The modern crusade, and that of Johann Capistran--Christians in the
ranks of the Ottoman Army--The religious life of
Constantinople--Theodosius I and his creed--St. John Chrysostom and
the Empress Eudoxia--The piety of Theodosius II--The Armenian
Church--The Greek Patriarchate and the Phanar--The Teutons and
Rome--Papal interference in Constantinople--The advance of the
Balkan nations: Bulgars, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Greeks.
At the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkan Peninsula we had it from
the lips of a king that this is a crusade, a holy war, a war against the
Pagan intruder into Europe, which must end in his subjection and
eviction from our Christian continent.
Such sentiments from a monarch who, brought up in one Christian dogma,
has chosen another variant of our Faith for his children, can have no
other effect than to raise the present war to a much higher level than
the wars of former days, which were waged unblushingly to gain some
national advantage, to acquire territory, or even merely to flatter
national vanity. No, this is a very different war, and informed of the
same spirit, so we are told, which moved the Crusaders in their
thousands down the Danube to the Holy Land. Those pious warriors passed
through Constantinople, honoured the place with a lengthy stay, and, I
regret to say, were not sufficiently appreciated by the Eastern Emperors
and their people. The same spirit, called forth by Johann Capistran, led
noble Hungarians, the chivalry of Servia, and hosts of Bulgarians to
meet the Crescent on the Amselfeld at Kossovo, and Eastern Europe went
under in a sea of blood. Now this latest crusade is drawing to a close,
and the rejuvenated nations of the Balkans have in their turn humbled
the Crescent and brought the Cross back to before the walls of
Constantinople. What matter that there are numbers of Christians in the
ranks of the Ottoman Army? The war is a crusade--we have it on the best
authority.
Those Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army have also suffered for
their faith, for invidious Moslems have been inclined to attribute the
disaster which overtook the Sultan's Army to the fact that he had been
induced to make soldiers of them, whereas, as every true follower of the
Prophet knows, Islam is the only creed for a warrior. Again and again
those Christian soldiers of the Sultan have been accused of cowardice,
of deserting to the enemy in great numbers; no ingenious calumny has
been spared to prove that they gave the reason for the debacle, and that
but for their presence the Crescent would be gleaming over Sofia again,
and again facing Austria-Hungary across Danube and Save. As a matter of
fact, reliable informants have told me, the Christian soldiers of the
Sultan did uncommonly well, and were even from time to time deserted by
their Moslem comrades. If religious matters had to do with the defeats
sustained by the Turkish Army, it is more probably the case that pious
Moslems felt the authority of the Sultan, the head of their faith,
undermined by recent changes, by the admission of non-believers into
offices of state, and this led to a despondency which from time to time
broke out in panic. One night, it was told me, a Turkish soldier awoke
from a nightmare and fled, crying, "The Bulgars are on us!" though there
were none in the immediate neighbourhood. The men of his section took
alarm and followed him; the company followed--the battalion--brigade,
till the whole division was running away in nameless terror before a
purely imaginary enemy.
Religion has ever played a leading part in the history of
Constantinople, may even be said to have been responsible for its
existence, for Byzas, in carrying out the Oracle's dark instructions,
merely followed his religious instincts. Of Constantine the Great it is
not necessary to say much; the beautiful story of his conversion to
Christianity is one of the earliest of such apocryphal addenda to the
story of the Church of Christ as taught us in our infancy.
[Illustration: The Aqueduct of Valens
Valens the Emperor was killed in battle by the Goths at Adrianople. His
aqueduct stands out strangely among wooden houses, connecting the seven
hills on which stands Stamboul.]
Constantine was the first Augustus to be baptized, and he was followed
by Valens, who, as far as is known, worshipped the fast-fading deities
of ancient Rome. We shall meet Valens again at Adrianople--there are few
traces left of him here in Constantinople, only the aqueduct he built.
It stands out strangely among wooden houses, connecting the seven hills
on which stands Stamboul. Valens was followed by another great Emperor,
Theodosius I. Theodosius, though born of Christian parents, did not
embrace Christianity until towards the end of the first year of his
reign, when a severe illness carried conviction to the Imperial mind.
