Locusts in those infinite numbers as have darkened the Sun at Noon and over-spread the Vallies but even now green proud and luxuriant in the Plenty and Fruit they bore Just so the Turk from an inconsiderable beginning contemned and scorned by his petty Neighbours much more by the Puissance and Power of the Grecian Emperours came on a suddain like a Whirl-wind from the East and like Locusts over-spread the Face of Asia and now feeds and triumphs in the most pleasant and opulent parts of Europe But because Providence in this World doth not ordinarily dispose of things without rational Causes and previous Dispositions not to dispute here that which some affirm concerning a certain period prefixed by the secret Counsel of God's decree to the Continuance and Being of all Governments no more rational Causes can be assigned to have concurred towards the destruction of the Grecian Dominion and Liberty than their own luxurious Security Avarice and Faction Their delight in ease begot in them negligence and security in their Affairs blindly permitting the Turks to pass over the Bosphorus and build a Castle on the European side under the notion of a Sheep-pen or Inclosure for their Cattel and on the other side of the Hellespont took little notice when their Armies were transported and had taken a Fort Which the Greeks called by the name of A Stye of Hogs they laughed at the Turks for contending for a Stye and so continued in this careless way of living and drollery until the Enemy from the Kennel of unclean Beasts had penetrated into the Palaces of their Emperour and violated all the Sanctuaries of Divine and Humane Rites Covetousness in like manner which is the root of all Evils robbed the Treasury of their Princes and the Officers with Detestable Corruption preyed on what was levied for the maintenance of War and having enriched their own Coffers starved the Publick by which means all Warlike Preparations ceasing the Souldiery became mutinous and unruly and the People faint and discouraged The Factions also in the Civil Government were not less dangerous caused by Emulations Jealousies and Treachery Evils incident even at this day unto the Nature of this People for their Hatred and Dissensions were heightened with such inveterate Malice each towards other as could more easily submit to an Enemy than condescend to a Citizen Externo potius applicet quam Civi cedat With this quarrelsome temper of the Greeks Q. Flaminius was anciently so well acquainted that fearing their Dissensions amongst themselves after he had withdrawn his Army from Greece might expose them to the Sword of Philip of Macedon and Nabis the Tyrant exhorted all the States of Greece to Unity and Agreement which like the Bundle of Arrows could hardly be broken by the greatest Force The foregoing disorders and this factious temper were Preludes to the destruction of the Grecian Empire which first being made Christian and equally glorious to any Church of Christ both for Multitude and for the Zeal of Professors was through the Grace of God more excellently prepared with Passive Vertues to sustain the Yoke of the Grand Oppressor which was imposed on them for not better observing the Law of Christ's Kingdom In this condition we are now to consider of this lost and undone Empire whose Crown and Diadem being fallen to the Ground and not farther to be accounted amongst the great Potentates who sway and govern the Earth we are to treat of it as of a number of People professing the Gospel of Christ and in Spiritual Matters submitting with all obedience to the Government and Rule prescribed them by such Pastors and Ministers as have by succession of Ages been instituted and set over them by Christ and his Apostles And being here to speak of a Church-Christian we are not to treat of it as of a single Province as of Hellas or as confined to Attica alone Ab Isthmi Angustiis Hellas incipit nor as afterwards by enlargement of the Macedonian Dominion over the lesser Commonwealths the Achivi Danai Myrmidones Pelasgi and Argivi were nominated with the common appellation of Grecians But we are here to consider them both as Hellenes properly of the Greek Nation as denoted in Scripture 1 Cor. 1. v. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Greeks seek Wisdom and as such a number of Christians who in any part of the World submit to the Government of one of the four Patriarchs The Greek Church is ancient and had the Blessing and Honour to be taught by the Apostles themselves for St. Paul himself was their great Doctor by whom the Gospel was first preached at Philippi in Macedonia next at Thessalonica the chief City in Mygdonia then at Athens in Attica and Corinth in Peloponesus Apollos also came from Ephesus being instructed by Aquila and Priscilla and preached the Gospel in Achaia Acts 18. 24. And so gloriously was the Doctrine of Christianity received and propagated by the vast numbers of Christians who crouded into the Church that for the better Government thereof it was thought fit and necessary to dispose them under several Jurisdictions so St. Paul constituted Dionysius at Athens Aristarchus at Thessalonica Epaphroditus at Philippi Silas at Corinth Timothy at Ephesus and Titus in the Isle of Crete now called Candia and so generally were the Greeks in those days converted to the Christian Faith that a Grecian and a Christian were almost convertible Terms comprehending as it were the whole Body of the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Jew first and then to the Gentile or Greek Rom. 2. v. 9 10. But how ancient this Church was with what Zeal it begun with what Glory and Magnificence it shined under the protection and succour of its nursing Fathers the Grecian Emperours is not our Theme in this following Treatise But our Subject here is more Tragical the subversion of the Sanctuaries of Religion the Royal Priesthood expelled their Churches and those converted into Moschs the Mysteries of the Altar conceal'd in secret and dark places for such I have seen in Cities and Villages where I have travelled rather like Vaults or Sepulchres than Churches having their Roofs almost levelled with the Superficies of the Earth lest the most ordinary exsurgency of structure should be accused for triumph of Religion and to stand in competition with the lofty Spires of the Mahometan Moschs But so it became Christ to suffer and in imitation of that Grand Exemplar his Church as Members of his Mystical Body conforms to his admirable Humility and Patience whereby the promise of our Saviour is verified That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against his Church and that Tyranny and Oppression shall never subdue the Constancy or abate the loud Profession of the Christian Religion And as the increase and prevalency of the Christian Faith against the violence of Kings and Emperours and all the Terrours of Death is a demonstration of its verity so the stable perseverance in these our days of
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin 26. The Arch-Angel Gabriel APRIL 23. Saint George 25. Saint Mark the Evangelist MAY. 8. S. John the Evangelist which we keep the 26. of December 20. Constantine and S. Helena JUNE 19. S. Jude Alpheus with us observed the 28. of October 24. The Nativity of S. John Baptist. 29. The Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul JULY 20. Elias the Prophet 25. S. Anne 26. S. Parascheve and Panteleemon who were Martyrs in the time of Dioclesian AUGUST 6. The Transfiguration of Christ. 15. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin 29. The Martyrdom of S. John Baptist. But because that the observation of so many Holy-days would be grievous to the poor who live by their day-labour many of them are retrenched and are made obligatory only to the Religious such as Priests and others in holy Orders the which I have marked thus * for the better distinction of them from those which are kept by all sorts of people but hereof I have set down very few the foregoing being almost all to be observed and every day in the year hath some relation to a Saint which the Kaloires who have nothing else to do keep with a particular devotion The Rule for canonizing Saints is still observed in the Patriarchal See at Constantinople for though as we have said their Menology is already so filled that one day is assigned to two or three Saints yet not to suffer good men and Saints now so rare in the world to lose their esteem amongst men who have their reward with God they sometimes even unto our days enter such into the Canon whose Miracles and sanctity of life have raised into the seraphical Order of holy men which after their death are to be testified by a 1000 Witnesses◠who have either seen them or heard their actions recounted by the undoubted Testimonies of credible persons of which a diligent Examination being made by the Patriarch and Archbishops in a full Synod they admit him or them into the Kalendar and say his Mass on the day appointed for his Festival adjoining thereunto Hymns in honour of that Saint reading a Relation of his Miracles and Good Works entering the History of his life into their Synaxarion or Book of Saints but this Canonization is now seldom practised because it cannot be purchased without much Money and the Greeks being wicked and poor in these days few or none are either so good or have Friends so piously rich as to procure their Enrolment into the Golden List of Saints and Martyrs After the Commands of the Church we are next in order to treat of the Mysteries which are seven and answer to those which the Roman Church calls Sacramenta First Baptism second Chrism third the Holy Eucharist fourth Priesthood fifth Matrimony sixth Repentance seventh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Oyl of Prayer CHAP. VII Of Baptism and the sealing of Infants called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IN imitation of Christ's Presentation in the Temple and the blessing of old Simeon when he sang his Nunc dimittis the Greek Church hath from long Antiquity practised on the eighth day to present their Children at the Church-Porch to receive the blessing of the Priest who signs them on the Forehead Mouth and Breast with the sign of the Cross as a Seal of the Divine Grace and a disposition to receive the Holy Baptism which they call The sealing of infants and afterwards says this Prayer O our God we beseech thee to infuse the light of thy person on this thy Servant and seal the Cross of thy only begotten Son in his heart and in his thoughts that he may fly the vanities of this World and the snares of the Enemy and follow thy Commands Confirm him O Lord in thy name unite him in thy good time to thy Holy Church and perfect him by thy stupendious mysteries that so living according to thy commands he may obtain the Kingdom of Beatitude with thine Elect through the Grace and Mercy of thy only Son to whom with the Life-giving Spirit be Glory now and for ever Amen Afterwards the Priest taking the Child into his Arms before the Gate of the Church elevates it and waves it in the form of a Cross and so ends this Ceremony which is the introduction and preparation to Baptism Baptism as the Greek Church defines it is a cleansing or taking away of Original Sin by thrice dipping or plunging into the Water the Priest saying at every dipping In the name of the Father Amen and of the Son Amen and of the Holy Ghost Amen This thrice dipping or plunging into the Water this Church holds to be as necessary to the form of Baptism as Water to the matter for proof whereof is brought the 50th Canon called Apostolical which says Si quis Episcopus aut Presbyter non trinam dimersionem unius mysterii celebret sed semel mergat in Baptismate quod dari videtur in domini morte damnetur Non enim dixit vobis Dominus In morte mea baptizate sed Euntes docete omnes gentes in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus sancti In like manner they produce the 42 Chapter of the Apostles Constitutions wherein they have these words Ter mergite vos Episcopi in unum Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum If any Bishop or Presbyter shall not use a three-fold dipping in this one mystery but only dips once in Baptism let him be condemned c. In farther favour hereof are quoted the Homilies of St. Chrysostom who rhetorically discoursing of the Vertues and Efficacy of Baptism he symbolizeth it with the Life Death and Resurrection of a Christian for the first plunging into Water as he saith buries the old man of sin the second regenerates and revives him to a new Creature and the third raises him to the perfection of life Eternal according to that of S. Paul We are buried with Christ through Baptism that we might rise with him so that the Greek Church which receives the whole number of the 85 Canons which for their Antiquity are called Apostolical as made by the Apostles themselves or the next succeeding Apostolical men doth believe them to carry very great force with them and therefore the Ter mergite is as constantly practised as if it had been the interpretation of Ite Baptizate The which Canon being very ancient was first ordained against certain Hereticks who denyed the Holy Trinity Baptizing only in the name of Jesus on those words of the Apostle before quoted We are buried with Christ by Baptism c. in opposition to whom these three Immersions were used for they cannot deny the Trinity who in Baptism distinguish three persons in the Divine Nature Wherefore though nothing is essential to Baptism nor other Precept than to be dipped or sprinkled in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost yet to make a more exact Test to say who were Hereticks and who were not
