ART. IV.-Pharmakides and the Ecclesiastical Independence

of Greece.

Ο Συνοδικὸς Τόμος, ἢ Περὶ ̓Αληθείας. By Professor Pharmakides, Athens.

THE ecclesiastical revolution by which that part of the Greek Church at present included in the Hellenic kingdom has, within our own day, shaken off the yoke of subjection to the patriarch of Constantinople, is one of the most significant occurrences of this eventful period. As an evidence of advancement, and a triumph of enlightened policy, we cannot but consider it worthy of attention; while its results may prove most important in their bearing upon the final success of the efforts now made for the evangelisation of the East.

In the history of this branch of the Christian Church, we

look in vain for any recent convulsion, similar to that which,

in the sixteenth century, visited the western portion, and effected the separation of the purer elements from the mass in which they had hitherto been exerting merely a resistance to prevailing corruption. With less departure from the type of primitive Christianity than the Latin Church exhibits, we yet behold little tendency toward reformation. Not only have the same doctrines and practices prevailed for upwards of a thousand years, through the entire body of the Greek Church, but even the form of external unity (if we leave out of the account the insignificant successes of Romish proselytism) has only been partially disturbed in two instances, and these in great measure rendered necessary by political revolutions. It is to the more recent of these that we shall confine ourselves, after a cursory view of the well-known circumstances that led to the present attitude of the Russian Church.

From the year 1072, when the Patriarch John Xiphinus sent George as metropolitan to the court of the Czar Isyaslaff, the Russian Church continued for several centuries to be governed by a succession of prelates of the same rank, who, according to the vicissitudes of the empire, resided at Kieff, Vladimir, or Moscow. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the entire subjugation of the Eastern Christians that either preceded or followed it, induced a new and anomalous condition in the Russian Church. The metropolitans of Moscow, for nearly a century and a half after that calamitous event, continued to be elected by a synod of native bishops; but their nominations were not confirmed by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, whose spiritual authority they still acknowledged. This " irregularity in that subordination of the hierarchy, which is so necessary to the unity of the Catholic Church," while it is lamented, is also palliated by the native

Kalousy

ecclesiastical historians,* who urge, as a partial excuse, the acquiescence of the patriarchs, and the troubled condition of the East.

It was evident that the new posture of affairs demanded a corresponding change in the relations of the Church. A patriarch of reduced consideration, and subject to an antiChristian ruler, was ill-qualified to govern the Church of Russia, a distant country of vast extent, and of daily growing importance. To the Czar Theodore is generally attributed the first entertainment of a plan to elevate the Metropolitan of Moscow to the highest rank in the Eastern Church, as a fifth patriarch, to occupy the place of the Bishop of Rome, who was regarded as having fallen away. It happened in the year 1586, that Joachim, Patriarch of Jerusalem, visited the imperial city of Moscow: but when consulted in reference to the czar's favourite scheme, his reply was, that a matter of such vital importance could only be decided by an ecumenical council, or a synod at which the four ecumenical patriarchs should be present. But the Patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremiah, who came in person in 1588, to beg assistance from the czar, either being of a more pliable disposition, or having previously consulted his colleagues of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, was less scrupulous; and while he refused Theodore's offer to transfer his own residence to the old capital Vladimir, he consented to elevate the metropolitan Job to the Patriarchate of all the Russias. The pompous ceremonial of the Greek Church was taxed to its utmost extent in order to grace the consecration; and to enhance its solemnity, the entire service for the Episcopalian ordination was repeated over the candidate, already a bishop, but now to be invested with supreme dignity. By this means, it was imagined that "the double portion of grace requisite for the chief pastor of the church" was secured to the patriarch elect.† At the same time extraordinary precautions were taken by the Czar Theodore, lest the primate of Russia should in any way yield in point of rank to the consecrating prelate. Jeremiah and Job were seated on thrones of equal elevation in the Church; Job was instructed not to lay his crozier aside, unless Jeremiah did the same; and when, after the termination of a splendid pageant, the two patriarchs withdrew from the church, they issued from separate doors, lest either should be compelled to yield the precedence to the other.

The Russian Church, in this manner, became independent of the Greek Church of Constantinople; for the individual

act of the ecumenical patriarch was ratified by the other patriarchs of the Eastern Church (with the exception of the Patriarch of Alexandria, who had recently died), and by a full synod of metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops. The primate of Russia was assigned the fifth place in the hierarchy, much against the wishes of the Czar Theodore, who desired for him the third rank, only yielding to the pretensions of the Patriarch of Alexandria in his quality of Ecumenical Judge. There were not wanting those who maintained that Jeremiah had been an unwilling instrument in the consecration, and that his return to Constantinople would have been impossible had he refused submission to the will of Theodore. Be this as it may, the unanimous consent of the Greek Church removed all objections to the validity of the consecration arising from this source, and ratified what might have been viewed as an unauthorised act on the part of Jeremiah.