Before he took the field against the Goths, Acholius, Bishop of
Thessalonica, baptized him, and so Theodosius became a Christian--a
stout, full-blooded one at that. Once convinced of the beauty of the
faith, and sure of the unfailing aid the Church afforded, Theodosius
acted as a soldier and a convert would. He had found the sure haven of
his soul, and all his people must also be led into the right way. There
was no room for "saucy doubts and fears" in the breast of Emperor
Theodosius. On ascending from the font he issued an edict to his people
which is worth giving word for word: "It is our pleasure that all the
nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation should
steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the
Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now
professed by the Pontiff of Damascus, and by Peter, Bishop of
Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of
the Apostles and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the sole
Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal Majesty
and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to
assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others
are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of
heretics, and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the
respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of Divine
Justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our
authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon
them." So we find little encouragement in Constantinople of those days
of any kind of nonconformity, or any doxy save that of the Emperor
himself.
Nevertheless, in matters of religion, Constantinople may be said to have
done more than any other centre of national life. For forty years, from
340-380, this was the centre of Arianism, and was also open to all
manner of strange doctrines, coming from every province of the Empire,
and this worried Theodosius very much. The polemics that raged round the
name and nature of Holy Trinity exasperated the soldier Theodosius, so
he determined to settle the matter once and for all. He convened a synod
of one hundred and fifty bishops to complete the theological system
established in the Council of Nicæa. The council managed, wisely, to
arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to the Emperor, so at least his mind
was set at rest on a vexed question.
Peace was not, for with a people like the Greeks and others who lived in
Constantinople, fond of all manner of disputations, any idea of
uniformity was hopeless; nevertheless there were endless councils,
conferences, synods, which probably only served to aggravate the many
controversies. Out of the chaos of ideas and ideals one form or another
would rise and stand out above his fellows; of these, perhaps, no one is
better known than John, called by the people "Golden Mouth," Chrysostom.
He came from Antioch with a great reputation as a preacher, and that
under somewhat unusual circumstances. Eutropius, Prime Minister of
Arcadius, the young Emperor, had heard and admired the sermons of John
Chrysostom when on a journey in the East. Fearful lest the flock at
Antioch might be unwilling to resign their favourite preacher, the
minister sent a private order to the Governor of Syria, and the divine
was transported with great speed and secrecy to Constantinople.
The new Archbishop made his influence felt at once, and his teachings
gave rise to several factions, some in his favour, others against him,
all delighted at new food for controversy. Chrysostom was hot-tempered,
which led him to express disapproval of wrong-doing in unmeasured terms,
unsociable, in consequence of which he lost touch with his surroundings.
So it came about that he was surprised by an ecclesiastical conspiracy.
Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, had arrived by invitation of the
Empress Eudoxia, and had brought with him a number of independent
bishops sufficient to secure him a majority in the synod. Theophilus had
taken the further precaution of bringing with him a strong escort of
Egyptian sailors to keep the refractory populace in order. The synod
brought various charges against Chrysostom, who declined to attend the
meeting, and was therefore condemned in default for contumacious
disobedience and sentenced to be deposed by this august body. Chrysostom
was hurriedly conveyed into exile at the entrance of the Black Sea, but
was recalled before many days had passed, for his faithful flock had
risen, slain without mercy the crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners in
the streets of the City, roared and rioted round the palace gates in
waves of sedition, that Chrysostom had to be recalled to restore order.
He returned in triumph; but he was no courtier, and his zeal outran
discretion, so the Empress had him banished again, this time to Mount
Taurus, and then further away to the desert of Pityas, but he died on
his way thither in his sixtieth year. Thirty years later, in 438,
Theodosius II went over to Chalcedon to meet the remains of John
Chrysostom, which were being brought from the first obscure burial-place
to Constantinople. Falling prostrate on the coffin, the Emperor implored
forgiveness for his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia.
Of the many sects thrown up by religious controversy few have survived
to this day, but of these one is remarkable in many ways--the Armenian
Church. The Armenians are an Indo-European people, living in Great and
Little Armenia, an elevated plateau, from which the principal mountains,
rivers, and valleys of Western Asia diverge, a plateau some 7000 feet
above the sea in places, and rising to its greatest height of 17,260
feet in Mount Ararat, now in Russian territory.
