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The Catholic World.
Volume III.
by E. Rameur.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. III., NO. 1.–APRIL, 1866.
[ORIGINAL.]
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: “L’Eglise Orientale, par Jaques G. Pitzipios, Fondateur de la Societe Chretienne Orientale.” Rome: Imprimerie de la Propagande, 1855.]
In the year 1841, the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal dioceses of Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, professing to speak in the name of their church in the United States, addressed the following language to the schismatical Patriarch of Constantinople, whom they style “the venerable and right reverend father in G.o.d the _Patriarch of the Greek Church,_resident at Constantinople:”
“The church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the triune G.o.d for his blessings upon its efforts for unity in the body of Christ, turn with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, _the spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church._”
[Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: Quoted in the “Memoir of Rev. F.A. Baker,” p. 47.]
This is by no means the only instance of overtures of this kind, looking toward a union between Protestant Episcopalians and Eastern schismatics, with the view of concentrating the opposition to the Roman See under a rival Oriental primacy. The Non-jurors, who were ejected from their sees at the overthrow of the Stuarts, proposed to the Synod of Bethlehem to establish the primacy in the patriarchate of Jerusalem; but their proposal was met by a decidedly freezing refusal.
The American bishops who signed the letter from which the foregoing extract is taken show a remarkable desire to bow down before some ecclesiastical power more ancient and venerable than themselves; and in their extreme eagerness to propitiate the Eastern prelates, they acknowledge without scruple the most arrogant t.i.tles usurped by the Patriarch of Constantinople, although from their want of familiarity with the ecclesiastical language, they do it in a very unusual and peculiar style. Whatever may be at present the particular views of those who are seeking to bring about a union between the Protestant Episcopal churches and the Easterns, in regard to the order of hierarchical organization, they are evidently disposed to pay court to the successor of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and to espouse {2} warmly his quarrel against Rome. His figure is the foremost one in the dispute, and there is every disposition to take advantage as far as possible of the rank which the See of Constantinople has held since the fifth century, first by usurpation and afterward by the concession of Rome, as second to the Apostolic See of St. Peter. We do not accuse all those who are concerned in the union movement of being animated by a spirit of enmity against Rome. Some of them, we believe, are seeking for the healing of the schisms of Christendom in a truly Catholic spirit, although not fully enlightened concerning the necessary means for doing so. We may cherish the same hope concerning some of the Oriental prelates and clergy also, especially those who have manifested a determination not to compromise a single point of Catholic dogma for the sake of union with Protestants. We are quite sure, however, that the loudest advocates of union in the Protestant ranks, and their most earnest and hearty sympathizers in the East, are thoroughly heretical and schismatical in their spirit and intentions, and are aiming at the overthrow of the Roman Church, and a revolution in the orthodox Eastern communion, as their dearest object. While, therefore, we disclaim any hostile att.i.tude toward men like Dr. Pusey and other unionists of his spirit, and would never use any language toward them which is not kind and respectful, we are compelled to brand the use which other ecclesiastics in high position have sought to make of this Greek question as entirely unprincipled. Their cringing and bowing before the miserable, effete form of Christianity at Constantinople, dictated as it is chiefly by hatred against Rome, is something unworthy of honest Christians and intelligent Englishmen and Americans. Many very sincere and well-disposed persons are no doubt misled by their artful misrepresentations. On that account it is very necessary to bring out as clearly as possible the true state of the case, as regards Oriental Christendom, that it may be seen how little support Anglicanism or any kind of Protestantism can draw from that quarter; and how strongly the entire system of Catholic dogma is sustained by the history and traditions of the Eastern Church.
We may possibly hereafter discuss more at large some of these important subjects relating to the Eastern Church and the schism which has desolated its fairest portions for so many centuries. On this occasion we intend merely to throw a little light on the present actual condition of the patriarchate of Constantinople, in order to dissipate any illusion that may have been created by high-sounding words, and to show how little reason there is to “turn with hope to the spiritual head of the Oriental Church” for any enlightening or sanctifying influences upon the souls which are astray from the fold of St. Peter. We waive, for the time, all consideration of past events, anterior to the period of Turkish domination, and all discussion of the remote circ.u.mstances which have brought the See of Constantinople into its present state of degradation, and of obstinate secession from the unity of the Church.
We take it as we find it, under the Mohammedan dominion, and will endeavor to show how it stands in relation to other churches of the East, and what are its claims on the respect and honor of Western Christians.