Christian Faith for it being inhabited by many Greeks is adorned with no less than Twelve Churches of which S. Mary's and S. George's are the chief which we visited there the Chief Papa's presented before us some Manuscripts of the Gospel pretending them to be very ancient but we could hardly be perswaded to believe them so because the Gospel of S. John as the prime Apostle of Asia was prefixed in the first place and because the Chapters were not disposed in their due form and order but according only to the method observed in their Missals The situation of Philadelphia is on the rising of the Mountain Tmolus having a pleasant prospect on the plains beneath well furnished with divers Villages and watered as I take it by the Pactolus The only raritie which the Turks show in that place to Travellers is a wall of Mens bones which they report to have been erected by the Prince which first took that City who having slaughtered many of the besieged in a sally for the terrour of those which survived raised a wall of their bones which is so well cemented and the bones so entire that I brought a piece thereof with me from thence About 27 miles to the Northwest from Philadelphia lye the ruines of the Anciently famous City of Sardis one likewise of the seven Churches of which Strabo gives this account 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The City of Sardis is great and ancient and yet of later days than the State of the Trojans It hath a Castle well fortified and is the Capital City of the Lydians called by Homer Maeone the Mountain Tmolus hangs over this City on the top of which is erected a high Tower of white Stone built after the Persian manner from whence is a pleasing prospect overall the adjacent plains and thence also you may take a view of the Cayister Out of the Tmolus flows the Pactolus whose streams of ancient times carried great Flakes of Gold with its current from whence Craesus and his Ancestors amassed their Riches But now the springs of Gold are failed The Rivers Pactolus and Hyllas fall into the Hermus and afterwards those three joyned with more ignoble streams empty themselves into the Phocean Sea now called Fogia or rather Fochia But whatsoever this City was in former days it is now only a poor Habitation of Shepherds living in low and humble Cottages howsoever the ancient Pillars and Ruines list up their heads as unwilling to lose the memory of their ancient Glory once the Seat of the rich Craesus This City is also seated at the foot of the Tmolus as Strabo before-mentioned hath well described it the which also Pliny confirms in these words Celebratur maxime Sardis in latere Montis Tmoli c. The Castle which is erected on a high and steep Mountain is very difficult to ascend and almost inaccessible by force of Arms but being on the top there appears the most pleasant prospect that ever my eyes beheld to which the Pactolus gives a wonderful embellishment which turns and winds so delightfully through all the Plains watering all parts about in that manner as to make that Country exceeding fertile and rich and from thence might give occasion of that saying that the Pactolus ran with golden streams Over the Gate I read this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pergamus another of those seven Churches of Asia called by the Turks Bergam which was amongst the rest so highly honoured with the aforesaid Divine Epistle lyes about Sixty Miles North-ward from Smyrna once the Regal City over the Provinces of Mysia AEolis Jonia Lydia and Caria and afterwards bequeathed to the Roman Empire by the Will and Testament of Attalus the last King thereof whose Antiquity and Fame is celebrated and recorded in Strabo in this manner Lysimachus the Son of Agathocles one of the successours of Alexander kept his Treasure at Pergamus the situation whereof is on the side of a small Hill or Mount which near the top ends in a Conical Form The charge and defence of this City was committed to Philetaetus an Eunuch who amidst many Treasons and Revolutions remained faithful to his Prince concerning the Government of the Castle for the space of 20 years during which time Lysimachus being slain by Seleucus Nicator the eldest Son of Philetaetus called Eumenes obtained the Government of the City and Country of Pergamus whose Son Eumenes overthrew Antiochus the Son of Seleucus in the plains of Sardis him Attaâ—us succeeded who was the first that was honoured with the Title of King After he overcame the Galatae or Gallo-Grecians in a bloody Battel and was he who joyning confederacy with the Romans against King Philip was their true and faithful Ally to whose Son Eumenes after the victory over Antiochus in the plains of Magneâ—â—â— at Sipylum was committed the Government of all that Country which extends it self to the Mountain Taâ—reo But that which I observed of the City Pergamus as it now stands at present is this that its situation is on the side of a Hill which Strabo saith is in a Conical Form having a prospect into a most pleasant and fruitful Plain watered by the River Caicus and abounding with all sorts of Fruits the Earth also yielding with little pains or industry causes the people to become lazy and negligent which manured with the same care as is practised in the like naturally happy Countries would prove one of the most fertile Gardens and Paradises of the World for from the top of that small hill which over-shadows the City small I say in respect of the adjacent Mountains on which stands an ancient Castle or rather the Walls thereof ill repaired so pleasant a prospect discovers it self on all sides of the Plain as for some hours may well entertain the Eyes of a Stranger with great delight The Inhabitants being slothful and abhorring labour addict themselves principally to Thefts and Robberies being more pleased to seize a Booty in their Plains with rapine and violence than with honest and religious labour to purchase their Bread by turning up the rich Clods of their Native Soyl by which means this City goes more and more to decay and ruine meerly for want of Industry So that whereas about 10 years past there were 53 Streets of this Town inhabited there are now only 22 frequented the others are deserted and their Buildings go to ruine Here are still many remains and appearances of antique Buildings such as vast Pillars of Marble subverted One place seems to have been the Palace of the Prince still conserved by Columns of polished Marble which like Buttresses support the Wall for at least 50 paces in length There are also the Ruines of several Churches one of which more spacious and magnificent than the rest is by Tradition of the Greeks of that Country reported to have been dedicated to Saint
who are most signal for their Piety and Learning The Patriarch of Constantinople besides the extent of his Jurisdiction is of greater power by reason of his Vicinity to the Court but the Alexandrian is of greater Authority in his Ecclesiastical Censures and Civil Regimen stiling himself with the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judge of the world And the Patriarchs of Antiochia and Jerusalem by reason of their poverty not having sufficient to subsist are little reverenced by the Turks or their own People The Patriarch of Constantinople who was so great and opulent under the Christian Emperours is now reduced to a narrow Fortune being deprived of his certain and setled Revenue by the violence and sacriledge of the common Enemy to the Church of Christ so that the chief income is accidental arising from the death of Bishops Arch-Bishops and ordinary Priests and from such as are consecrated and admitted into their Diocesses and Parishes What a deceased Priest leaves not having Children accrues to the Patriarch as to the common Father and Heir of them all from which arises a considerable Revenue every year The other Patriarchal Sees by reason of the paucity and poverty of the Christians are worse provided but yet being far from the Court have not so many nccessities to satisfie The chief subsistence of the secular Priests is from the charity of the People but they being cold in that Vertue as well as in their Devotion contribute faintly on the days of Offering so that the Clergy who are the Guardians of the Holy Mysteries are forced to sell the Ordinances of the Church for their own subsistence none being able to receive Absolution or be admitted to Confession or procure Baptism for their Children or enter into a state of Matrimony or divorce his Wife or obtain Excommunication against another or Communion for the sick without an agreement first for the price which the Priests hold up as they discover the Zeal and Abilities of the party who cheapens them When the Holy Church triumphed in the days of Constantine the Great the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople were independent each of other and afterwards they were also made of equal honour and power but in regard that for better order and distinction it was necessary they two being to meet and concur in the same Council that the precedency of place should first be determined The priority of Order not of Authority was adjudged to the Pope lest old Rome which was the ancient Mistress of the World should lose her honour in yielding to the new which was Constantinople and had no greater Dignity or Fame than that which she challenged and borrowed from the presence and brightness of the others Emperours and so much Socrates Scholasticus affirms in these words In the Council of Constantinople Anno 385. in the Reign of Theodosius the Emperour when Nectanius was chosen Bishop it was decreed That the Bishop of Constantinople should possess the next place and prerogative after the Bishop of Rome And likewise it was determined in the Council of Chalcedon Can. 28. That the Bishops Seat of new Rome that is Constantinople should enjoy equal priviledges with old Rome and in all Ecclesiastical matters to be extolled and magnified as that of Rome being the second in order after her the words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor did the Bishop of Rome ever preside in the first six General Councils which only are received by the whole Church either by himself or his Legates This and such-like honour of precedency the Church of Greece may yield unto the Church of Rome and perhaps now rather in these times of Oppression wherein being humbled by the hand of God they seek not worldly Honours nor swelling Titles nor Dominions but are desirous only to govern in the Hearts and Affections of their people Ambitio cupido gloriae faelicium hominum sunt affectus saith Tacitus However the Oriental Confession doth not seem to condescend so far in that it declares That notwithstanding the priority of Honour and Antiquity which was formerly given to Jerusalem and other Churches before that of Constantinople yet afterwards the Council of Constantinople and Chalcedon did give the primacy of honour unto new Rome and to the Clergy thereof by reason of the Imperial Power whose Seat was there But let us not only hear what the Greeks themselves do utter in this point but observe the words of that famous Venetian Father Paul Sarpus who in the 25th Chapter of his History of the Inquisition hath these pertinent and impartial words The Eastern and Western Churches continued both in Communion and Christian Charity for the space of nine hundred years and more in which time the Pope of Rome was reverenced and esteemed no less by the Greeks than by the Latines He was acknowledged for the Successor of St. Peter and chief of all the Eastern Catholick Bishops In the Persecutions raised by Hereticks they implored his Aid and of other Bishops of Italy and this Peace was easily kept because the Supreme Power was in the Canons to which both parts acknowledged themselves subject Ecclesiastical Discipline was severely maintained in each Country by the Prelates of it not arbitrarily but absolutely according to Order and Canonical Rigour none putting his hand into the Government of another but advised one the other to the observance of the Canons In those days never any Pope of Rome did pretend to confer Benefices in the Diocesses of other Bishops neither was the custome yet introduced of getting mony out of others by way of Dispensations or Bulls But as soon as the Court of Rome began to pretend that it was not subject to Canons and that she might according to her own discretion alter any Order of the Fathers Councils and of the Apostles themselves and that she attempted instead of the ancient Primacy of the Apostolical See to bring in an absolute Dominion not ruled by any Law or Canon then the division grew And as this division grew between the Eastern and Western Churches for the causes aforesaid so the same Reasons were the causes of division and separation in the Western Church it self for as to considering men nothing seemed more absurd than the Usurpation of Rome over other Churches independent thereon in secular Government so to the people who lived under its Dominion nothing could be more Tyrannical and oppressive CHAP. IV. The Opinion of the Greek Church concerning that Article in the Nicene Creed I believe one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church and what Authority and Power is given by them thereunto THE See of Rome taking it for granted that she is the head of the Catholick Church would seem to deduce from that Principle undeniable consequences of Infallibility of Priviledges Power and Jurisdiction as ample and as extensive as the absolute and supreme Authority of our Lord and Master Jesus But this being a Foundation rather
supposed than real presumed gratis and not granted that Universal Jurisdiction becomes as empty and airy as those Titles which Popes give to those Patriarchs and Bishops whom they constitute over the several Diocesses of the Eastern Churches though they neither have a Revenue from thence nor Command over any of the Greek perswasion To evince which with more Evidence it will be pertinent to understand what Confession herein the Oriental Church makes and layes down for Orthodox viz. That as there is one Faith one Baptism one God and one Father of all so the Church of God is one Holy Catholick and Apostolick which denomination of Catholick they are the very words of the Confession the Church doth not take from one particular place or See predominant over all others as from Ephesus Philadelphia Laodicea Antioch Rome Jerusalem or the like but from an aggregation of all the Christian Churches in the World collected into one Body and united under one head Christ Jesus It is true saith this Confession that Jerusalem may properly be called the Mother Church of the World it having been the Stage whereon the Mystery of man's Redemption was represented and the place where the Gospel was first preached and the Fountain from whence were derived through the World the Streams of that Holy Doctrine which published the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour and made known unto the World the glad Tidings of Repentance and remission of Sins but can betermed the Universal Mother with no more right than any other though if any particular Church can pretend thereunto that of Jerusalem might challenge an Authority and Priviledge above others having in the Infancy of Religion Acts II. v. 22. sent forth her Teachers and Pastors into all places and was famed for the glorious Blood of the Primitive Martyrs Whereby it is evident that the Greek Faith acknowledges no other Universal Head or Foundation than Jesus Christ himself under whom the Patriarchs Arch-bishops and Bishops of particular Churches subjected to different Powers of secular Government exercise their sway and jurisdiction over Human Souls Acts 20. v. