CORRESPONDENCE WITH GERMAN REFORMERS. 279

mosques, and upon those which remained was inscribed a sentence of decay and desolation.

Thus depressed, the Roman pontiff was sanguine in the expectation of subjecting the Greek church to his authority; and it is affirmed, that, in the space of half a century from the storming of the city, not less than thirteen patriarchs acknowledged his supremacy. The acknowledgment on the part of the people, was of a more doubtful nature, and it was sometimes totally abjured by the patriarchs. It was assailed by the great leaders of the German reformation, and in this manner the advance of the popish domination was partially retarded; but the depression of the people, their general ignorance and corruption, the scarcity of the Scriptures, and the artful policy of Rome, permitted only a few rays of the light, which then glowed in the west, to penetrate the gloom, which covered the east.e

The efforts of the German reformers in behalf of the Greeks, commenced with a letter from Melancthon to the patriarch Joseph, written about the middle of the sixteenth century, in which he described the protestant doctrines. With this letter he sent a copy of the confession of Augsburg, translated into Greek. The patriarch in return sent his deacon to Wittemberg, to learn more fully the nature of the protestant faith. The divines of Tubigen renewed the correspondence with his successor, Jeremiah; and wrote repeatedly to the patriarch between the years 1576 and 1581, sending him, also, a copy of the Augsburg confession, together with a compend of theology, composed by Heerbrand, and translated into Greek. The only fruits of this correspondence were a few letters from the patriarch, written with a benevolent spirit, but evincing a strong attachment to the doctrines and institutions of his own church.f

But, in the early part of the seventeenth century, it did appear as if the church of Greece was on the verge

(e) London Monthly Magazine, vol.viii, p. 636.
(f) Mosheim, cent. xvi. sect. iii.

280

THE PATRIARCH CYRIL LUCARIS.

of a most desirable reform; for the patriarchal chair was filled by a man, whose mind had been enlightened by study, and by observation in the different countries of Europe, and who was evidently disposed to know and confess the truth. This was Cyril Lucaris, a native of Candia, and successively patriarch of Alexandria and Constantinople. While he detected and opposed the arts, by which the pope was endeavoring to bring the Greeks under the Roman yoke, he, at the same time, conceived the design of purifying the doctrine and ritual of his church, and to this end he promoted the printing of the modern Greek Testament translated by Maximus, which afterwards was made the basis of one printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Papists resolved upon accomplishing his ruin. Their nefarious designs were repeatedly frustrated; and it was not until Cyril had set up a printing-press, that they succeeded in destroying his credit with the Turkish government. Then the Jesuits, by the help of false witnesses and the influence of the French ambassador, procured his condemnation for alleged treasonable designs. His printing establishment was destroyed by the Janissaries, and he was strangled in his palace in 1638. Cyril left behind him a creed or confession of faith, drawn up in various propositions, each illustrated by references to the Scriptures and to the fathers. This confession inclines strongly towards the doctrines of the reformed churches. He excludes saints and martyrs from the mediatorial office, acknowledges but two sacraments, and denies the papal doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation. His successor, Cyril of Berea, a furious partisan of the pope, assembled a synod, which anathematized the person and opinions of Lucaris. In 1642 the synod of Yassi, in Moldavia, also condemned his confession. Meanwhile the dispute between Claude

(g) Jowett's Christ. Researches, p. 337.

(h) Mosheim, cent. xvii. sect. ii.

(i) See Hottinger's Analecta Theologica. 1652. pp. 398-567. (j) Quar. Theol. Review.

DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

281

and the Sorbonists of France, on the doctrine of transubstantiation, penetrated into Greece. The French ambassador to the Porte was directed to collect opinions on the subject, and by various means obtained a considerable number from the Greek clergy in support of the doctrine. This triumph may be said to have been consummated at the synod assembled in Jerusalem A. D. 1672, by Dositheus, the patriarch of that city. The object of this assembly was threefold;-to reprobate the German reformers-to annul the confession of Cyril Lucaris-and to give validity to the confession of Dositheus. The controversies of the church were now hushed to silence by a formal declaration, in the manner of the council of Trent. The council affirmed, that the seven mysteries, or sacraments, all had a divine origin, and that the elements of the eucharist are actually changed into the body and blood of Christ. Thus, although the pope failed to reduce the Greeks under his authority, he succeeded in fixing upon them the most monstrous of all the superstitions of his own church,— that of transubstantiation. The doctrine is held by the Greeks, however, in a somewhat milder form, than it is by the Latins, as will be shewn hereafter.

Since that time I know not that any material change has happened in the Greek church, except lately in the political relations of that part of it, which exists in Greece. That portion is likely to enjoy the freedom, which it had under the sceptre of the Greek emperors.

The view we have taken of the Greek church illustrates the baleful influence of the spirit of controversy, where the people are uninstructed in the Scriptures. If it be, as a celebrated writer asserts, that "truth has usually been elicited by controversy," it must still be affirmed, in respect to the Greek church, that controversy has been a mighty engine to obscure and deform the truth, and give root and inveteracy to error. We see, too, the importance of directing the attention of the

(k) Monthly Magazine, vol. viii. p. 636.

282

GENERAL REMARKS.

Greeks as little as possible to those points, on which the national prejudices are so firmly fixed, and as much as possible to the vital truths of Christianity. Reasoning directly on those topics, which have been agitated for centuries, and on which the public mind has therefore a peculiar excitability, will probably be worse than useless—at least, while knowledge is so partially diffused. Nor is there any need of occupying this ground; for the Greek concedes the use of the Scriptures, with most of those essential truths, the neglect of which led his ancestors astray. These truths, though almost buried beneath mountains of rubbish, and unknown to the mass of the people, and understood and loved, I fear, by very few; are still a part of the national creed. They are inconsistent, indeed, with the prevalent corruptions in doctrine and practice; but there they are, clearly and often stated in acknowledged standards of faith, and gradually rising into notice. And it cannot be, unless Greece be abandoned to judicial blindness, but that many of its quick-discerning inhabitants will yet see and acknowledge the relations of attraction, or repellency, which those truths sustain to their actual system of religious worship and belief.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREEK CHURCH.

Present condition of the Greek Church.-Its extent-Its four patriarchatesDifferent orders of the clergy-Their revenue-Doctrines of the church-The seven mysteries, or sacraments-Fasts and feasts-Excommunication -Churches-Public worship-Public worship performed throughout the east in an unknown tongue-Colony of priests at Mount Athos.

THE religion of the Greek church prevails, not only in Greece, the Ionian Islands, and the Archipelago, but in other countries of Europe; as part of Albania and Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Russia. Its members are also scattered over most of the countries of Western Asia, and in the eastern parts of Africa— a mingled people, with various languages, manners, and customs. The number of its members in Europe, is estimated at 50,000,000; and the whole number, at about 70,000,000.b

The four patriarchs of the Greek church are denominated after the cities of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. The patriarch of Antioch resides generally at Damascus. The patriarchs of Jerusalem have, for more than a century, taken up their residence in Constantinople, where they have assisted the patriarch and synod of that see. The jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople is acknowledged over a considerable part of Asia Minor, and in the Archipelago, Greece, and the Ionian Islands, though in a manner qualified by existing circumstances, and throughout the southern provinces of European Turkey. Rycaut

(a) The remarks in this chapter are not designed to refer to the Russian church. That church is said to have been freed from many of the grosser observances of the Hellenic church, Peter the Great having subjected the discipline, monasteries, and priesthood to a general reform. It is governed by a "Holy Legislative Synod."-See Pinkerton's Present State of Greek Church in Russia.

(b) Malte Brun.

(c) Jowett's Researches in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 16.