The Patriarch of Constantinople is not the Patriarch of the “Greek Church.” There is no designation of this kind known in the East. The style there used is, the “Holy Eastern Church.” The Greek rite, or form of celebrating ma.s.s and administering the sacraments in the Greek language, is only one of the rites sanctioned by the Catholic Church which are in use among those Christians who are not under the Latin rite. What is usually called in the West the Greek Church has several independent organizations. {3} The Patriarch of Constantinople, who very early subjugated the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to his dominion, now rules over the same patriarchates, which have dwindled to very insignificant dimensions, and over all the separated orthodox Christians of the Turkish empire. The Russian Church, which was erected into a distinct patriarchate by Ivan III., is under the supreme jurisdiction of the imperial governing synod. The Patriarch of Constantinople is treated with respect and honor, and referred to for advice and counsel, by the Russian authorities; but he has no more jurisdiction in Russia than the Archbishop of Baltimore has in the province of New York. The Church of Greece not only threw off all dependence on the See of Constantinople after the revolution, but renounced all communication with it, for reasons to be mentioned hereafter. The separated Greek Christians of the Austrian empire are governed by the Patriarch of Carlovitz, and there is at least one other separate jurisdiction in the Montenegrine provinces. The Patriarch of Constantinople possesses, therefore, an actual jurisdiction over a fraction only of the Eastern Church. Within the proper limits of his own patriarchate this jurisdiction is absolute, both in ecclesiastical and civil matters, subject only to the supreme authority of the sultan. Immediately after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Sultan Mahomet II. conferred upon the Patriarch Grennadius the character of _Milet-bachi_, or chief of a nationality, giving him invest.i.ture by the pastoral staff and mantle with his own hands. The reason of his doing so was, that the Mohammedan law recognizes only Mohammedans as members of a Mohammedan nationality. In more recent times, the sultans, disgusted by the venal and tyrannical conduct of the patriarchs, have refused to confer this invest.i.ture in person, and it is now done by the grand vizier. Eight metropolitans, namely, those of Chalcedon, Ephesus, Derendah, Heraclea, Cyzicus, Nicomedia, Caesarea, and Adrianople, form the supreme council of the patriarchate, and, with the patriarch, administer the ecclesiastical and civil government of the Christians of their communion throughout the Ottoman empire. They have the control of the common chest or treasury of the Oriental rite in Turkey, and of that of the provinces; two great funds established originally for helping poor Christians to pay the exactions levied on them by the Mussulmans, but at present diverted to quite other uses by their faithless and rapacious guardians. They are also exclusively privileged to act as ephori or financial agents and bankers for the other one hundred and thirty-four bishops of the Turkish provinces, each one of them having as many of these episcopal clients as he can get.
Possessed of such an amount of ecclesiastical and civil power as the patriarchate of Constantinople has been within the Ottoman empire for several centuries, it is plain that it might have become the centre of an incalculable influence for the spiritual, moral, and social good of its subjects. Everything would seem to have combined to throw into the hands of the patriarch and his subordinate bishops the power of being truly the protectors and fathers of their people, and to furnish them with the most powerful motives for being faithful to their trust. The oppressed, despised, and impoverished condition of their poor, miserable people, slaves of a fanatical, barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, was enough to have awakened every n.o.ble and disinterested emotion in their bosoms, had they been men; and to have aroused the most devoted, self-sacrificing charity and zeal in their hearts, had they been Christians worthy of the name or true Christian pastors.
Moreover, if they had been true patriots, and really devoted to the interests of Christianity and the church, there was every inducement to avail themselves of their position {4} and to watch the opportunity of cultivating unity and harmony with the Catholic Church and the powerful Christian nations of the West, in order to secure their eventual deliverance from the detestable Moslem usurpation, and the restoration of religion among them to its ancient glory. All causes of misunderstanding and dissension had been done away at the Council of Florence. The perfect dogmatic agreement between the East and the West had been fully established. The Greek and other Oriental rites, and the local laws and customs, had been sanctioned. The patriarchs and hierarchy had been confirmed in their privileges. The Patriarch of Constantinople was even tacitly permitted to retain his high-sounding but unmeaning t.i.tle of ec.u.menical patriarch without rebuke, and allowed to exercise all the jurisdiction which other patriarchs or metropolitans were willing to concede to him, subject to the universal supremacy of Rome. The remembrance of the gallant warfare of the Latin Christians against their common Moslem enemy, and especially of the heroic devotion of the cardinal legate and his three hundred followers, who had buried themselves under the walls of Constantinople at its capture, ought to have effaced the memory of former wrongs [Footnote 3] and subdued the stupid, fanatical, unchristian sentiment of national antipathy against Christians of another race. Everything concurred to invite them to play a n.o.ble and glorious part toward their own Christian countrymen and toward Christendom in general. We are compelled, however, to say, with shame and pain, that they have proved so recreant to every one of these trusts and opportunities, their career has been one of such unparalleled infamy and perfidy, as to cover the Christian name with ignominy, and to merit for themselves the character of apostates from Christianity–seducers, corruptors, oppressors, and robbers of their own people.
[Footnote 3: The Crusaders undoubtedly committed some great outrages, in revenge far the treachery of the Byzantines, and some Latin missionaries imprudently attacked the Oriental rites and customs, but these acts were always disapproved and condemned by the Popes.]
