CHAPTER II.

VISIT TO THE PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE-HIS LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION TO THE MONKS OF MOUNT ATHOS— VOYAGE TO THESSALONICA-THE HELLESPONT AND TROADTHESSALONICA AND ITS INHABITANTS JEWS-GREEKS

TURKS.

Oct. 19, 1849.-Having made up my mind to travel from Constantinople to Corfu across Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus, and to pay a visit to Mount Athos on my way, I proceeded this morning to wait on the Greek Patriarch, and request him to furnish me with a letter of introduction to the holy community; a favour which is conferred on all English travellers recommended by the ambassador or consul-general. Taking a caique at Tophana, the chief landing-place of the Frank suburb of Pera, and crossing over the Golden Horn, I was soon put on shore at the Fanar, the quarter of Constantinople still inhabited by the principal Greek families. The Patriarch's residence is near the water, and close to the dark, small, and gloomy metropolitan church-a sad exchange for St. Sophia, which the Turks have lately re

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stored with great taste and magnificence, exposing to view the rich mosaics representing Christian emblems, saints, and emperors, which had been covered with plaster at the time of the Mahommedan conquest, and are now as fresh and vivid as ever. The palace of the patriarchate is a large pile of wood, dark and rain-stained outside, and exceedingly dingy and smoke-stained within. Going up some steps, I passed into a sort of halfhall, half-kitchen, where a table was plainly laid out for the minor clergy in attendance, crowds of whom filled the antechambers, just as crowds of chavasses and janisaries fill the antechambers of a pasha. Indeed, the reception given to a stranger by all Orientals, Christians as well as Mahommedans, is very similar. All the Patriarch's menials wear a kind of clerical undress, like the laybrethren of a convent. I presented my letter of introduction to the secretary (ypaμμarikós) who came to receive me, and I was then immediately, and without any ceremony, ushered into the presence of the Patriarch of the East, at whose apostolic simplicity and apostolic revenues (3000%. per annum at the most, and that dependent on. fees) his brothers of Rome and Canterbury might smile. I found his All-Holiness (IlavayıÓTηs) seated with his legs crossed under him, in the usual Oriental style, on the corner of a low divan

running round three sides of a room, which had no other furniture except a mat on the floor. The walls were painted with flowers and fruits, much like those of a second-rate Italian inn, and the windows commanded a fine view of the Golden Horn, and of the opposite heights of Peraa prospect hardly to be compared, however, with that of the Campagna and the Apennines from the Vatican, or even with that of Westminster Abbey and the new Houses of Parliament from the drawing-room of Lambeth. The Patriarch had a common deal writing-desk and a mass of papers on the divan beside him, and he invited me to sit down on his right hand. He stood up on his divan both on my entrance and my departure—a mark of honour among Orientals; but every Christian in the East looks up to the present English ambassador (Sir Stratford Canning) as the chief protector of his faith; and every Englishman, however humble, comes in for a share of the reverence felt for the representative of his Sovereign. At the other end of the room stood by the door several deacons and priests, their heads bent forward, and their arms crossed on their breasts-that simple and graceful attitude of Eastern respect and salutation. At the Patriarch's command, pipes and sweetmeats were brought us by deacons, just as they are by janisa

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ries in a pasha's palace, and we smoked the delicate Latakia (as different from American tobacco as eau-de-Cologne from burnt feathers), sipped the very essence of coffee from little cups set in silver filagree, and had a most interesting conversation in modern Greek, which an official residence of two years in the East has enabled me to speak with perfect fluency. Meanwhile the secretary was writing a letter of recommendation for me to the monks of Mount Athos.

Anthimos, the present Patriarch of the East, is a tall and very striking-looking man of about seventy, with a mild and expressive countenance, and a snow-white beard flowing over his breast and graceful dark robes. He had twice filled his high office before, and had twice been removedthe common history of the Patriarchate-owing to the intrigues of the suffragan Archbishops, all struggling for the same place, and the influence with the Sultan of the Logothetes-a great Greek functionary, who is now little more than the medium of communication on ecclesiastical affairs between the Porte and his co-religionists, but who, under the Eastern emperors, exercised powers analogous to those of the lord chancellor and prime minister of England, if combined in one person. The Patriarch still exercises ecclesiastical supremacy over the Ionian Islands, and

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LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

he approves cordially of all that the English Government has done to improve the education of the Greek clergy in that most interesting of our dependencies. The new kingdom of Greece, following the example of Russia, rejects his jurisdiction entirely, and has placed the supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs in the hands of a synod of its bishops'.

On my remarking to him, "Greece, I think, does not now depend on your All-Holiness,” the Patriarch replied, rather abruptly and with some apparent vexation, "No; and the Greeks have destroyed the monasteries, an act which the Turks did not do:" alluding to the confiscation of most of the monastic revenues by the Greek Government. We had also some very interesting conversation about the English Church. He made several remarks, too, on the ancient heretics and

1 Since the above was written, a friendly communication has been reopened (in 1850) between the Synod of Athens and the Patriarch, who has acknowledged the independence of the Greek Church.

2 The grounds on which the Greek at present refuses communion with the English Church were briefly stated as follows by the Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the University of Athens, in one of his Lectures delivered in 1850. He said that the English Church persisted in the interpolation of the filioque in the Nicene Creed by Latin innovators, and that also she was carried astray (παρɛσúρon) by the stream of Reformation in the time of Henry VIII.; and that, in consequence, the articles given her by Queen Elizabeth contained Lutheran and Calvinistic errors.