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops By which it appears That the Greek Church doth not only not esteem the Church of Rome for the sole Catholick but also how absurd it is in reason to exclude the Greek the Armenian and many other Christan Churches from the pale of the Universal and consequently from the Benefits and Promises purchased by Christ for his Church And strange it is that none besides the Roman which is not of that extent as the vast Circumference of the other Christian Churches should yet have the sole Power of the Keys of the Divine Ordination and dispensing the Mysteries of the Holy Sacraments and that such who are excluded or are without her pale should be strangers to the Church of God and Aliens from his People Whilst in this manner the Oriental Churches believe no particular Church to have any other Universal Head than Jesus Christ they bear all obedience and respect to that Church of which they are members submitting to all its Orders and Censures Ecclesiastical for they believe that those words of our Saviour Matth. 18. 27. carry with them some force and authority and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church and if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man or a Publican On this ground the Interpretation of Scripture made by the holy Synods and Councils and the judgments given by Patriarchs Bishops and other Priests according to Canonical Rites are established and esteemed of Divine Authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Priests with them are the mouth of their Spiritual Law and the Guides of their Souls on their Doctrine they entrust and adventure their safe Pilotage to the everlasting Haven of happiness And believing that no Scripture is of private Interpretation they judge it rational to resign themselves intirely to the belief of those to whose conduct they are committed having that high esteem of obedience as that which contains an admirable Vertue and Efficacy to atone for the sins not only of a misled understanding but for Actions of irregular practices And that the people may better understand the Precepts and Rules of the Church the Oriental Confession hath reduced all the commands thereof unto these nine following The first is Prayer to God attending at the times of the Liturgy Morning and Evening on the Lords Day and holy Festivals of the Church The second is the observation of the Fasts and Feasts of the Church The third is Obedience and Honour towards their Spiritual Pastors and Teachers The fourth is Confession of sins four times a year to a Priest lawfully constituted and ordained The fifth forbids the Laity to read the Books of Hereticks or any other which may divert them from the Profession of the Christian Faith The sixth enjoyns them to pray for all Kings and Princes for their Patriarchs Metropolites Bishops and all the Clergy and for all Souls departed in the Catholick Faith and for all Hereticks and Schismaticks that they may return to the true Faith before their passage from this present life The seventh enjoins an Obedience to all extraordinary occasional Fasts besides the Common or General namely such as are appointed and ordained by the Bishops in their respective Diocesses on occasional Calamities such as Famine War Pestilence or the like The eighth forbids the Laity to invade the Rights or Spiritual Livings or Benefices of the Clergy or convert the Ornaments of the Priest or Altar to private and profane uses or sacrilegiously to rob the Poor's Box and abuse the charitable Contributions of well-disposed Christians by employing them contrary to the intention of the Donor The ninth forbids the celebration of Marriages in Lent or during the time of their other Fasts or to frequent Theaters or imitate the Customs of the Barbarians or Infidels that so those who profess the Gospel may be charged with nothing that is over-sensual undecent or of ill report CHAP. V. Of the Fasts of the Greek Church THE Principal Fasts or Lents are four The first begins the 15th day of November being forty days before Christmas The second is the great Lent before Easter beginning with ours according to the Old stile the which stile they observe through the whole year The third begins the Week after Pentecost or Whitsontide called The Fast of the Holy Apostles being the time in which they judge that the Apostles prayed and fasted when they prepared themselves to preach the Gospel Acts 13. v. 3. which ends the 29th of June being the Festival of St. Peter and the other Apostles so that of this Fast there is no fixed number of days but is some years more some less according as the Pentecost falls
torments afflict the soul or make the least satisfaction for sin according to the sentence of the second Council of Constantinople which condemned the Opinion of Origen herein for the soul then becomes uncapable either by its sufferings or repentance to obtain pardon in its own behalf But whatsoever is to be done in this matter is to be performed by the Soul united with the Body in this life afterwards the Bridegroom being entered the Gate is shut and no Path or way is left to repentance only the Prayers of the Saints on Earth their Almes-deeds and Offertories of frequent Sacrifices without Blood with the intercession of the Blessed Martyrs and Church triumphant open the doors of Paradise to languishing and wishing Souls but this is not done until the Judgment of the last day in which interim the Greek Church holds That neither the Sentence of the four Patriarchs nor the Decrees of the Universal Synod nor all the Bishops of the whole World assembled are able by their Autority Bolles or Indulgences to prescribe a time for release of one Soul from the confines of Hell only the Mercies of God who vouchsafes to be moved by the Prayers of the Church can sign this release and delivery at what time he shall think fit And that as the Blessed receive not their repletions of Glory in Heaven until after the day of Judgment so neither shall the Damned their fullness of Torment in everlasting flames By which it appears that the Tenents of the Greek Church are in this point First that the Repository of longing Souls is not locally different from Hell it self Secondly that they endure no other punishment than only the sence of deprivation from God and Heaven and are not purged by Fire and Flames And thirdly that no Indulgences nor Pardons of all the Patriarchs or of the Universal Bishop can by their Autority remit one moment of detention to the imprisoned Souls farther than as they are Members of the Church Militant by whose Prayers and good works only those Souls find ease and benefit and this is the true and certain meaning of the Greek Church in this point against which and their Tenent about the Pontificial Authority the Romanists make their greatest exception CHAP. XV. Of the Fifth Mystery called Marriage MArriage in the Greek Church is called a Mystery being the Union of two Bodies into one Flesh which having a Spiritual Benefit as well as a Politick the Church under all Christian Governments hath taken upon it self the power of tying the Matrimonial Knot of blessing the Parties and of giving or granting rules and limits thereunto The Greek Church retaining unto these days many of the Precepts and Laws of ancient severity and mortification used in the Primitive times of Christianity forbids and declares unlawful the fourth Marriage for though they are subject to the Turks with whom Polygamie is allowable yet they do not only disapprove it as dissentaneous to the Christian Religion but likewise as a matter undecent and savouring too much of the Flesh and sensuality of Concupiscence For a man after he hath buried his first Wife and taken a second and being deprived of that also hath proceeded to the embraces of a third the Church is so far satisfied but gives a stop here judging that where death hath three times made a separation from the Matrimonial Bed there ought a limitation to be set unto farther proceedings that so the Widower may lament and condole the unhappiness of so many deprivements and having proved the troubles and importunities of the Flesh may find time and leisure for Prayer and Repentance The reason that the Greeks give why the fourth Marriage is unlawful is because it would come under the notion of Polygamie which hath been forbidden by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws of Christians for they understand Polygamie to be a Conjunction of divers Copulatives in number which is not understood until a person proceeds unto a fourth Wife which makes more than one Copulative in the rule of Marriage but this allegation is so frivolous and unsatisfactory that I cannot understand the nicety and therefore rather believe that this prohibition was grounded on the ancient Customs of the Church when mortifications were more in use and all luxurious indulgence to carnality generally condemned and out of fashion as appears by the Writings of S. Augustine lib. 3. cap. 18. de doct Christ. lib. 16. contra Faustâ—â—â— against which also S. Jerom in his Epistles so much inveighs that he stiles the second Marriage little better than Fornication what censure then is it likely that he would pass on the fourth or fifth Marriages and herein hath been great variety of Opinions in former Ages as Socrates Schol. saith lib. 5. c. 21. The Novatians in Phrygia allow not of a second Marriage such as inhabit Constantinople do neither receive nor reject it again such as are in the Western parts of the World admit it wholly the Original Authors of so great diversity were Bishops who governed the Churches at divers and at several times How strict soever this Church is esteemed in admitting many degrees of Marriage that is of proceeding farther than to the fourth Marriage yet through corruption and poverty of the Clergy the dissolution of that Knot is with much more facility obtained so that it is ordinary for a man to take out a Divorce from the Patriarch and to marry another Woman and the Patriarch afterwards to alter his Sentence and enjoyn the Party to reassume his first Wife leaving the ignorant soul as well confused in his love as in his Conscience The reason hereof is rather Ignorance in Government than the Authority of any Canon whereby such a liberty is dispensed for the Metropolites as well as the Priests being miserably poor their Divorces as well as Excommunications are made vendible from whence yearly accrues a considerable benefit to the Church and perhaps also this freedom may the more easily be indulged in imitation and complyance with the Government under which they live The Ceremonies used at their Marriages are some of them serious and significant and others too light and frivolous for so considerable and important a part of Religion for though their Prayers and Collects at this Service are holy and full of apt and Divine Expressions and the use of the Ring is very decent and becoming but the changing of Garlands from the Bridegroom to the Bride the giving them Wine and sugared Confects in a Spoon and tying them with a Garter and rocking them together are Ceremonies and Toys which seem too mean and low and not aptly fitted to an Institution so serious and and important as this The Greeks being a people of a merry and sanguine complexion are wanton and unconstant in their Amours so that it is usual as amongst other Nations for them to make Addresses to one Mistress and pass to the Marriage of another for which they commonly give their Sponsalia
also they make but one meal they are to return betimes to their Vespers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which with an entire rehearsal of the Psalter they are daily obliged and this is that which employs their whole time on days of Fasting which tedious and indiscreet length of Liturgies I have observed to abate so much the heat of true zeal and affection which ought to be in the Worship of that pure and incomprehensible Spirit of God Almighty that the Priests run over their Offices as the School-boys do their Tasks pronouncing their words so swift and thick as renders them inarticulate and unintelligible and are of no savour or energy to persons who desire to prosper in Devotion To all these Prayers and Offices they repeat an additional Lecture of the life of some Saint which serves in the place of a Sermon or Homily of which one being read for every day the whole Summary of that Book may be finished in the whole course or circle of the year the which Book is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Collection of Acts and Histories CHAP. XVII Of Pictures and Images in the Greek Church THE Greeks in their Churches make use of Pictures for Adornment History and Worship they burn Lamps before them perfume them with Incense beginning and ending their Prayers with reverend bowings and crossings before the representations and figures of Saints to which end there is always layed on a Desk the Picture of the Virgin Mary and S. George which they kiss at their coming in or going out of the Church and at some grand Period of their Liturgy But all carved Images they abhor and Anathematize the adorers of Sculptile Representations because they have formerly been abused to Idolatry with the same maledictions as they do those who are Adversaries to both And that we may exactly deliver the Tenent of the Greek Church herein we have faithfully rendred in the words following their clear Sentence and Opinion being what is delivered as the undoubted faith of the Oriental Churches Great say they is the difference between Idols and Representations For Idols are figures of mans invention as the Apostle testifies We know that an Idol in the world is nothing 1 Cor. 8. 