We will first give a sketch of the line of conduct they have pursued in relation to ecclesiastical matters, and afterward of their administration of their civil authority.
It is notorious that the schismatical bishops and clergy of Turkey neglect almost entirely the duty of preaching the word of G.o.d and giving good Christian instruction to their people. The sacraments are administered in the most careless and perfunctory manner, and real practical Christian piety and morality are in a very low state both among clergy and laity. The clergy themselves are grossly ignorant and unfit for the exercise of their office, taken from the lowest cla.s.s of the people, without instruction or preparation for orders, and treated by their superiors as menial servants. The bishops and higher clergy do not trouble themselves to remedy this gross incapacity of their inferiors, or to supply it by their own efforts. Consequently, the common Christian people of their charge have fallen into a state of moral degradation below that of the Turks themselves, by whom they are despised as the outcasts of society. The striking contrast between the schismatical clergy, monasteries, and people, and the Catholic, is proverbial among the Turks, and an object of remark even by Protestant travellers. It is probable that there have been many exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and supine neglect; but, viewing the case as a whole, it must be said that the patriarchs of Constantinople and their subordinate prelates have completely failed to do their duty as pastors of their people and their instructors and guides in religion and virtue. Their unfortunate position furnishes no adequate excuse, as will be seen when we examine a little further into the enterprises they have actually been engaged in, and see how well {5} they have succeeded in accomplishing what they have really desired and undertaken, which is nothing else than their own selfish aggrandizement. Look at the contrast between their conduct and that of the Catholic hierarchies of Russia, Poland, and Ireland under similar circ.u.mstances of oppression, and every shadow of excuse will vanish.
No doubt there were many causes making it difficult to elevate the character of the ordinary clergy and the people, and tending to keep them down to a low level of intelligence and knowledge. This would furnish an excuse for a great deal, if there had been an evident struggle of the hierarchy to do their best in remedying the evil.
Instead of doing this, they are the princ.i.p.al causes of the perpetuation and aggravation of this degraded state. Since the decay of the Ottoman power commenced, the clergy have had it in their power to bid defiance in great measure to the Turkish government. They have been able to control immense sums of money and to wield a great commercial and financial influence. They might have employed the intervention of Christian powers, and especially of Russia, if they had been governed by enlightened and Christian motives, in order to gain just rights and the means of improvement for their people. The Ottoman government, itself, has come to a more just and liberal policy, in which it would have welcomed the aid of the Christian hierarchy, had there been one worthy of the name. Their complete apathy at all times to everything which concerns the spiritual and moral welfare of their subjects will warrant no other conclusion than that they have practically apostatized from the faith and church of Christ, and are mere intruders into the fold which they lay waste and ravage.
In their att.i.tude toward the Catholic Church and the Holy See, the hierarchy of the patriaichate are ignorantly, violently, and obstinately schismatical, and even heretical. The public and official teaching of the Eastern Church is orthodox, and therefore no one is adjudged to be a heretic simply because he adheres to that communion.
One who intelligently and obstinately adheres to a schism as a state of permanent separation from the See of St. Peter, is, however, at least a constructive heretic, and is very likely to be a formal heretic, on several doctrines which have been defined by the Catholic Church. The nature of the opposition of the clergy of Constantinople to the Roman Church, the grounds on which they defend their contumacious rebellion, and the dogmatic arguments which they employ in the controversy, are such as to place them in the position of the most unreasonable and contumacious schismatics, and as it appears to our judgment, in submission to that of more learned theologians, of heretics also. So far as their influence extends, and it is very great, they are chiefly accountable for the isolated condition of the entire non-united Eastern Church. As the ambition of the Patriarch of Constantinople was the original cause of the schism, so now the ignorant and violent obstinacy of the clergy of the patriarchate, and their supreme devotion to their own selfish and narrow personal and party interests, is, in connection with a similar though less odious spirit in the chief Muscovite clergy, and the worldly policy of the Russian czar, the chief cause of its perpetuation.
The clergy of Constantinople have not hesitated to resort to forgery in order to do away with the legal and binding force of the act of their own predecessors in subscribing and promulgating throughout their entire jurisdiction the act of union established at the Council of Florence. Gennadius, the first patriarch elected after the Turkish conquest, was one of the prelates who signed the decree of the Council of Florence, a learned and virtuous man, and is believed to have lived and died in the {6} communion of the Holy See. Actual communication between Constantinople and Rome was, however, rendered absolutely impossible by the deadly hostility of the conquerors to their princ.i.p.al and most dangerous foe. The slightest attempt at any intercourse with the Latin Christians would have caused the extermination of all the Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire. It is difficult to discover, therefore, when and how it was that the supremacy of the Roman Church, whose actual exercise was thus at first impeded by the necessity of the case, was again formally repudiated by the patriarchs. There is a letter extant, written in the year 1584 by the Patriarch Jeremiah to Pope Gregory XIII., in which he says that “it belonged to him, as the head of the Catholic Church, to indicate the measures to be employed against the Protestants,” and requests him in virtue of this office to point out what measures can be taken to arrest the advance of Protestantism. This is the last official act of the kind of which there is any record. The patriarchs and their a.s.sociates have relapsed into an att.i.tude toward the Holy See which is equally schismatical and arrogant, though through their degraded condition far more ridiculous than that which was a.s.sumed by their predecessors before the Council of Florence. In order to nullify, as far as possible, the legal force of the act of union promulgated by that council, they have resorted to a forgery, and have published the acts of a pretended council under a patriarch who never existed and whom they call Athanasius. There is no precise date attached to these forged acts, but they are so arranged as to appear to have been promulgated soon after the return of the emperor and prelates from Italy, and before the Turkish conquest; and in them, some of the princ.i.p.al prelates what signed the decrees of the Council of Florence are represented as abjuring and begging pardon for what they had done.