No doubt it is a great satisfaction to the Armenians to have that holy
mountain in their native land, though I do not think that undue pride
over this interesting feature has kept them apart from others of the
Christian faith. They took to it very readily during the reign of
Constantius, and during the years when the Eastern Empire was still
mighty in Asia maintained their connection with the See at
Constantinople. But their country was peculiarly liable to be swamped by
alien races, and constant disorders during the many centuries when the
Eastern Empire was falling to pieces alienated them from the original
fold. Again, their clergy were generally ignorant of the Greek tongue,
so they ceased attending synods, and thus widened the rift, so that, as
they did not attend the Council of Chalcedon, they came to be considered
as schismatics, and have long had a Patriarch in Constantinople, who
watches over the interests of his flock. His is a very difficult
position, for ever since there has been an Armenian problem no other
means of solving it has ever suggested itself to the Porte than that of
wholesale massacre--there is an Armenian problem, therefore kill the
Armenians; simple, thoroughly Oriental, and not to the taste of Europe,
whose protests, however, have never been as loud over Armenian outrages
as when some national trade interest is affected. Nevertheless Armenians
have stayed on as useful citizens and subjects of Sultans who showed to
them less consideration than to any others of the numerous races which
live under the Porte's peculiar jurisdiction; they are advancing in
wealth, education, and political importance, and are likely to play an
important part in the future of Asia Minor. It is said that the
Armenians might have made common cause with the Greeks, and thus
assisted towards the deliverance from Turkish yoke which seems to have
been brought at last by the arms of the twentieth-century crusaders, who
swarmed over the passes of the Balkans and down the Valley of the
Maritza only a month or so ago. The Armenians, instead of accomplishing
unity by means of their synod, seem to have frittered away their
strength in small committees, probably discussing side issues with great
earnestness and leaving great questions unsolved, as is frequently
the case in the deliberations of such bodies.
[Illustration: On the way to the Phanar
A picturesque street thronged with the usual crowd of leisurely
wayfarers.]
Ever since the earliest days of Christianity Constantinople has been the
seat of a Father of the Church. His importance increased as the Empire
flourished, and he soon was styled Patriarch, a title which has never
been relinquished, an office which has never been in abeyance but for
those few days between the triumphal entry of Mohammed the Conqueror and
the Patriarch's reinstatement by that monarch.
The buildings which serve as head-quarters for the Patriarch of Greek
Orthodoxy in Constantinople stand overlooking the upper reaches of the
Golden Horn at the Phanar, and have no great beauty to distinguish them
from their surroundings. The cathedral church is small, and the only
thing which impressed me in it is the cathedra itself. Not long ago I
had the honour of being presented to His Holiness the late Patriarch. A
friend and I made our way to the Phanar, through picturesque streets,
thronged with the usual crowd of leisurely wayfarers; vines festooned
from one side to the other, and in places affording shade from the
searching rays of the sun, but at the same time condensing the mingled,
varied odours inseparable from life in the East, and which, no doubt,
contribute to its indefinable charm. The Phanar is a quarter formerly
occupied by those Greeks whose duties brought them in closer contact
with the Imperial Court of Byzant; they lived in stone houses that
clustered round the Phanar, the lighthouse, at the foot of the heights,
where stood palaces of princes, churches, and barracks of the Imperial
Guards, and whence the walls defending the City from attack by land draw
their rugged lines down to the Golden Horn. We were shown into a long
room, hung round with indifferent portraits of former Patriarchs, and
introduced by one of the most prominent lay members of the Holy Synod, a
gentleman to whom, I fancy, the Greeks of Turkey in Europe owe a debt of
gratitude. His Holiness received us most graciously, conversed amiably
on many questions, and all went very well till he had a look at the
sketch I had taken of him. "As it has not succeeded I will give you a
photograph of myself," said His Holiness, and I am the proud possessor
of a signed photograph of this the latest successor of a long line of
ecclesiastical potentates. Nevertheless, I consider my sketch a good
likeness, and my opinion is not based on conceit alone, but is endorsed
by others qualified to judge.
[Illustration: HIS HOLINESS JOACHIM III
Patriarch of the Orthodox Church at Constantinople.]
It is sad to reflect that Christianity, even from the earliest days, has
strayed so far from the leading precept of its Founder. The Church in
all ages, among all nations, proclaimed Him "Prince of Peace," then
incited her followers to take up arms in defence of dogma, ritual, never
dreamt of by the Christ. The different peoples which were enabled to
divide into groups in accord with racial ambition were used as tools by
prelates of the East and West to add to their own importance, to enhance
their own prestige. The West drew to it strong Germanic races who, sword
in hand, helped to gather the broken remnants of the Latin races into
the fold of the Western See; these subtler Latin races, never quite
freed from the worship of their forebears, never entirely abandoning the
worship of the gods of old, of Isis and Osiris, gained for a space
ascendancy over the simpler, purer Teutons, and made the power of the
Roman Pontiff possible. Revolts there were many, when the strong,
persistent Germanic intellect developed, and tried to free itself from
spiritual thraldom. Until the days of Luther, such stirrings were
countered by a short shrift and a blazing pyre for the offender.
