The Greeks claim that they have the oldest Christian Church, since they
are the heirs to the old Byzantine empire at Constantinople, and use
even now in their worship the Greek of the apostles and the liturgy of
the early fathers. They constituted the majority at the first seven
ecumenical councils, dominating in no small degree by their philosophy
and thought the doctrines there established. They contend with the
Syrian Church over priority of origin. The political history of the
Greek Church began with the conversion of Constantine in 312 A. D.,
when persecution ceased and Christianity became the state religion.
We do not need for our present purpose to trace the history of the
Church of Constantinople down to its separation from the Church of Rome
in 1054, and the capture of the city by the Turks in 1453.
During this period the Church conducted a vigorous missionary
propaganda. Cyril and Methodius went into Thessalonica and Bulgaria
and there did substantial fundamental Christian work. Russia was also
reached from this center and the czar was baptized and the nation
became Christian.
In government, the Greek Church is Episcopal. The temporal power
centers in the patriarch. There are several of these, the chief of
whom resides at Constantinople, although the patriarchs at Antioch,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem have nominally the same authority. Under
Turkish rule the office of the patriarch has been exalted into
practically the head of the Church, the bishops exercising spiritual
authority alone. This arrangement is the same that exists in the
Gregorian Church, as we shall see later. The general synod, made up
of the bishops of the surrounding provinces, is presided over by the
patriarchs, whom they are supposed to elect, but whose election must
always be confirmed by the sultan of Turkey. The authority by which the
patriarch acts comes from a firman or charter granted by the sultan.
In 1833 the branch of the Greek Church now included in the kingdom
of Greece severed itself from primary dependence upon the patriarch
at Constantinople. The Church of Russia, up to the middle of the
seventeenth century, was holden to the Constantinople patriarch to
confirm the primate of Moscow. Peter the Great in 1712 curtailed
the authority of this primate, putting in his place the Holy Synod,
over which the czar is supreme. These changes left the patriarch at
Constantinople with authority over only the Greek churches within the
bounds of the Turkish empire. The Greek Church of Roumania and Servia
soon became independent and in 1870 the Church of Bulgaria withdrew and
reunited under one chief bishop called the Bulgarian exarch.
One prominent fact that must be constantly kept in mind is that
after these churches had separated from the mother Church and become
independent of her control, they constituted what is virtually another
Church. Relations one with the other were completely severed, and often
violent hostility prevailed. In 1905 a severe and bloody conflict was
waged in Macedonia between officers of the Greek Church who claimed
allegiance to the Synod at Athens, and officers of the same Church who
recognized as their head the Bulgarian exarch. Hostility was as severe
and bloody as between Moslems and Christians. Church buildings were
captured, the one from the other, and loyal subjects fought to the
death in resistance of these attacks. This is a fact that must be taken
into consideration as the various Churches and Christian sects in that
part of the world are studied and their relation to Mohammedanism and
the Turkish empire weighed.
We are not especially concerned here with the peculiar beliefs of
this Church. We are not dealing with the question from a theological
standpoint, but from the general standpoint of its relations to the
government of Turkey and to the other coreligionists within the empire.
The most of the adherents of the Greek Church within the Turkish empire
are Greeks. They are a strong, hardy, vigorous and intelligent race.
Many of them are direct descendants, without doubt, of mighty men
of valor who held their own in the face of overpowering odds in the
early days of Greek chivalry. In Constantinople, where some 175,000
live to-day, they stand first among the bankers and leading merchants.
Greeks figure largely in Smyrna and in fact in all of the cities of
western Asia Minor, while they are found as far in the interior as
Marsovan, Cæsarea and Sivas. As one goes still farther east, Greeks for
the most part disappear and their place in trade and commerce is taken
by Armenians. It is an interesting fact that along the upper Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, where mines exist, in many instances there is a
colony of Greeks close by. Tradition reports that these are descendants
of the men left behind in the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand across
that country to Trebizond upon the Black Sea.
These Greeks, while citizens of Turkey, it may be, for fifty
generations, not infrequently refer to the king of Greece as “our king
George.” Along the borders of Macedonia towards Greece they cause the
sultan much trouble by their sympathy with that kingdom rather than
with him. For the most part, throughout Turkey they are quiet and give
little trouble by revolutionary propagandism.
In educational institutions the Greek youth show superior intellectual
ability and unusual eagerness. In commercial affairs they rank second
to no other race and as merchants they have already gone into all the
earth. Destitute of the intense national feeling of the Armenians,
they have not given the Turkish government the trouble and anxiety
that the Armenians have caused. As their fatherland is outside the
borders of the present Turkish empire there is no fear upon the part
of the Turkish rulers that they will attempt to set up an independent
government. They have not, therefore, suffered the persecution that has
been laid upon the Armenians.