They are said to have been moved to this by the indignation of their people and a sedition in Constantinople in which the rejection of the act of union was demanded. The forgery is too transparent to be worthy of refutation, and could never have been executed and palmed off as genuine in any other place than in Constantinople. They have also put out a book called the “Pedalium,” in which they revive all the frivolous pretexts on account of which the infamous Michael Cerularius and his ignorant ecclesiastical clique of the _Bas Empire_ pretended to prove the apostacy of the Bishop of Rome and all Western Christendom from the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and the consequent succession of the Bishop of Constantinople to the universal primacy. The clergy of the patriarchate have taken the position that the Catholic Church at present is confined to the limits of what we call the Greek Church. They claim for themselves, therefore, that place which they acknowledge formerly belonged to the See of Rome, and thus seek to justify and carry out the usurpation of supreme and universal authority indicated by the t.i.tle of ec.u.menical patriarch. The absurdity of this is evident, from the very grounds on which the t.i.tle was originally a.s.sumed, and the traditional maxims which directed the policy of the ambitions Byzantine prelates throughout the entire period of the Greek empire. The original and only claim of the bishops of Constantinople, who were merely suffragans of the Metropolitan of Heraclea before their city was made the capital of the empire, to the patriarchal dignity, was the political importance of the city. Because Constantinople was new Rome, therefore the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be second to the Bishop of ancient Rome; and not only this, but he ought to rule over the whole East with a supremacy like that which the Bishop of Rome had always exercised over the whole {7} world. This false and schismatical principle is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic church organization, viz., that the subordination of episcopal sees springs from the divine inst.i.tution of the primacy in the See of St. Peter, and is regulated by ecclesiastical canons on spiritual grounds, which are superior to all considerations of a temporal nature. The Patriarch of Constantinople has long ago lost all claim to precedence or authority based on the civil dignity of the city as the seat of an empire. According to the principles of his predecessors, the primacy ought to have been transferred to the Patriarch of Moscow, when the Russian patriarchate was established by Ivan III. Nevertheless, he still continues to style himself ec.u.menical patriarch, and the eight metropolitans who form his permanent synod continue to keep the precedence over all other bishops of the patriarchate, although their sees have dwindled into insignificance, and other episcopal towns far exceed them in civil importance. In point of fact, the baselessness of his claim to universal jurisdiction has been recognized by the Eastern Church. His real authority is confined to the Turkish empire, where it is sustained by the civil power. Russia has long been independent of him. The Church of Greece has completely severed her connection with him. The schismatical Greeks of the Austrian empire, and those of the neighboring provinces, are severally independent. The false principle that produced the Eastern schism in the first place thus continues to work out its legitimate effect of disintegration in the Eastern communion itself, by separating the national churches from the princ.i.p.al church of Constantinople, which would itself crumble to pieces if the support of the Ottoman power were removed. The privileges of the See of Constantinople have now no valid claim to respect, except that derived from ecclesiastical canons ratified by time, general consent, and the sanction of the Roman Church. The instinct of self-preservation ought to compel its rulers to fall back on Catholic principles, and submit themselves to the legitimate authority of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Catholic Church throughout the world. They are following, however, the contrary impulse of self-destruction, to which they are abandoned by a just G.o.d as a punishment for their treason to Jesus Christ and his Vicar, and in every way seeking to strengthen and extend the barrier which separates them from the Roman Church.
This policy has led them to do all in their power to establish a dogmatic difference between the Oriental Church and the Church of Rome. Not only do they represent the difference in regard to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as expressed by the “Filioque” of the Creed, which was fully proved at the Council of Florence to be a mere verbal difference, as a difference in regard to an essential dogma, but they have brought in others to swell their list of Latin heresies. The princ.i.p.al dogmatic differences on which they insist are three: the doctrine of purgatory, the quality of the bread used in the holy eucharist, and the mode of administering baptism. Only the most deplorable ignorance and factiousness could base a pretence of dogmatic difference on such a foundation. In regard to purgatory, the Roman Church has defined or required nothing beyond that which is taught by the doctrinal standards of the Eastern Church.