4. but an Image is a representation of some true transaction of what hath passed and been transacted in the World as the Picture of our Saviour of the holy Virgin Mary and of all the Saints But different from this the Gentiles worshipped their Idols who adored them as Gods and offered incense unto them saying That Gold and Silver were Gods as Nebuchadnezar did But we when he honour and adore Pictures do not worship the Wood nor Colours but those Saints whose Representations they are We honour them with the reverence of Servants figuring in our minds the person and presence of those Saints As when we bow to a Crucifix we form in our minds Christ hanging on the Cross for our salvation to which we encline our heads and knees with thanksgiving In like manner when we worship the Image of the Virgin Mary we raise our Contemplations unto that holy Mother of God We bow our heads and knees to her and pronounce her blessed above all men or Women The same may be said of the Arch-Angel Gabriel by which it appears that this is not the same Service which we offer unto God Nor do those of the Orthodox Faith allow of the graven Workmanship of Images to the life but only the Countenances of Saints whose persons they represent For as the Cherubims over-shadowing the Ark of the Covenant did represent those true Cherubims in Heaven which remain in the presence of God and were honoured and adored by the Israelites without transgression of that Commandment And when the Children of Israel worshipped the Tabernacle of the Covenant and lodged it with decent and due honour they committed no sin nor made invalid the Commands of the Decalogue but rather declare that God is wonderful in his Saints Only it is requisite that the Image have some lively resemblance of the Saint it represents that the mind of him that prayes may be the more easily affected thereby And for the better confirmation of the worship of holy and sacred Images the Church of God in the Seventh Universal Synod hath anathematized all such as do oppose them and hath authorized and for ever established the adoration of venerable Images as appears in the Ninth Canon of that Synod Hereby it is evident what Opinion the Greek Church holds concerning the use of Pictures in Churches which whilest they pretend to maintain from Antiquity and the Authority of a Synod though of late date and later received amongst them they despise the Sentence of their great Doctor and Father St. Basil therein who in his 70 th Epistle to the Bishops of France and Italy complains of the persecution arisen in the Oriental Churches for that either the faithful were forced to adore Images or resign their Bodies to the flames 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor can this be understood of the Images of Heathens in which Divine Worship was terminated for he declares a little before that this persecution was of a different nature to those in past times when the Gentiles tormented the Professors of Christianity But now those that bear the glorious name of Christians condemned the others to banishment to Flames to Prison and all kind of Torments for no other Crime than for observance and defence of the Primitive Tradition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which it is evident That Arianism in those days prevailing Christian Hereticks were then the Persecutors both for the enforcement of the Doctrine of Arius and the worship of Images And howsoever the Greeks distinguish and moderate their terms in the worship of Pictures in which to speak indifferently their Churches do not much abound there being seldom other Pictures which adorn their Walls or Portals of their Chancels than the representation of our Saviour the Blessed Virgin S. Michael the Arch-Angel and S. George to which though they yield much reverence yet they are not so apt to attribute the power of working Miracles unto them as they are in Spain and Italy Notwithstanding which considering the scandal which Pictures and Images in the Oratories and places of Gods worship administer to Turks Jews and other Enemies of the Gospel in the Eastern parts it were better that they were wholly taken away for they not being capable to comprehend the niceties of distinction in Divine Worship which the Schools and subtile men have formed to clear themselves in this case from the imputation of Idolatry reproach the Professors of the Christian Faith with the Infamy of that irrational sin which Christians first preached against and confounded and have thereby taken that Offence as may with good reason be believed hath in these latter days affrighted many from embracing the Gospel And though the Greeks would seem to use some caution herein
of the Turk hoping that this Argument might be sufficient to procure the bannishment of all the Roman Clergy and that others of the same Sect terrifyed with the thoughts of loosing their Estates and the Country in which they were born might be forced to an adherence to this Church and to an acknowledgment of the Metropolite's Jurisdiction To effect which Design the better the Bishop associated to himself a Greek Priest a man of no mean Capacity and well practised in the Turkish Law and Language and so well acquainted with the great men amongst the Turks that the Latines gave him the Nick-name of Papas Mustapha To help which design forward the Greek Church at Scio happened at that time to be indebted to certain great men about the Court to whom speedy payment was promised with an unconscionable Interest if the Revenue of the Latine Diocess were annexed to the Greek Jurisdiction with which benefit these Unbelievers being moved and valuing more the advantage of the Money than the justice of the Cause obtained by their power and interest at Court a Command to this effect First That the Latine Bishop at Scio for the future should have no farther Jurisdiction over those of the Latine Church but that all should depend in that Island on the Metropolite 2. That no Matrimony or other Ecclesiastical Rite should be celebrated without particular License of the Greek Metropolite 3. That no Priest of the Latine Church should be ordained without his License 4. That the Metropolite by vertue of his Command should take possession of the greatest part of the Churches which belonged to the Latines 5. That the Latine Bishop should render an Account to the Metropolite of all the Proffits that he hath made since his entry into that Diocess and having surrendred and made satisfaction he should depart and commit the Charge of his Flock to the Government of the Greek Metropolite These matters being of high concernment and seeming intollerable to the Latines at Scio they with great Fury unanimously resolved to loose or hazard all rather than to subject themselves to the Tyranny of another Church Wherefore the Bishop with ten others appointed by publick Election to attend him departed towards Adrianople venting many menacing Speeches and flourishes of their Power to be revenged on the Greek Metropolite These took their Journey by way of Constantinople to consult with others of the same Religion and to try in what manner the Patriarch stood affected to these Practices The Metropolite on the other side thought it not time to sit longer quiet and therefore speedily hastned to Adrianople well knowing that the first complaint hath the advantage and commonly takes the best impression with the Turks to obtain which he proceeds directly and arrives before his Adversaries during which time he so dexterously represented the evil inclinations of the Latine Church to the Welfare of the Ottoman Empire their Correspondence with Rome and Venice their Designs to extirpate the Greek Church from Scio and make the whole Island Latine towards which by force of great Collections of Money from several parts of Christendom they had made so considerable a progress that by reason of the poverty of the Greeks they had bought the best part of those Churches which for many years and Ages had been appropriated to their Rites and Religion To which Insinuations and others of the like nature the Turks lent an Ear with singular attention who have always found That the differences amongst Christians have ever concluded with gain and benefit unto them especially to the Chimacam called Kara-Mustapha Pasha a person well qualified to manage an Intrigue of this kind to the best advantage blessed and welcomed the opportunity designing to improve the business to the best that he was able And therefore as if the Accusation and Crime had been no less than Treasonable on the side of the Latines he dispatched Commands in a Turkish Fury to bring them to Constantinople The Bishop being advertised hereof whilest he was on his way to the Court made the more haste in By-ways lest he should fall into the hands of the Turkish Officers Howsoever as soon as they arrived at Adrianople as men already convicted were committed to a severe Imprisonment lying for the space of fifteen days and nights with one Leg in the Stocks and the other in Chains But this rigour was not exercised on the Latines in favour to the Greek Cause but only as the most expedite means to extort Money that so they might both buy their Liberty and obtain that the Tryal of their Cause might be referred to the legal and ordinary course of Justice The Chimacam had likewise well squeezed the Greeks and extracted from them no less than 4000 Dollars on promise of favour to their Cause and Interest by punishing their Adversaries in which conceiving that he had already moderately complyed and well deserved the Money from the Greeks he proceeded to exact other 7000 Dollars from the Latines and so being by this time indifferently disposed towards both Parties he appointed a day for judgment of the Cause in the Method of which Proceedings and in Conclusion of this business we shall find him to act with the same equallity as he hath done in all Affairs since he hath been promoted to the charge of Supreme Vizier The day being come and both sides appearing the Greek Papas inveighed furiously against the disaffection of the Latines to the Ottoman Empire and that for his own part though he wore the Cross yet he could fight under the Half-moon with suchlike terms of flattery and dissimulation Those on the other side vindicated themselves of those Aspersions making professions of their quietness and obedience to the Power under which they lived and next proved the ancient possessions of their Churches most of which they enjoyed by vertue of their Capitulations and the rest by Title of purchase confirmed by a long tract of time beyond the term of any prescription The Chimacam having been mollified by both parties gladly carried an even and moderate hand towards both and therefore as inclining to neither party adjudged some of those Churches to the Latines and as if the Title to the others had been more intricate and different he referred the determination thereof to the Pasha and Kadi of Scio giving the Greeks a Command under-hand and privately that what Churches had not remained in the possession of the Latines for above 60 years should notwithstanding all Reasons to the contrary be adjudged again to the right of the Greeks And in this manner both parties setting forward on their Journey as contented and victorius to Scio with equal hopes of success being there arrived soon appeared and joyned issue together before the Pasha But the Metropolite producing his Command of which his Adversaries had no knowledge or suspition Sentence was given according thereunto whereby the Latines were deprived of above 60 Churches And this was the issue for that time
inclined to the Mathematicks or any other Learning but such as is their diet which consists of such things as send up gross fumes to the head such is their temper and genius The Turks give them the name of Bokegees and the Jews esteem them to have been of the ancient Race of the Amalekites being a People whom they envy because they will not easily be cheated by them in their dealings Howsoever I have known some of these men who have received their Education in Italy to be well accomplished and men of an acute understanding and pleasing in their behaviour So that some persons who have travelled Armenia ascribe this heaviness of Complexion to the air of their Country which is imprisoned in the vast Woods of Mulberry-trees and thickned by the Vapours of their Fens and Marshes and Winds from the Caspian Sea to which they add those ungrateful steams which proceed from the Caldrons wherein they boil their Silk-worms which as they prove noxious and in time deadly to those who are employed about them so do they infuse into the air so malignant a fume as even enters into the Veins of men and possesses them with a strange stupidity and unactiveness of soul. Their Country was conquered in the year 1515 by Selimus the First and annexed to the Ottoman Dominions under whose Tyranny and Oppression we are to consider the afflictions of that Christian Church Armenia whilst subjected to the Roman Empire was one and the same Church with the Grecian maintaining the same Doctrine and acknowledging the patriarch of Constantinople for their Primate and head of their Church to whom the Council of Calcedon assigned it as part of his Province and Diocess until that afterwards differences in Government and vicissitude of things arising have divided them one from the other in their Doctrine and Discipline CHAP. II. Of their Patriarchs and Government in the Church THeir Church is ruled by four Patriarchs the chiefest of which had formerly his Residence at Sebastia in Armenia but now by those Priviledges which the King of Persia hath indulged unto them beyond the Immunities of the Turks is removed and abides at Etchmeasin a principal Monastery near Rivan in Persia. The second hath his abode at Sis in Armenia minor not far from Canshahar sixteen days journey from Etchmeasin Eastward near Candakar The third abides at Canshahar The fourth patriarch lives at Achtamar The which four Patriarchs govern all the Armenian Church independant of each other though the priority of honour and precedency is given to the Patriarch of Etchmeasin to whom the others have recourse in all matters of difficulty and Counsel and the presence and concurrence of these four either in person or by their Substitutes is necessary to the Constitution or Ordination of a Priest which is performed as among us by imposition of hands It is true that at Constantinople and at Jerusalem there are those who are called Armenian Patriarchs but they are titular only made to please and content the Turks who have judged it necessary and agreeable to the Armenian Faith or rather to their own that patriarchs should remain in those places and therefore have enjoined them to constitute such under that notion by which means the Armenian Church maintaining their Representatives at that place they may always know from whom they may exact the money and Presents at a new Investiture and may charge on him all those Avanias or false pretences which they find most agreeable to their own advantage Otherwise I say these Patriarchs are but titular and are in reality no other than Deputies and Suffragans of the Patriarch as are those at Smyrna or Angora where Trade hath convocated great numbers of the Armenian Nation or rather they may be more properly called Bishops under those Patriarchs having the name of Martabet which in their Language signifies a Superintendent or Overseer of the Church A married person whilst married cannot be preferred to this dignity though afterwards his Wife dying he may be capable thereof The Patriarchs have for their maintenance some Revenues in Land which is augmented by the voluntary Contributions of the People who every Sonday and Holy-day bestow something of their Alms either more or less according to their devotion and ability for whensoever the Church is full they make three several Collections the first for Jerusalem the second for Etchmeasin and the third for the Church in which they are and these rounds of the Basin never fail and sometimes a fourth is ordered on some emergent occasion especially if strangers be observed to attend the Ceremony from whom they expect extraordinary liberality And in this kind of begging they are so importunate in some poor Churches that when I have been my self present I have scarce had time to disengage my hand from my Pocket so nimbly the turns went about and so many Briefs for repair of poor Churches and distressed Brethren But besides these Collections the Duties are great which are paid for the Ordinances of the Church as Baptism Marriage Burials c. only Confession and the Communion are freed from Charge or such Exactions for all others there is no set price but men are obliged to pay according to their abilities and the bargain is driven as hard and with as many words and as much noise as this Nation doth usually practise when they sell their Silk or any other Commodity It was before the English Nation at Smyrna had purchased their Coemetery or place of burial for their dead that some of our people were buried in the Armenian Church-yard but the price of six foot of ground was so hardly obtained that a whole Field might have been purchased at a cheaper rate than a narrow Grave I have known a poor Armenian Servant could not be admitted to burial until his friends had paid 30 or 40 Dollars for the ground together with the Offices and Ceremonies for the dead And in this manner the Clergy gain their maintenance who are notwithstanding poor and miserably ignorant Their Fashions and Customs are agreeable to the people of the East or those amongst whom they live whether Turks or Persians They account it a sin to eat Hares and their Flesh is almost as abominable to them as Swines-flesh to a Jew or Turk I have asked them the Reason for it to which they replyed that a Hare was a melancholy Creature and therefore unwholsom besides it was accounted unlucky and portending evil to any man who met one and moreover that the Female was monthly menstruous and unclean but how they can make this good or where or how they learned or observed so much I never could understand from them CHAP. III. Of Etchmeasin THIS Patriarchal Seat is called vulgarly by the name of Etchmeasin but more usually in the parts of Turkey by the denomination of Changlee-Chilse or the Church with Bells having a priviledge from the Sultan to use them which is allowed in no other place that I have