Luther's theses, nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, marked the
straining of the cords that bound northern races to the Southern See,
and led nations to give rein to their ambitions, striving to attain them
throughout a war of thirty years. Even then the fight was indecisive,
and the "Kultur Kampf," against which Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor,
battled with but qualified success, occupies the mind and tends to check
the spiritual development of modern Germany.
The people of the Eastern Empire centred in Constantinople in those
days, far beyond the intellectual limitations of the West, could not be
expected to submit to the spiritual authority of a Roman Pontiff,
especially as the Roman Empire of the West had gone under before its
barbarian foes, whereas the Roman Empire of the East yet held sway over
many distant provinces conquered by Roman arms. The Eastern and the
Western world were seldom in complete accord; the bonds that united them
in earliest days were frail, and could only be made to hold when in the
hands of a strong man like Constantine the Great. The Western Empire's
fall enhanced the greatness of the Eastern Empire, and thus was paved
the way to separation in matters of religion. The intellectual pride of
the Greeks would not submit to any dictation on the subject of Christian
doctrine from the West, and Roman ambition would not allow outlying
communities to formulate new doctrines nor to revise old ones. It needed
a small pretext to bring about schism, and that pretext was not long
wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman,
Captain of the Guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of
Patriarch of Constantinople. In ecclesiastical knowledge and purity of
morals he was equally well qualified for this high office. But Ignatius,
his predecessor, who had abdicated, still had many supporters, and
these appealed to Pope Nicholas I, one of the proudest, most ambitious
of the Roman Pontiffs, who welcomed an opportunity of judging and
condemning his rival of the East. But the Greeks resented the
interference, and after many intrigues Photius emerged triumphant, and
reconciliation between the two Churches was made more difficult than
ever. After about two centuries of unseemly wrangling and bitter
recriminations, Papal legates came to Constantinople in 1054 and laid a
bull of excommunication against the Patriarch upon the altar of St.
Sophia.
It will be readily understood that the Crusades, organized under the
auspices of the Church of Rome, were not looked upon with favour by the
Eastern Emperors and Patriarchs who, however much they bickered between
themselves, showed a united front to outsiders. It is therefore not
surprising that the Eastern Empire lent but half-hearted support to the
crusading Western nations, and that, when that Empire was in turn
threatened from the East, its appeals to Western Christianity fell on
deaf ears. This made the path of Osmanli conquerors all the smoother.
To-day we are faced with a new crusade, Eastern Christians, members of
the Orthodox Church, carrying the Cross against the Crescent. They have
met with hardly any but that somewhat overrated "moral" support from
Western Christians. Montenegrins came down from their Black Mountains,
all available fighting men of a population of some 250,000, and fiercely
fought for an ideal. Servia, out of a population of about 3,000,000,
sent an army as strong and as well-found as the much-vaunted
expeditionary force of Great Britain over the mountain-passes into
Macedonia. Meeting with stubborn resistance, suffering checks, they
pressed on, and now hold lands which once formed part of Servia when,
for a short time, it was a great Empire, and had its capital at Üsküb,
which King Peter's army entered in triumph some short time ago. Then the
Hellenes, under the Crown Prince Constantinos, name borne by several
Greek Emperors, came up from the south, and smarting under the memory of
former reverses, fought their way over the mountains into Macedonia, and
have occupied Saloniki. Here, again, is a small nation of barely
3,000,000 sending an army of near 100,000 into the field. Then from the
north, in irresistible force, came the hosts of Ferdinand, Tsar of all
the Bulgarians. His forces were reckoned at 300,000 when they crossed
over the border, and this number was taken from an industrious, thriving
population of little more than 4,000,000 souls. Numbers as yet untold
have fallen in battle, others have succumbed to disease and the
hardships of war, but what remains are loudly clamouring for admission
to Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar, where all these sons of the Greek
Orthodoxy, though of different nations, hope to reunite in worship at
Santa Sophia.
And while these deeds have been doing, Eastern and Western Christianity
have been gazing unfriendly at each other. A great Power which adheres
to the Church of Rome is looking with disfavour upon the successes
gained by these young nations, and diplomacy, which has hitherto failed
woefully in its endeavours to maintain peace, is now put to it to
prevent another appeal to the arbitrament of arms, and this time of a
nature that will make the present war seem but an advanced-guard action.
In the meanwhile, with this danger threatening, the part played by
Turkey in Europe seems almost incidental only, albeit this great Power
is passing from Europe to its native Asia, shorn by a sudden, violent
storm of all its old possessions but that narrow corner, fenced off from
the onslaught by the lines of Chatalja.