The difference in regard to the use of leavened or unleavened bread, and the mode of baptism, is a mere difference of rite. In regard to the last-mentioned rite, however, the clergy of Constantinople have even surpa.s.sed their usual amount of ignorance and effrontery. They pretend that no baptism except that by trine immersion is valid, and consequently that the vast majority of Western Christians are unbaptized. This position of theirs, which will no doubt be {8} very satisfactory to our Baptist brethren, makes sweeping work, not only with the Latin Church, but with Protestant Christendom. Where there is no baptism, there is no ordination, no sacrament whatever, no church.
What will our Anglican friends say to this? The clergy of Constantinople rebaptize unconditionally every one who applies to be received into their communion, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, clergyman or layman. It would be folly to argue against this sacrilegious absurdity on Catholic grounds. It is enough to show their inconsistency with themselves, by mentioning the fact that the Russian Church allows the validity of baptism by aspersion, and that even their own book of canons permits it in case of necessity. But why look for any manifestation of the learning, wisdom, or Christian principle which ought to characterize prelates from men who have bought their places for gold, and who sell every episcopal see to the highest bidder? The simony and bribery which have been openly and unblushingly practised by the ruling clerical faction of the Turkish empire since the time when the monk Simeon bought the patriarchal dignity from the sultan, make this page of ecclesiastical history one of the blackest and most infamous in character. As we might expect under such a system, virtuous and worthy men are put aside, and the episcopate and priesthood filled up from the creatures and servile followers of the ruling clique. Such men naturally disgrace their holy character by their immoral lives, and bring opprobrium on the Christian name. The history of the patriarchate of Constantinople, therefore, since the period of Gennadius and the first few successors who followed his worthy example, has been stained with blood and crime, and darkened by scenes of tragic infamy and horror. We will relate one of the most recent of these, as a sufficient proof and ill.u.s.tration of the heavy indictment we have made against the patriarchal clergy.
At the time of the Greek revolution, the patriarch and princ.i.p.al clergy of Constantinople received orders from the sultan to use their power in suppressing all co-operation on the part of the Christians in Turkey with their brethren in Greece, and to denounce to the Ottoman government all who were suspected of conniving at the insurrection.
Their political position no doubt required of them to remain pa.s.sive in the matter, to refrain from positively aiding the revolutionists, and also to suppress all overt acts of the Christians under their jurisdiction against the government. Nevertheless, as a people unjustly enslaved by a barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, they owed nothing more to their masters than this exterior obedience to the letter of the law. They could not be expected to enter with a hearty and zealous sympathy into the measures of the government for suppressing the revolution; and, indeed, every genuine and n.o.ble sentiment of Christianity and patriotism forbade their doing so, and exacted of them a deep, interior sympathy with their cruelly oppressed brethren who were so n.o.bly struggling to free their country from the hated yoke of the Moslem conqueror. The really high-minded Greeks of the empire did thus sympathize with their brethren. The ruling clergy, however, manifested a zeal for the interests of the Ottoman court so _outre_ and so scandalous that it not only outraged the feelings of their own subjects, but, as we shall see, aroused the suspicions of the tyrants before whom they so basely cringed, and brought destruction on their own heads. They accused a great number of Christians of complicity in the insurrection, seizing the opportunity of denouncing every one who had incurred their hatred for any reason whatever, so that the prisons were soon crowded with their unfortunate victims, all of whom suffered the penalty of death. The patriarch p.r.o.nounced a sentence of major excommunication against Prince Ypsilanti, and all the Greeks who {9} took part in the revolt. A few days afterward, on the first Sunday of Lent, during the solemnities of the pontifical ma.s.s, the patriarch, his eight chief metropolitans, and fifteen other bishops, p.r.o.nounced the same sentence of excommunication, together with the sentence of deposition and degradation, against seven bishops of Greece, partisans of Prince Ypsilanti, and all their adherents, signing the decree on the altar of the cathedral church. Such a storm of indignation was raised by this nefarious act, that the prelates were obliged to pacify their people by pretending that they had acted under the compulsion of the government. A few days after, the patriarch and the majority of the bishops who had signed the decree were condemned to death and executed, on the charge of partic.i.p.ating in the revolution. Even after the great powers of Europe had acknowledged the independence of Greece, the ruling clergy of Constantinople endeavored to curry favor at court by sending a commission, under the presidency of the metropolitan of Chalcedon, to recommend to the Greeks a return to the Turkish dominion! It is needless to say that this invitation was declined, although we cannot but admire the self-control of the Greek princes and prelates when we are told that it was declined, and the amba.s.sadors dismissed, _in the most polite manner_.