"

For a century or more, the Russian Church continued to be governed by its patriarchs; but on the death of Adrian, the tenth dignitary, in the year 1700, Stephen Yavorsky was appointed guardian of the patriarchate, an office which he occupied twenty years. Peter the Great, who had ascended the imperial throne, and was now firmly seated upon it, became convinced by his success in the establishment of a senate, of the superior efficiency of a single executive body intrusted with political power. He determined to model the ecclesiastical government after the same pattern. Accordingly, in 1721, he he created "the Most Holy Governing Synod,' in place of the patriarch, inserting its name in those passages of the public litanies where his had been previously made the subject of prayer. This alteration of the established form of Church government was acquiesced in without a murmur by the devout of Russia, and was formally sanctioned, two years later, by the Patriarch of Constantiople, and the other heads of the Eastern Church. That prelate, who, by a singular coincidence, bore the name of Jeremiah, wrote in the following terms, respecting the Russian Synod, in a letter dated September 23, 1723:

"Our humility, by the grace and authority of the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, the sole author of governance, ratifies, confirms, and proclaims the Synod established in the great and holy kingdom of Russia, by the most pious and pacific autocerat, the holy king, etc., etc., the Lord, Lord Peter Alexævitch, emperor, beloved in the Holy Ghost, to be and to be styled 'our sister in Christ, the Holy and Sacred Synod,' by all pious and orthodox Christians, both clergy and laity, rulers and subjects, and by all official persons. And it has authority to do and perform all that is done and performed by the four apostolic and most holy patriarchal thrones. Moreover, we put it in remembrance, we exhort and enjoin upon it, to preserve and hold fast the customs and canons of the seven holy and Catholic Councils, and all other things which the Holy Eastern Church observes; and may it stand unshaken for ever."*

Such being the independent position obtained by the Russian Church through the sagacious policy of the Czars Theodore and Peter the Great, we turn to Greece, which, at the commencement of the present century, acknowledged the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, as it had done ever since the first enlargement of the powers of that see in the fourth century of the Christian era.

The outbreak of the Revolution in 1821 proved at once, to every reflecting mind, the necessity of some modification of the ecclesiastical relations of the new Hellenic state. Germanos, Archbishop of Patras, heading the inferior clergy, unfurled the standard of revolt in Peloponnesus. During the conflict, the Church of Greece was cut off from all communication with the Synod at Constantinople, which arrogated the title of the "Great Church of New Rome," and claimed the oversight of the whole body of orthodox Eastern Christians. But the cessation of intercourse was due not to the necessities of the times alone. The Archbishop of Constantinople had, for centuries before the fall of the empire, enjoyed extensive civil power, together with the ambitious appellation of Ecumenical Patriarch, and the first rank in the hierarchy. The Turkish sultans were unwilling to dispense with an office which, from the sanctity attaching to it in the eyes of the masses, might become a powerful engine in the government of the most important Christian communion. The patriarch, soon after the capture of Constantinople, was constituted the political head of the millions of Greeks under the Ottoman sway, and became responsible to the government for their good order and submission. From that moment until the present, the patriarchs have served as ready tools in the hands of their Mohammedan ruler, deriving their authority from him, and liable to be removed at his pleasure. As an indication of the entire subjection of the patriarchate to the infidel power, it may be mentioned, that to a document, emanating from the "Great Church," in the year 1850, to which we shall have occasion to allude frequently in the course of this examination, there were appended, besides the signature of the acting patriarch, the names of five others who had formerly enjoyed that dignity for a longer or shorter period.

When the first tidings of the revolution reached Constantinople, the patriarchal throne was occupied by Gregory, a man, it is said, of a mild disposition and unaffected piety, and possessed of great abilities, which had more than once been exhibited in the service of the Turks. Being an ardent lover of his country, he was suspected, no doubt with good reason, of sympathy with the insurgents; and on Easter Day 1821, at the conclusion of the most august religious service of the year, the white-haired old man of fourscore and ten was seized in his palace, to which he had just returned, and ignominiously hung from the lintel of his own door. A man far inferior was appointed his successor. At the dictation of his master, the new patriarch issued proclamations to the inhabitants of Greece proper, as well as the islands of the Archipelago, summoning them, upon pain of the highest ecclesiastical censure, to return to their former allegiance. We have before us the decree of the "Great Church," dated May 1. 1821, pronouncing sentence of degradation upon the seven bishops of Patras, Kernitza, Euripus, Talanti, Samos, Nauplia, and Ægina, who had actively espoused the cause of their nation's liberty. They are declared "with Jewish unthankfulness and ingratitude to have lifted up their heel against our common benefactress, the potent government, and to have filled their provinces with disturbances and scandals." They are stigmatized as the most abandoned of men, unworthy, not merely of the episcopal, but even of the Christian profession; and the faithful are warned to abstain from any recognition of their sacerdotal character, either by kissing their hands, or by officiating with them, "under pain of irrevocable interdict and unpardonable excommunication from Almighty God." The patriarch closes by pronouncing the most fearful curse that can well be imagined, upon all their followers that shall persist in the rebellion against the sultan.†

* A most graphic and faithful description of the tragic fate of the beloved patriarch, and of the subsequent atrocious massacre of Christians at Constantinople, is contained in Tricoupis' admirable History of the Greek Revolution, now in course of publication. It may be found also among the valuable Selections from Modern Greek Writers, by Professor C. C. Felton, pp. 33-47. This account differs essentially from that given by Col. Gordon and others.

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† The entire decree is republished in the Athenian ̓Εφημερίς τοῦ Λαοῦ οἱ May 17. 1852. We cannot better give an idea of its general character than by stating that the compiler gratified his petty malice by the incorporation of the mes epithet bad (κακός) with the proper name of each of the revolted towns; and by transcribing a few sentences from the imprecation with which it terminates. "Let their possessions and their goods go to destruction and complete ruin. In one generation let their name be blotted out with a noise, and let there not remain to them one stone upon another. Let them be cut off before their time from this life, and be damaged also in that which is to come. When they shall be judged, let them be condemned, and let their prayer become sin, and let Satan stand at their right hand. Let their wives become widows, and their

VOL. VII. -NO. XXIII.

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