, p. 89.
8. Although the popes allow the Oriental Uniats to use their own liturgies and to follow many peculiar local customs, this is all in submission to the papacy.