One more intrigue, the last one they have been left the opportunity of trying, closes the history of their relations with the Church of Greece. The clergy and people of the new kingdom were equally determined to throw off completely and for ever the ecclesiastical tyranny of Constantinople. At the same time they were disposed to act with diplomatic formality and ecclesiastical courtesy, as well as in conformity with the laws and principle of the orthodox church of the East. The second article of the const.i.tutional chart of the kingdom defines in a precise and dignified manner the position of the national church. “The orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is perpetually united in dogma with the great Church of Constantinople and every other church holding the same dogmas, preserving, as they do, immutably the holy canons of the apostles and councils, and the sacred traditions. Nevertheless, it is autocephalous, exercising independently of every other church its rights of jurisdiction, and is administered by a sacred college of bishops.” This article was established in 1844. In 1850, the clergy obtained from the government the appointment of a commission, composed of one clergyman, the archimandrite Michael Apostolides, professor of theology in the University of Athens, and one layman, Peter Deligianni, _charge d’affaires_ at Constantinople, to establish concordats with the patriarchate and the governing synod of Russia, on the basis of the above cited article of the Greek const.i.tution. In lieu of this proposed concordat, the Greek commissioners were duped by the patriarchal synod into signing a synodal act, in which the Patriarch of Constantinople, qualifying his see as the vine of which other churches are the branches, and styling himself and his a.s.sociates [Greek text]–“Watchful shepherds and scrupulous guardians of the canons of the church”–pretends by his own authority to grant independent jurisdiction to the Church of Greece as a privilege. At the same time he designates the Archbishop of Athens as the perpetual president of the synod, ordains that the holy chrism shall always be brought from Constantinople, and imposes other obligations intended to serve as signs of dependence on the Patriarchal Church. The Greek parliament, however, annulled this concordat, and the synod of Greek bishops at Athens determined that henceforth there should be no relation between the Church of Greece and that of Constantinople, subsequently even forbidding priests ordained out of {10} the kingdom to officiate in the priesthood. Although the Greek clergy had shown themselves so forbearing and patient, it seems that the arrogance and perfidy of the clergy of Constantinople had at last roused their just indignation. The learned archimandrite Pharmacides published a book against the synodal act and the policy of the Constantinopolitan clergy, ent.i.tled “Ant.i.tomos; or, Concerning the Truth,” in which he ridicules the pompous pretensions which they make to pastoral vigilance and fidelity in these words:
“Since you obtained the sacerdotal dignity by purchase, if you had really the intention in becoming bishops to watch and to fatigue yourselves by guarding the Church, no one of you would be a bishop; for you would not have spent your money in buying vigils and labors.”
Such being the nature of the solicitude of these watchful pastors and scrupulous guardians of the canons for the welfare of those over whom they claim a patriarchal authority, we need not be surprised at any amount of reckless contempt which they may show for the general interests of Christendom, and the admonitions they from time to time receive from the veritable pastor of the flock of Christ.
Nevertheless, we cannot but wonder that the respectable portion of the Oriental episcopate should permit themselves to be compromised by an act which seems to cap the climax of even Byzantine stupidity and effrontery. We refer to the reply to the n.o.ble and paternal encyclical of Pius IX. to the Oriental bishops, put forth by Anthimus, the late patriarch. Anthimus himself was notorious throughout the city for his habits of drunkenness, which were so gross as to incapacitate him from all business and expose him to the most ignominious insults even from his own subordinates. The letter which he and several of his bishops subscribed and sent to the Holy Father was written by the monk Constantine OEconomus, and, in answer to the earnest and affectionate appeals of the Holy Father to return to the unity of the Catholic Church, makes the following astounding statement:
“The three other patriarchs, in difficult questions, demand the fraternal counsels of the one of Constantinople, _because that city is the imperial residence_, and this patriarch has the synodal primacy.
If the question can be settled by his fraternal co-operation, very well. But if not, the matter is _referred to the government_ (_i.e._, Ottoman), _according to the established laws_.”