posterity For I perswade my self that had it not been for the extream Ambition of the Roman Jesuitical Clergy on the one side and the too hot and blind Zeal of some Pharisaical Professors on the other Truth might have been established with moderation and all Churches reconciled without railing Accusations or personal Reproaches It is easie to pacifie when both Parties are willing to condescend unto Expedients of Concord and Peace which is then only effected when the Spirits of men are become quiet and sedate by the vertues of Meekness and Charity which are the only rare dispositions unto knowledge and a godly life but when men will soare in their fancies as high as Heaven and there penetrate into the Decrees of Predestination dispute the manner of the Holy Ghost's procession and dive into the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity and Secrets of the Eucharist matters so hidden and abstruse that Angels look into them with wonder and admiration and Humane Reason becomes giddy and blind by too rash an approach to those astonishing lights and loses it's way in that immense cavity and vastness of distance which is between Heaven and Earth And when men do only esteem and indulge their Party and damn all other Societies what can be more destructive to humane Politie How can we expect or hope for the conversion of Turks or Heathens when they shall be affrighted at the Church Gate by some Opposites to one another of their own divided perswasions with the threats of Hell and Damnation and meet almost as many Anathemas as when they remained Infidels How can we expect a Reconciliation and Concord whilst the Papists are so inveterate against the Protestants and all other Christian Churches that those who are most indiscreetly zealous amongst them believe the Foundation of their Faith ought justly to be subverted not only by menacing Bulls and Excommunications but by Fire and Sword by Massacres of the People deposing of Kings by the Papal Authority and by the murder of their true and natural King and of such a King as hath been indulgent to all his Subjects and to them in particular that if Religion had not struck them with an awe and dreadful affrightment of shedding the Blood of God's Anointed yet at least common gratitude and the Bowels of Humanity should have deterred them from a Design so full of horrour and amazement But if the Head be of these Principles what else can we expect from the Members of it If these be the Foundations of their Religion can the super-structure be other than false and wicked for I am confident that that Religion is Unchristian whose Conclusions are Blood and Destruction Whilest the Papists confined their Disputes within those Questions which were controverted Problems such as the Infallibility of the Church Transubstantiation Prayers to Saints and the like on which Volumes have been wrote the Victory seemed doubtful for both sides as in drawn Battels boasted of advantage But when they began to discover the rottenness of their Principles in Morality which is naturally impressed on the Consciences of men and is properly the Light and Lamp of the Soul such Morality I mean as allows mental Reservations Officiosum mendacium or officious Lies and a thousand other Corruptions whereby Equivocations Falsehoods and Lies are not only excused and made lawful but the greatest impurities hallowed and made good then I say their Adversaries took just advantage to render their Principles not only destructive to a Church but inconsistent with the first Elements and Foundations of Government In short therefore there is no way to Concord and Peace but by Charity to Theological knowledge but by Faith and Humility which are Divine Gifts which we must desire and pray for When God shall have conferred these upon us we may lay aside all Disputations and enter into the plain Path nothing is then more easie to be believed than the Symbols of the Apostolical and other Creeds received by the Church Universally nothing more easily practised than the Commands of the Decalogue Fear and love God above all and Love your Neighbour as your self and those especially of the Houshold of Faith this is that which cuts short all Arguments for herein is comprised the Law and the Prophets Considering the Premises I shall not enter the Lists of Disputation against any point maintained by the Greek Church but however shall boldly reprove it in the generality of the people of coldness and want of Devotion seeming only to maintain a meer out-side and shell of Religion laying more stress and efficacy on the observation of their Fasts performed with rigour and severity and their Feasts celebrated with mirth and jollity than on the force of Prayer and energy of a spiritual life And yet I am so far from condemning their Lents and Fasts which are so ancient as may well be believed to have been Apostolical that I have entertained frequent imaginations in my mind that in so great looseness of life and decay of Discipline it was an especial Grace and Favour of God that the severity of Lents should still be maintained and observed in those parts whereby the People are restrained from Luxury curbed from Prophaness and Wantonness and affected with some impressions of Religion for whilest they fear to eat any thing though in secret which is a breach of Lent they seem sensible of the danger of what they apprehend evil and capable of more lively and more substantial impressions But the truth is they are ill instructed or rather not taught at all Sermons and Catechising are rare amongst them Masses and Divine Service hudled and run over in a cursory and negligent manner and all Offices performed so perfunctorily and with so little Devotion that if any people content themselves with the Opus Operatum it may be said to be these or that have a form of Godliness but in many of them too little of the power thereof Yet I cannot but almost retract what I have said when I consider how they are startled and affrighted at the Sentence of Excommunication how strict and frequent some are in their Confessions how obedient and submissive to the censure and injunction of the Priest which certainly do evidence some inward tenderness of Conscience and dispositions towards being edifyed and built up in a more perfect frame and structure of Religion But here I lose my self and am amazed when I contemplate the light of the Gospel which shines in our Islands what daily Lectures we hear from the Pulpits the knowledge we have from the Scriptures expanded and laid open to us in our own Tongue the Divine Mysteries expounded by learned Commentaries and most Mechanicks amongst us more learned and knowing than the Doctors and Clergy of Greece And yet good God! That all this should serve to render us more blind or more perverse for who is it that values the Excommunication of a Bishop or other Ecclesiastical Censures who accounts of Vigils and Fasts according to the
Institutions of the Universal and of their own Church or weighs the private Instructions of a Priest who is the Monitor of his Soul Nay even those who profess Obedience to the Church of England and attribute an efficacy to the power of the Keys and would not for the world be under an Excommunication and hold themselves obliged to celebrate the Feasts with devotion and rejoycing and account the non-observance thereof the Characteristical point of a Phanatick yet when the Anniversary Fasts take their turn which impose the same injunction on them of keeping holy as do the Feasts they find excuses to evade the obligation and dispute against all Penance Mortification and Severities of life as grounded on the Doctrine of Merits and Works of Supererogation And in this manner elude that admirable duty enjoyned by Christ himself where he saith That when the Bridegroom is taken from them then they should fast and would abolish that signal mark of Christianity which by its rigour and frequency distinguishes it from all other Religions in the World Some I know will be apt to attribute this abridgment of the Clergies power to their supereminent knowledge and more clear light of Scripture that they are better instructed than to be guided by their Priests or to stand in awe of the condemnation of a supercilious Prelate but such Learning as this derived from the Principles of Pride and Licentiousness is far worse than ignorance and that Person who is humble and submissive apt and willing to be instructed is a better Christian and in a more secure path and way to Godliness and Heaven than he that having heard and read much stands dangerously towring on the presumptuous Pinnacle of his own Reason And indeed this adherence to the Doctrine of their Church is the proper Basis and Pillar of their Faith For those ancient janglings and controversies which possessed the Greek Spirits in former days and through the acrimony of their malice and hatred opened a breach in divers pales of the Eastern Church whereby the whole surface of things was over-whelmed with the vast inundation of the Mahometan Enemie are Tragedies so sadly recorded that the present Age seems by the memory of those Examples so far to dread the danger of divisions and innovations that they refuse to amend even that which by their own confession is an Errour either in doctrine or practice but it is no wonder that those from whom God hath removed the ancient glory of his Candlestick brightly shining amongst them should delight to dwell in the twilight of Batts and groap in an Egyptian darkness but it is strange that those to whom his mercies and patience indulge the clearer Rayes of the Gospel should forsake the Sun-shine of divine Illumination to follow fantastick and wandring lights mistaking them for that great Pillar of Fire which conducted the Israelites Another great help to support and maintain the Eastern Church is their Confession to a Priest for by nothing more doth the Power and Authority of the Greek Church and Clergy seem to be maintained and asserted who account it the sole Axel on which the Globe of Ecclesiastical Politie turns and that without it they can neither have Influence on Mens Consciences nor under the power of Infidels and Aliens govern the least Circumstance of their lives and manners I know not how far the Roman Clergy may have abused this Excellent evidence of repentance this Ordinance of the Gospel this admirable means to inflame our devotion and to guide and instruct us in the rules of holy Living It is more than probable that their use of it in an ordinary and familiar manner rather in form than substance without regard to feigned or real Penitentiaries and as an encouragment to annimate men to sin when they can so easily be pardoned hath afforded just occasion to those who desired a Reformation to exclaim against it and to take it wholly from the Church as an Institution so entirely corrupted as never more to be reformed or recovered but by a total abolishment The Church of England as I am perswaded apprehended it under this notion when its Wisdom and perhaps I may say the Spirit of God thought fit to dispence for a time with this Discipline of Penance but with intention to restore it again when the time should become more seasonable and we our selves more worthy to receive so profitable an Institution as our Rubrick seems to intimate in the Office appointed for the first day of Lent And this Doctrine is maintained in the Sermons and Writings of our Divines and given as Counsel in that Exhortation preceding the Communion Service that we should confess our sins not only to God and our Brethren whom we have offended but in Cases of scandal and a troubled Conscience or other need of Ghostly Counsel and Advice to consult God's Ministers the Priests in which Case also our Church hath provided a Form of Absolution Considering which Premises it will not be difficult to conjecture under what Notion the Eastern apprehends the Western Reformed Churches for they taking notice that the English neither keep Fasts nor practise Confession nor ordinarily make the Sign of the Cross and that the Dutch Nation at Smyrna rehearse no Prayers at the Burial of the dead are not only scandalised thereat but also Jews and Turks take offence at the silence of Prayers when the dead are buried wondering what sort of Heresie or Sect is sprung up in the World so different from the Religion of all the Prophets at which undecent practice the Roman Clergy taking advantage to disparage the Protestants represent them to the Greeks under the notion of Calvinists whom they characterise to be such as contemn all Order in the Church the authority of Priesthood abolish Fasts abhor the Cross contemn the Saints besides a thousand other Heresies and Schisms in which they report we are at odds amongst our selves And in reallity were it not that the English Nation by the orderly use of their Liturgy and Discipline of their Church observing the Lords day and the Grand Festivals did vindicate themselves of these Aspersions it were impossible to perswade the Oriental Countries that those which we call Reformed were Christians or at least to retain any thing of Ancient and Apostolical Institution Upon which score the Greeks detest that Confession of Faith supposed to be wrote by Cyrillus their Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 1629 and Printed and Confuted in the year 1631 by Mattheus Caryonhilus Arch-Bishop of Iconium for that Confession agreeing wholly with the Doctrine of Calvin in every particular is believed in a great measure to have been fathered on him by the Jesuits who to justifie their inhumane Persecutions of that worthy Prelate by making Turks and Infidels the Instruments of their rage formed and vented any thing which might procure the Curses and Anathemas of the Old and New Rome I am perswaded that this Cyrillus having spent some time in