We think that the reason of the grave charge of schism, heresy, and apostacy from the fundamental, const.i.tutive principles of the Catholic Church, which we have made against the higher clergy of Constantinople, will now be apparent to every candid reader. The history of their action in relation to the Church of Greece proves that their principles and policy tend to disintegrate within itself still more that portion of Christendom which they have alienated from the communion of Rome and the West, and thus to increase the force of the movement of decentralization, and to augment the number of separate, local, mutually independent, and hostile communions. That the natural tendency of this principle is to produce dogmatic dissensions, and to efface the idea of Catholic unity, is too evident from past history to need proof. It is only neutralized in the East by the stagnation of thought, and the consequent immobility of the Oriental mind from its old, long established traditions. The essentially schismatical _virus_ of the principle is in the subordination of organic, hierarchical unity to the temporal power and the civil const.i.tution of states, or the church-and-state principle in its most odious form, which was never more grossly expressed than in the letter above cited of Anthimus. This principle not only tends to increase disintegration in the church, but to bar the way to a reintegration in unity, and to destroy all desire of a return to unity, as is also amply proved by the acts of the clergy of Constantinople. A schismatical principle held {11} and acted on in such a way as to make schism a perpetual condition, and thus not merely to interrupt communion for a time but to destroy the idea of Catholic unity, becomes heretical. Moreover, when doctrinal forms of expressing dogmas of faith, or particular forms of administering the rites of religion, are without authority set forth as essential conditions of orthodoxy, and made the basis of a judgment of heresy against other churches, those who make this false dogmatic standard are guilty of heresy. This is the case with the clergy of Constantinople, who make the difference respecting the use of “Filioque” in the Creed the pretext for accusing the Latin Church of heresy, and who deal similarly with the doctrine of purgatory, and the questions respecting unleavened bread in the eucharist and immersion in baptism. They have constantly persisted in their effort to establish an essential dogmatic difference between the Latin and Greek Churches and to make the peculiarities of the Greek rite essential terms of Catholic communion, in order to widen and perpetuate the breach between the East and West, and to maintain their own usurped princ.i.p.ality. They have been the authors of the schism, its obstinate promoters, the princ.i.p.al cause of thrusting it upon the other parts of the Eastern Church, and the chief instrument of thwarting the charitable efforts of the Holy See for the spiritual good of the Oriental Christians. They have done it in spite of the best and most ample opportunities of knowing the utter falsehood of all the grounds on which their schism is based, in the face of the example and the writings of the best and most learned of their own predecessors, and with a recklessness of consequences, and a disregard of the interests of their own people and of religion itself, which merits for them the name not only of heretics, but of apostates from all but the name and outward profession of Christianity.
This last portion of the case against them we must now prosecute a little further, by showing what has been their conduct in the exercise of their temporal power over their fellow-Christians in Turkey.
The reasons and extent of the civil authority conferred upon the Patriarch Gennadius by Mahomet II. have already been exposed. It is obvious that although this authority would have enabled the governing clergy to succor and console their unhappy people in their condition of miserable slavery, if they had been possessed of truly apostolic virtue, it opened the way to the most frightful tyranny and oppression, by presenting to the worst and most ambitious men a strong motive to aspire to the highest offices in the church. No form of government can be worse than that of privileged slaves of a despot over their fellow-slaves. Accordingly, but a short time elapsed before the unhappy Christians of Turkey began to suffer from the effects of this terrible system. Simoniacal bishops who bought their own dignity by bribing the sultans and their favorites, and sold all the inferior offices in their gift to the highest bidder; who were careless and faithless in the discharge of their spiritual duties; and who had apostatized from the communion of the Catholic Church, would, of course, exercise their civil functions in the same spirit and according to the same policy. They a.s.sociated themselves intimately with the Janissaries, on whom they relied for the maintenance of their power; gave their system of policy the name of the “System of _Cara-Casan_,” that is, “Ecclesiastical Janissary System;” enrolled themselves as members of the _Ortas_ or Janissary companies, and bore their distinguishing marks tattooed on their arms. This redoubtable body found its most powerful ally in the clergy up to the time of its destruction by Mahmoud II. The author of the work whose t.i.tle is placed at the head of this article, James G. Pitzipios, is a native Christian subject of the Sultan of Turkey, and was the secretary of an imperial commission appointed to examine into the {12} civil and financial administration of the Christian communities, as well as to hear their complaints against their rulers. His position and circ.u.mstances, therefore, have enabled him to investigate the matter thoroughly. His estimate of the civil administration of the clergy of the patriarchate from the time of Mahomet II. to that of Mahmoud II.– that is, from the Turkish conquest to the projected reformation in the Ottoman government–is expressed in these words:
“We have seen why it was that the Sultan Mahomet II. delegated the entire temporal power over his Christian subjects to the Patriarch Gennadius and his successors; gave to the religious head of the Christians of his empire the t.i.tle of _Milet-bachi_, and rendered him the absolute master of the lot of all his co-religionists, as well as responsible for their conduct and for their fulfilment of all duties and obligations toward the government. Such an arrangement was calculated to produce in its commencement some alleviations and even some advantages to these unfortunate Christians, as in point of fact it actually happened. But it was sure to degenerate sooner or later into a frightful tyranny, such as is naturally that of privileged slaves placed over those of their own race. Accordingly, as we have stated in several places already, the clergy of Constantinople made use of all the means of oppression, of vexation, and of pillage of which the cunning, the depraved conscience, and the rapacity of slaves in authority are capable. The clergy of Constantinople having become in this way the absolute arbiters of the goods, the conscience, the social rights, and indirectly even of the lives of all their Eastern co-religionists, continued to abuse this temporal power not only during the period of the old regime, but even after the destruction of the Janissaries, and, again, after the reform in Turkey, and up to the present moment” [Footnote 4] (1855).
[Footnote 4: “L’Eglise Orientale,” p. iv., pp. 17, 18.]
The allusion to the reform in the lost clause of this extract requires a fuller explanation, and this explanation will furnish the most conclusive evidence of the degradation of the patriarchate, by showing that not only have its clergy submitted to be the tools of the Ottoman government when it was disposed to oppress the Christians in the worst manner, but that they have even resisted and thwarted the efforts of that government itself, when it was disposed to emanc.i.p.ate the Christians from a part of their bondage.
The Sultan Mahmoud I I., a man of superior genius and enlightened views, devoted all the energies of his great mind to the effort of restoring his empire, rapidly verging toward dissolution, to prosperity and splendor. He devised for this end a gigantic scheme of political reformation, one part of which was the abolition of all civil distinction between his subjects of different religions. He was unable to do more, during his lifetime, than barely to commence the execution of his grand project. His son and successor, Abdul-Medjid, continued to prosecute the same work, and, at the beginning of his reign, published a decree called the _Tinzimat_, enjoining certain reformations in the manner of administering law and justice in the provinces. The Christian inhabitants of Turkey were the ones who ought to have profited most by this decree. On the contrary, the very privileges which it accorded them, by withdrawing them in great measure from the authority of the local Mussulman tribunals, deprived them of their only resource against the oppressions and exactions of their own clergy, and rendered their condition worse. The bishops succeeded in getting a more exclusive control than ever over all cases of jurisdiction relating to Christians, and made use of their power to fleece their people more unmercifully than they had ever done before.
Encouraged by the publication of die Tinzimat, these unhappy Christian communities ventured to send remonstrances to the Ottoman {13} government against their cruel and mercenary pastors. In consequence of these remonstrances, the Porte addressed the following official note, dated Feb. 4, 1850, to the Patriarch of Constantinople:
“Since, according to the Christian religion, the bishops are the pastors of the people, they ought to guide them in the right way, protect them, and console them, but never oppress them. As, however, many metropolitans and bishops commit actions in the provinces _which even the most despicable of men would not dare to perpetrate_, the Christian populations, crushed under this oppression, address themselves continually to the government, supplicating it to grant them its a.s.sistance and protection.
Consequently, as the government cannot refuse to take into consideration these just complaints of its own subjects, it wills absolutely that these disorders cease. It invites, therefore, the patriarch to convoke an a.s.sembly of bishops and of the princ.i.p.al laymen of his religion, and, in concert with them, to consider fraternally of the means of doing away with these oppressions and the just complaints in regard to them, by regulating their ecclesiastical and communal administration in conformity with the precepts of their own religion and with the instructions the Tinzimat.” [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. iii., p. 144.]
A very edifying sermon this, from a Mohammedan minister of state to the “spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church!”
Like many other sermons, however, it did not produce a result corresponding to its excellence. The good advice it contained was followed up by levying a new tax. The patriarch sent immediately to all the bishops a circular in which he prescribed to them “to admonish the people, that since the government had imposed upon the church the obligation of conforming to the demands of certain dioceses, and applying everywhere the system of giving fixed salaries to the bishops, the most holy patriarch is obliged to conform himself to the orders of the government and to put them in execution as soon as possible. But since both the general commune of Constantinople and the particular ones of the several dioceses are burdened with debts which amount to about 7,000,000 of piastres, it is just that the people should previously pay off these debts; the bishops are, therefore, ordered to proceed immediately to an exact enumeration of all the Christian inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, without excepting either widows or unmarried persons. In this way the patriarchate, taking the census as its guide, can a.s.sign to each Christian the sum which he is bound to pay for the pre-extinction of the communal debts, and afterward apply the system of fixed episcopal revenues.” [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 144., p. 145.]
The poor people, terrified by this enormous tax, and by the persecution which overtook the prime movers in the remonstrance, as the secretary of the commission on the Tinzimat informs us, “swallowed painfully their grievances and no longer dared to continue their just reclamations to the government.” The Ottoman government, intimidated by the threats of the ecclesiastical Janissaries of the Cara-Casan, “was obliged to yield to the force of circ.u.mstances, as they were used to do in the time of their terrible _confreres_, and abandoned the question completely.”
The Greek revolution has also in one way aggravated the lot of the Christians of Turkey, by causing the compulsory or voluntary removal from the capital of the princ.i.p.al merchants and other Christians of superior station and influence, who formed the greatest check upon the unworthy clerical rulers. Under the name of “primates of the nation,”
they had a share in the management of ecclesiastical finances and other temporal affairs, and as their compatriot, Mr. Pitzipios, affirms, “these good citizens, inspired by their charitable {14} sentiments, and encouraged by the influence which they had with the Ottoman government, repressed greatly the abuses of the clergy, and moderated, as far as they were able, the vexations of the people.”
[Footnote 7] The men of this cla.s.s who remained in Constantinople were removed by the government, as foreigners, from all share in the administration of Christian’ affairs, and their places filled with the creatures of the patriarchal clique, men of the lowest rank and character, who were ready tools for every nefarious work.