England and there observed that purity of our Doctrine and the excellency of our Discipline which flourished in the beginning of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr and viewed our Churches trim'd and adorned in a modest Medium between the wanton and superstitious dress of Rome and the slovenry and insipid Government of Geneva entertained a high Opinion of our happy Reformation intending thence perhaps to draw a Pattern whereby to amend and correct the defaults of the Greek Church retrenching the length of their Services and the multitude of their Ceremonies and also by that Exemplar to reduce their Festivals to a moderate number to create a right apprehension of the state of Souls after separation and wholly to take away certain conceits both superstitious and savouring of Gentilism and confirm his Church in a reverend Opinion of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist without lanching so far into the explication of that Mystery as of late they have done both in the Anatolian Confession which was generally owned and confirmed in the year 1672 by the Subscription of the four Oriental Patriarchs and of the Metropolites then present at the Instance of Mounsieur de Nointel Ambassadour for his most Christian Majesty a very intelligent and ingenious Gentleman And had not this good Patriarch been thus malitiously prosecuted and his life taken from him by unhappy Wiles he might with God's assistance have accomplished a work of Reformation and piloted the Church into that state of Apostolical Purity which King James Erasmus Cassander Melancthon Buçar the Arch-Bishop of Spalatro and others did design But God it seems hath not as yet ordained the time for so happy a Conversion and Reformation which is a Blessing rather to be wished for at present than to be expected till when it is the duty of all good Men and the Elect of God to offer a continual Sacrifice of Prayer on the Altar of their hearts that he would be pleased to grant us Unity of Faith in our Religion and Peace and Concord in all Christian Governments that being one Sheepfold under one Shepherd the Lord Jesus we may imitate the Example of him who is the Prince of Peace Amen THE CONTENTS OF The several Chapters of the Present State of the Greek Church CHAP. I. THE Present State of the Greek Church in general under the Turkish Tyranny pag. 1 CHAP. II. Of the seven Churches of Asia unto which S. John wrote viz. Smyrna Ephesus Thyatira Laodicea Philadelphia Sardis and Pergamus wherein also is treated of Hierapolis 30 CHAP. III. Of the Office and Constitution of the four Patriarchs the Extent of their respective Jurisdictions their Revenue and whence it arises with what precedency or place the Patriarch of Constantinople acknowledges to the Pope of Rome 81 CHAP. IV. The Opinion of the Greek Church concerning that Article in the Nicene Creed I believe one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church and what Authority and Power is given by them thereunto 120 CHAP. V. Of the Fasts of the Greek Church 129 CHAP. VI. Of the Feasts observed in the Greek Church 139 CHAP. VII Of Baptism and the sealing of Infants called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 161 CHAP. VIII Of the second Mistery called Chrism 171 CHAP. IX Of the third Mistery called The Holy Eucharist as also of the Blessed Bread called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latin Panis Benedictus 177 CHAP. X. Of the fourth Mistery called Priesthood wherein is treated of their Monasteries Orders of Friars and Nuns and the Austerity of their lives 201 CHAP. XI In which is treated of Mount Athos called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The Holy Mountain and of the Monasteries thereon and of the other more famous Monasteries of the Oriental Churches 215 CHAP. XII Of Confession Contrition and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The Oyl of Prayer 263 CHAP. XIII Of the power of Excommunication and upon what slight occasions they make use of it 271 CHAP. XIV Of the treatment the Greeks use towards their Dead and the Opinion they have of Purgatory and the middle State of Souls 203 CHAP. XV. Of the fifth Mistery called Marriage and the Customs they use therein 305 CHAP. XVI Of the Liturgies used in the Greek Church and of their length and when used 317 CHAP. XVII Of Pictures and Images in the Greek Church 321 CHAP. XVIII Of Prayers to Saints and Adoration of Angels 331 CHAP. XIX Of the Greek Islands in the AEgean Sea called now the Arche-pelago and the division there of Religion between the Greek and Latin Churches 337 CHAP. XX. Of other Matters and Tenents held in the Greek Church not comprised in the premises and particular Customs observed amongst them 370 THE CONTENTS OF The several Chapters of the Present State of the Armenian Church CHAP. I. OF the Armenian Church in general 385 CHAP. II. Of their Patriarchs and Government in the Church 390 CHAP. III. Of Etchmeasin 396 CHAP. IV. The Confession of Faith in the Armenian Church 409 CHAP. V. Of Fasts in the Armenian Church 415 CHAP. VI. Of Feasts in the Armenian Church 419 CHAP. VII Of their Monasteries and Rules observed therein 423 CHAP. VIII Of the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper 431 CHAP. IX Of Penance and Excommunication 438 CHAP. X. Of their Marriages 440 CHAP. XI Their Opinion of Souls in the state of separation and their Ceremonies used towards the dead 442 CHAP. XII A Confession of the Armenian Doctrine subscribed unto by the Patriarch and Bishops together at Constantinople 447 THE PRESENT STATE OF THE GREEK CHURCH CHAP. I. The Present State of the Greek Church in general under the Turkish Tyranny THE ancient division of Greece into many Commonwealths and their inveterate hatred against Philip of Macedon for no other Reason than because he was a King and as they stiled him a Tyrant and the unquiet disposition of that People never contented in their Estate nor satisfied in their Rulers the Humour and Fate of most Popular Governments have to us and to all future Ages represented the Grecians as great lovers of alteration and freedom Time afterwards and vicissitude of things transforming them from Associates to be Subjects of the Roman◠Empire they enjoyed notwithstanding for some Ages the benefit of their own Laws Protection and Liberty under the successful progress of the conquering Eagles and when the Imperial Seat was transported to Bizantium the Emperours themselves became Grecians and the People enjoyed still the lenity and gentleness of the Roman Yoke In this easiness of living things continued until the year of Christ 1300. when an unexpected Storm arose from the East which as a little Cloud appearing first at a distance like a spot or the measure of a Palm doth afterwards diffuse it self in a general blackness over the Face of the whole Heavens or as I have seen at a large Prospect something like the Swarm of a single Hive which approaching nearer hath proved to be an Army of
the Greek Church therein notwithstanding the Oppression and Contempt put upon it by the Turk and the Allurements and Pleasures of this World is a Confirmation no less convincing than the Miracles and Power which attended its first beginnings For indeed it is admirable to see and consider with what Constancy Resolution and Simplicity ignorant and poor men keep their Faith and that the proffer of Worldly Preferments and the priviledge which they enjoy by becoming Turks the Mode and Fashion of that Country which they inhabit should not decoy or debauch such silly Souls who can offer little more of Argument in defence of their perswasion than the Doctrine of their Forefathers and the common profession of those who in many places especially in the Morea and all Romagnia use the same Customs and speak the same Language of Greek with them Nor can I attribute this Constancy to the meer force of Education for Turks intermingle with them inhabit in the same Street and sometimes under the same Roof their Children play and are bred up together and have almost the same Manners and Customs with them and have little different besides their Religion and something of Briskness and Spirit in the Children of Turks which seems naturally to usurp an Authority over their Greek Play-Fellows So that if Education were the sole motive and principle Turcism might sooner take root than Christianity having the opportunity equal and in the easiness of things naturally to be believed and other specious and fair offers the advantage before the mysterious Doctrine of our Faith and the exact severity of our lives which is neither revealed nor performed by the meer motion of flesh and blood But certainly much is to be attributed herein to the Grace of God and the Promises of the Gospel and if any Art or Polity can be said to have place over the affection of the People none seems more efficacious than the strict observation of the Fasts and Feasts of their Church by which the people are taught as in a visible Catechism the History of Christianity more I dare say than by their ill-composed Sermons or repetition of the Scripture in the Vulgar Tongue for being severely imposed and observed with much solemnity they affect the Vulgar with an awe of something divine and extraordinary in them The fear also and apprehension of some Authority in the Church as the power of the Keys Excommunications and other Ecclesiastical Censures work a reverence in the people towards their Clergy which is indeed the main Pillar and Basis which supports a Church For as Tacitus speaks of the Jewish Nation when under the Roman Power That Honâ—â— Sacerdotii firmamentum Potentiae eorum the Honour which they gave to their Priesthood was the foundation of their Regimen for that which commands the conscience reduces the body will and affections to obedience so more particularly in Ecclesiastical Polity it is the Fence and Hedge of the Sheepfold This being broken down the Sheep stray and Satan enters with his seed of Heresie and Schism for what can hinder men from running into Prodigies of Fansie and wild Opinions where every man is his own Pastor and his own Bishop This apprehension of Power which attends the Keys is available in a double capacity for besides the energy it hath in Spiritual Matters it supplies amongst the Greeks the defect of a Temporal Authority in regard that they though Subjects of the Turk do yet oftentimes in Controversies about matters of Right follow the advice of the Apostle by referring the determination of their Cause to the arbitrement of spiritual men and chief of their Saints who are their Bishop or Patriarch and other Chiefs of their Clergy rather than to stand to the Judicature of Infidels But this the Church presumes not to bind on mens Consciences left it should seem to usurp that Right which others hold by the Sword and contradict that saying of our Saviour My Kingdom is not of this world Howsoever such as are religious and devout amongst them esteem it a Crime highly scandalous and savouring of a bad intention to have recourse rather to a Mahometan Divan than a Christian Sentence as if those who can judge of the inward Conscience were not yet sufficient to Umpire in a Temporal Cause Secondly This Reverence to the Church produces a firm belief and strict adherence to the Articles of it and to all the Ceremonies and matters the most minute and indifferent not suffering the least change or alteration in them which in this conjuncture and state of things seems very convenient if not necessary in the Greek Church For though they are sensible as many of their Priests have confessed to me of the inconvenient length of their Liturgies concerning which we shall speak in another Chapter and of many superstitious Customs and Ceremonies derived to them from the times of Gentilism which are now ingrafted into and as it were grown up with their Religion and many other Rites of which the wiser men are ashamed and wish they were amended yet they fear to correct and alter them Nay as they have assured me the very alteration of the Old to the New Stile would be highly hazardous lest the People observing their Guides to vary in the least point from their ancient and as they imagine their Canonical Profession should begin to suspect the truth of all and from a doubt dispute themselves into an indifference and thence into an entire desertion of the Faith Though the Christian Religion profess'd in the Ottoman Dominions lies under a Cloud and a sad discouragement yet thanks be to God there is a free and publick exercise thereof allowed in most parts and something of respect given to the Clergy even by the Mahometans themselves who esteem honour due to all persons of what Profession soever who are set apart and consecrated to Gods service For it is evident that the Turks entertain something of a good opinion of the sanctity of the Christian Religion and a belief that God hears their Prayers because that in the time of common Pestilence or Calamity both the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs are enjoined by the Turks to assemble their People and pray against it This permission of the Christian Religion indulged by the Turks is both agreeable to Mahomet's Doctrine and the Priviledges granted by the Sultans who in their Conquests of the Grecian Empire judged that a toleration of Religion would much facilitate the entire subjection of that People The greatest burden that is laid upon them by the Turk is their Haratch or Poll-money for which every man who is arrived to 20 years of age pays Four Lyon Dollars per Annum and Youths between 15 to 20 pay half so much but Women are exempt from this burden Also Greeks who have Lands and Houses are taxed pro rato for extraordinary Expences for entertaining a Pasha or some great Person whose charges they are obliged to defray in his
some measure also delight the curiosity of the Reader being transferred from my self who have with my own Eyes beheld the strange Catastrophe of those anciently famous Cities which now for the most part are forgotten in their Names as well as buried in their Ruines It seems that these ancient Cities were not only famous for their Devotions which moved our Lord Christ by the hand of the beloved Disciple to write them a Letter but likewise by a special denomination were called the Churches of Asia the less though others might be as renowned and as devout as they in which the Gospel had been preached and accepted and might be stiled with the same appellation as parts of this great Continent which is one of the quarters of the World But this term of Asia is here restrained to the lesser or Lydian Asia in which the seven Churches are scituate different as Heylin observes from the Proconsular which well agrees with what is said Acts 16. v. 6. and v. 7. When they had gone through Phrygia and the Region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia after they were come to Mysia they assayed to go into Bythinia but the Spirit suffered them not Nor is the Name of Asia improperly restrained to Lydia it self AEolis and Jonia and some parts of the greater Mysia because a famous City seated at the foot of the Mountain Tmolus gave this denomination to the Countries circumjacent before it was enlarged so far as to become a general Name for the greater Continent This Mountain though in some parts hides his head in the Clouds and commonly wears a covering of Snow and is asperous craggy and barren yet in other place that I have passed where his head is not so loftily raised he is more fruitful and pleasant replenished with Villages and Inhabitants adorned with streight Pines and Oaks the Soil as rich and fat as the lower Vallies watered with abundance of cool and pleasant Streams planted with Vineyards and Fruit-Trees to refresh weary and heated Travellers which near some Villages being set with care and art intermixed with Streams and Falls of Water render them more pleasant than the Orchards of the Plains or Gardens of the Cities The City of Smyrna as I am apt to believe had anciently its Chief situation upon and on the side of the South-Hills which we call the Wind-mill-Hills over Santa Veneranda but being shaken with Earthquakes was afterwards for the convenience of Trade re-edified for the most part in a bottom or level being removed from a more wholsom air of a rising Hill which still retains in its ruinous Footsteps the marks and remembrances of its ancient Glory to a place of Bogs and Fens which in the Autumn evaporated those Fumes and Atoms which engendred malignant Feavers and proved most fatal to English bodies though now for some years past that the lower parts being inhabited the Ditches drained and the Bogs turned into Gardens and the air purified by the fire and smoke of many Inhabitants this place cannot in my opinion be esteemed less healthful than any other Maritime City in the Levant This City is still the most happy and flourishing of all the other Sister-Churches having still the Honour to be a Metropolis and to rule over those which were formerly co-equals with it The convenience of its Port and Harbour being one of the finest Bays in the world caused the Christian Merchants to chuse it for the Chief Scale of the Turkish Empire whose Trade increasing and thereby the Customs of the Grand Signor began in these late years to be taken notice of by the principal Ministers of State and to acquire a Renown above all the Cities in the lesser Asia for this Cause the famous Vizier Achmet Son of Kuperlee cast his Eyes upon it and understanding in what manner this City was neglected how its ancient Buildings and Royal Structures were destroyed its Aquaeducts decayed and no publick Edifice remaining agreeable to the state and glory of such a Mart and Emporium famous through the World was moved to take a resolution to restore in some measure the pristine magnificence of this City which undertaking to do at his own charge and expence he erected a stately Besasteene which is a place where Shops are kept like our Exchange a sumptuous Chane with a Bagno and Stables belonging to it all built of Free-stone and covered with Lead except the Stables which Stones were brought from the ancient Ruines of the old Smyrna and also formed and raised a handsom Structure for the Custom-house upon Piles of Wood within the Sea for convenience of all which he erected a stately Aquaeduct and joined so many Streams of Water into one Current that not only the New-Buildings were supplied therewith but also 73 new Fountains were added to this City so that whereas formerly some Houses were forced to fetch their Water from far now every Family is well accommodated and every Street as well supplied therewith as most Cities are which are seated in the great Continent of Asia All which was finished and compleated in the year of our Lord 1677. This is the present State and Condition of Smyrna in these Modern times How it was anciently we shall best understand from History and from the Remains of Antiquity of which few are discernable as namely the Theatre which was about the year 1675. wholy ruined by the Turks and the Stones carried down to raise the new Edifices At the destruction whereof it is observable that in the midst of one of the main Walls there was found inclosed about a Bushel of Medals all of the Stamp of Galienus the Emperour of which I my self procured some judging that this Theatre which was almost as ancient as the City it self might be repaired afterwards by Galienus and this Copper-Coyn there inclosed in memory of this Emperour that future Ages might acknowledge him to have been the Builder of that stately Fabrick whensoever time or Enemies should bring it to destruction Over the Gate of the Upper Castle on the Hill the Roman Eagles continue still engraved and not far from thence is the Tomb of S. Polycarpus one of the first blessed Martyrs of the Gospel of Christ Jesus who was put to death in the Theatre At the Gate of this Castle we speak of there is a great Head of Stone immured in the Wall something resembling the Head of an Amazon which the Turks call Coidafa and thereof have this Story That in ancient times the Archi-pelago or Ionian Sea was once firm Land but when Alexander the Great intending to make his Conquests as far as the East-Indies was refused passage through the Countries of this Coidafa to whom the Archi-pelago then firm Land was subject he in revenge cut that Neck of Land which we call the Hellespont and thereby let in the Propontis and Euxine Sea into her Country which made such a Deluge and Inundation as
year are Dionysius of Constantinople Paisios of Alexandria Theositios of Jerusalem and Macarios of Antioch which names they take upon themselves when they first enter into Monasteries or a Religious life The Patriarch of Constantinople is elected by the Metropolites or Bishops according to the plurality of Voices but afterwards constituted and confirmed by the G. Signor before whom after his Election he presents himself with all humility and the G. Signor after the ancient Custom of the Greek Emperours presents him with a white Horse a Manto or black Coole a pastoral staff with a Costan or figured Vest and being mounted on his Horse with a Train of the Clergy and principal Persons of the Greek Nation and accompanied with a great Number of Turkish Officers he returns with all solemnity to the Patriarchal Seat at the entry into which he is met and received by the chief Metropolites and others with wax Tapers burning in their hands and by them conducted into the Church and there before the Altar is consecrated by the Arch-Bishop of Heraclea who habited in his Pontifical Garments takes the Patriarch by the hand and seats him in the Patriarchal Chair sets the Mitre on his Head and commits the Crosier to his hand which being performed and the Offices sung the whole Ceremony is ended The Contention between the Greek Clergy for the Patriarchal Power at Constantinople hath begotten many troubles in the Church for such whom Ambition and Covetousness excite with a desire of this Ecclesiastical Preferment and having some Riches of their own and Credit to make up the rest at Interest seldom or never miss the prize they pursue for the Arguments of Gifts and Benefits are so prevalent with the G. Vizier and the other Turkish Officers that they can afford easie admittance to the most frivolous Accusation that may be objected against the present Incumbent by which means the Patriarch is often changed and the Debts of the Church increased and the Election rather in the hands of the Turk than the Bishops the one being guided by Bribes and the other by Faction by which means the Debts of the Church in the year 1672 as I was informed by the Bishop of Smyrna amounted unto 700 Purses of Mony which makes 350 thousand Dollars the Interest of which increasing daily and rigorously extorted by the Power of the most covetous and considerable Turkish Officers who lend or supply the Money is the reason and occasion that the Patriarch often summons all his Archbishops and Bishops to appear at Constantinople that so they may consult and agree on an expedient to ease in some measure the present Burden and Pressure of their Debts the payment of which is often the occasion of new Demands For the Turks finding this Fountain the fresher and more plentifully flowing for being drained continually suck from this Stream which is to them more sweet for being the Blood of the Poor and the life of Christians It is a remarkable Story and very pertinent to this place which the Bishop of Smyrna when he once did me the honour to make me a Visit recounted to me That not long since certain Principal Officers amongst the Turks perswaded or rather forced a poor simple Kaloir to stand Candidate for the Patriarchal Office and to cheapen it at the price of 25000 Dollars which offer the Turks signified to the Patriarch that so he might either pay the Money himself and thereby purchase his Confirmation or prepare to give way to a new Successor The whole Assembly of the Greek Clergy were greatly perplexed hereat yet knew not which way to resolve For to accept of this Kaloir for Patriarch who was poor and brought nothing with him besides his contemptible Person and Debt which they must at length pay would bring a scandal and scorn on the Church besides the bad Bargain they should make in exchange of their Patriarch Wherefore at length applying themselves with great Humility to the Vizier they obtained a remission of 5000 Dollars of the price demanded and on payment of 20000 procured the continuance of their old Patriarch which matter being thus accommodated the Clergy desired that the Kaloir might be delivered into their hands to receive punishment according to the Canons of their Church but this would not be granted lest such an Example should deter Men from the like designs and thereby prejudice the Musselmin Cause and Interest Nor can the Laws and Canons in the Church against Simony prevail for the Clergy are tender to assert their power of Excommunication in this point or any other part of their Spiritual Authority which the Temporal Power of the Turk in those Cases where his Interest commands over-awes and frustrates usurping a power more Ecclesiastical Supreme and Pontifical than that of the Patriarch But to evidence the turbulent State of the Greek Church we shall not need to fetch Examples farther back than from the year of our Lord 1670 when one Mythodius was Patriarch at Constantinople in which Office he had not been long seated before he was forced by one Parthenius to retire and hastily to take up his Bag and Baggage and be gone and flye for Sanctuary into the House of the English Ambassadour it being usual for the new Patriarch to seize on the person of his Predecessor with his Goods and Estate for paying the Debts of the Church and part of that price for which the Patriarchate was bought by him for which seldom wants some just Cause or at least a seeming pretence in regard that not only the real necessity of the Church Debts forces the Patriarchs to extort Money from the People but likewise a provident care for their future subsistence prompts them to make Friendship with the Mammon of Unrighteousness against that time that they shall be necessitated to surrender an account of their Stewardship And I have heard some say that this change of Patriarchs is so necessary for the maintenance of their Metropolites or Bishops that without it they might starve unless they had this pretence for frequent Taxes For levying Money in this manner on the people some of it sticks to their Fingers providing not only sufficient to pay the proportion expected from their respective Diocesses but also for their own support Mythodius having no sooner as is said quitted the place but Parthenius entered a person not only of a considerable Estate but well acquainted and respected in the Turkish Court Howsoever he continued not above a year before he was forced to give way to Dionysius Metropolite of Larissa who being a monied Man carryed his business with a high hand and entered into the Patriarchal Seat with all the Ceremonies usual at the Instalment to that Dignity procuring not only the Banishment of Parthenius unto Rhodes but caused him also to be Anathematized and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be pronounced with a loud Voice in a full Synod or Convocation of all the Metropolites then
present at Constantinople Notwithstanding which Dionysius did not long sit quietly before he was disturbed with some vexations from the Wife of Panaioti Interpreter to the Great Vizier who being a high-spirited Dame and elevated with the thoughts of her Husbands Riches and Preferment comported her self in the Church towards the Patriarch with an arrogance undecent and mis-becoming the gravity of a principal Matron which caused Dionysius sometimes to resent her Carriage and to discourse contemptibly of her as is natural for men to speak of those who assume too much unto themselves With which this Lady being provoked made Complaints to her Husband who sympathizing with the grievance of his Wife attended an opportunity to satisfie her Feminine Revenge the which was not long expected before one Gerasimus Metropolite of Turnova on the Borders of Valachia presented himself as a Candidate or one sufficiently qualified for the Patriarchal Office and in the first place applyed himself to Panaioti who being a Greek and near the G. Vizier was best able to represent his qualifications and his offers to the Court the which he performed in complascency to his Wife with that pressure and heat that Gerasimus was speedily invested in the Patriarchal See and Dionysius deposed and forced to content himself with the Bishoprick of Phillipopolis where he remained with the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that place which is an honour given to those who have formerly born the Dignity of Patriarch Of all these changes and mutations Parthenius received intelligence though far remote in his Exile at Rhodes which he observed with such attention as served to shuffle him into play at the next Game For having in the time of being Patriarch amassed a considerable Treasure soon after the death of Panaioti the great Patron of Gerasimus he pushed again for the Patriarchal Office and notwithstanding all the resistance made to the contrary and the formal Anathema's and Curses used against him at the time of his deposition he wrested it again to himself and enjoyed it in despite of all his Adversaries for some Months until that Dionysius the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Phillipopolis observing what success attended Parthenius in his Restoration resolved to tread the same path the which he prosecuted so effectually that he crouded out Parthenius again and in this year 1678 Dionysius sits in the Patriarchal Throne there to remain until some other who making a new proffer of advantage to the Turkish Court shall expel him from thence In this manner the G. Signor seems to be Head of the Greek Church and Arbitrator in all their differences which every good Christian ought with sadness to consider and with compassion to behold this once glorious Church to tear and rent out her own bowels and give them for food to Vultures and Ravens and to the wild and fierce Creatures of the World In former times the Church paid no more to the G. Signor at the change of a Patriarch than ten thousand Dollars but the multitude of Pretenders for this Office hath enhansed the price to 25000 Dollars Formerly also the Instalment of a Patriarch was with the Solemnity and Formality before premised but the daily contests introduce that confusion and contempt of the Office as hath left no place for honour or respect so that a Patriarch ascends his Throne and takes hold of the Mitre and Crosier with as little Ceremony as an ordinary Priest or Curate takes possession of his Living or Vicaridge or when he takes hold of the Ring of the Church door The Patriarch cannot act in his Office nor any other Bishop in his See without a Baratz or Commission from the G. Signor Nor is any Monastery allowed or protected nor the Prior or Guardian endued with a power over his Monks but by virtue of his Baratz A Copy of one of which given formerly to the Latine Bishop of Scio I have thought fit here to insert for the better evidence of the matter and curiosity of the Style The Command and Decree of the Noble and Royal Signature of the High State and Sublime Seat of the Fair Imperial Firm which enforces the Universe and through the assistance of God and defence of the Supreme Benefactor is received and obeyed by all as followeth The Priest which is named Andrea Soffiano who hath in his hands this Imperial and Blessed Command is now by vertue of these Letters Patents of high State created Bishop of those who profess to be of the Latin Rite in the Island of Scio and having brought with him his old Baratz and desiring that the same might be renewed and having to that end paid into our Treasury 600 Aspers as the usual Fee in such Cases I have therefore granted to this Andrea Soffiano this Baratz as the perfection of Felicity And moreover I command that he go and be Bishop of the Christians of the aforesaid Rite inhabiting that Island according to the usual and ancient Custom and vain and unprofitable Ceremonies willing and commanding that all Religious Priests and all other Christians both great and small of the same Rite inhabiting that Island do acknowledge the said Priest for their Bishop and that on every business which shall depend or appertain on or of his Office and Episcopal Jurisdiction they have recourse unto him not deviating from his equitable and just Sentence Moreover that no other do meddle or concern himself when the said Bishop according to his unprofitable and vain Ceremonies shall constitute or deprive in or of his Office any Priest or Religious person as he shall judge him deserving or undeserving and that no Priest or Fryar of the said Rite presume to marry any persons without the Consent or License of the said Bishop And every Will or Testament which shall be made by any Priest dying in favour of the poor Churches shall be firm and valid And if it should happen out that any Christian Woman under the Jurisdiction of this Bishop should depart from her Husband or any Husband should abandon his Wife none shall have power to grant the Divorce nor intermeddle therein except the aforesaid Bishop And in fine the said Bishop shall enjoy and possess the Vineyards appertaining to his Church with Gardens Orchards Villages Fields Barks Mills Monasteries and Pious Legacies bequeathed in favour of his other Churches and all these Priviledges he shall enjoy in the same manner as anciently the Bishops his Predecessors have enjoyed before him and as firmely as ever without receiving trouble molestation or interruption from any person whatsoever And so be it known and belief be given to this Noble Signature The other three Patriarchs being far from Court and from the Evil and Covetous Eyes of the Turks are the farther removed from Jove's Thunder-bold and therefore are morefreely elected by the fole Votes and Suffrages of the Bishops who having chiefly respect to the welfare and flourishing Estate of the Church do most commonly prefer those
out sooner or later The fourth begins the first of August and continues until the 15th being a Preparatory to the Grand Festival which they keep in honour to the Assumption of our Lady who they say was bodily transported into Heaven which Fast is so strictly observed that even Oyl is forbidden to Kaloires and few others especially of Women there be but who observe this prohibition unless on the 6th of August which being a Festival in memory of our Saviours Transfiguration they have a permission to eat Oyl and Fish but on other days they return again to their slender Diet. Besides which Grand Fasts there are some other Fasts as the 28th of August in commemoration of the decollation or beheading of St. John Baptist. Likewise there is another Fast beginning the first of September which continues until the fourteenth being the Feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross in which time of fourteen days the History of the Passion is preached and represented But this last is only observed by Kaloirs and such as are entered into Vows and a Monastical life whose profession is Mortification and their business Religion In all which times they do not only abstain from Flesh or Lacticinia such as Butter Cheese and the like but also from Fish which have Scales or Finnes or Blood only Shell-Fish as Lobsters Crabs Oysters c. are lawful though it is probable that in them there may be more of heat and nourishment excepting only in that Lent which begins on the 15th of November it is lawful for them to eat all sorts of Fish as also other ordinary and Weekly Fasts of Wednesday and Friday oblige them only to an abstinence from Flesh and what comes from thence but all sorts of Fish are freely indulged And though Wednesdays and Frydays are for the most part Fasts through the whole year yet we must except from hence Wednesday and Friday of the eleventh Week before Easter which they call Arzeiburst the reason whereof as Christophorus Angelo reports was from the dog of certain Hereticks so called whom they used to send with Letters At lengh the Dog dying his Heretical Masters used to fast that 11th Week before Easter for sorrow in opposition to whom and to have no conformity with them the Orthodox appointed that Wednesday and Fryday of that Week should be exempted from any Obligation of abstinence On Whitson-Monday they abstain from Flesh and Fast by reason that the people meeting that morning in the Church ask of God the Communication of his Holy Spirit as he gave unto his Holy Apostles in commemoration of which they eat Flesh on Wednesday and Friday of that Week The 25th of March being the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin though it happen in Lent yet they have a priviledge to eat all sorts of Fish as they have to eat Flesh from Christmas to Epiphany Wednesdays and Frydays not being exempted and the first Week after Pentecost In like manner they are permitted to eat Flesh all the first Week of three before the great Lent which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sunday of which answers to our septuagesima The next Week following which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are commanded abstinence from Flesh Wednesdays and Frydays but the Week immediately before Lent is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies fresh Cheese it being a time when they may eat all sorts of Milk and what is made thereof likewise Eggs and Fish of all kinds being perhaps a time to prepare their Stomacks to a leaner and morerigorous Dyet This Lent begins on Monday as ours doth on Wednesday These Fasts are strictly observed and undergone by them with no less patience and sobriety than superstition supposing it a sin not less hainous willingly to break this Fast or transgress the rules of this Abstinence and with that the Institution and Rites of the Church than to commit Adultery or invade the possessions of his Neighbour Education and Custom hath brought them to that Opinion of Fasting that they believe Christianity can hardly be professed and subsist without it It is very pleasant to be observed what Cyrillus the Patriarch of Constantinople reports of the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem who being desirous to prove the sanctity of his Church and Religion to be greater than that of the Greeks or any others brings it for an Argument that they did not only abstain from flesh and fish in Lent but even also from Beans and Pease which the Greeks allowed of consulting the inclination of their Appetite more than true Religion On these grounds they can by no means be induced to believe the English and others of the reformed Churches to be Orthodox Christians because they neither use Fasting nor reverence the sign of the Cross two matters of great scandal amongst them though in point of observation of the Feasts according to the old style with them and by their opposition to the Church of Rome they are on the other side more unsatisfied and doubtful what to judge The severity of their Lents is more easily supported by the expected enjoyment of the following Festival at which time they run into such excesses of mirth and riot agreeable to the light and vain humour of that people that they seem to be revenged of their late sobriety and to make compensation to the Devil for their late temperance and mortification towards God and this extravagancy of Mirth and loose Debauchery they practise with so much liberty that their Priests reprove them not for it but rather maintain Drunkenness not to be a Sin on a Festival being a hearty memorial of the Holiness of the Saint or a Testimony of joy in commemoration of the works of mans Redemption but this is spoken rather as a corruption of manners than as a Tenent or Profession of that Church In the observation of these Fasts they are so rigid and superstitiously strict that they hold no case of necessity may or can claim a Dispensation and that the Patriarch hath not power and authority sufficient to give a License to eat flesh where the Church hath commanded Abstinence For suppose a person sick to death who with Broth made of Flesh or with an Egg may be recovered to life they say it were better he should dye than eat and sin Howsoever perhaps the Ghostly Father will be so far concern'd in the others health as to advise the sick Penitent in such cases to eat flesh and afterwards confessing the sin he promises to grant Absolution and this I have known to have sometimes been practised which perhaps amongst the ignorant Priests may be esteemed an excellent and an ingenious accommodation between humane Necessities and the Institutions of the Church But such of the wiser sort who have studied in Italy and there been seasoned with the Doctrine of the Latines believe their own Church endued with as much authority in Ecclesiasticks as the Roman and that the difficulty of granting
Heaven to receive the Crown of Martyrdom The Greeks as I said have divers Chappels dedicated to St. George amongst which at an obscure Village called by the Turks Boschioi not far from Magnasia there is one where on the 23th of April they carry his Picture in Procession accompanied by Multitudes of Turks as well as Greeks who resort thither the first for pass-time the others for mirth company and devotion This Picture which is drawn in Colours upon a Board is much of that bigness as a sign which we hang before a Shop and much of that sort of Painting This Picture they report and many believe it especially the Women being carried by a notorious sinner is endued with so much mettle and courage of that Champion as soundly to belabour his Back and Shoulders but is more civil and mild to the innocent or to the less scandalous in the wickedness of life I had once the curiosity to see this Fury in a Board of which the Greeks related such strange Stories so that arriving the Night before at the Village the next morning all things were provided for the Solemnity when one of the Papases took up the Champion on his Shoulder accompanied also with two others of the like bigness I think one was the Picture of the Virgin Mary with these all the Company proceeded in a procession with much quietness and gravity until they came under a large Chinar Tree or Platanus where remained the ruines of an old Chappel dedicated to this Saint Mass being here celebrated and ended the Priests returning in their Habiliments left the Pictures to be carried home by the Laity when one more forward than the rest with fear and reverence took the Champion on his Shoulder which at first began a little to move and turn itself but at length came to down-right blows giving the Fellow who managed the business very artificially so many knocks that it seemed to have beat him to the Ground when another immediately relieves him and takes it from him and then the other two Pictures begin the like rage buffeting and beating those that carry them with which there is so much noise and confusion that I never saw any piece of Bear-Garden-like or comparable to it This ridiculous piece of folly and superstition pleases the humour of the ignorant Greeks and scandalizes the Enemies of our Faith which when I saw I wonder'd at it and blamed the remissness of the Bishop in presence of the Priests who managed the solemnity of the day I asked one of them in private whether he really believed that the Pictures were inspired with life and motion to beat sinners to which making some pause as being unwilling to impose upon me whom he judged difficult to give credence to such matters he answered that it was a thing doubtful and hard to be believed by any other than the Vulgar sort And in other occasions discoursing with the Prelates and Bishops of this Church on the same subject I seemed to be concerned and transported with some little passion that in the sight of Turks and Infidels they should give countenance to so great a Cheat to the dishonour of our Holy Faith and Gospel which is supported on a better foundation than such idle and profane imaginations to which they gave me this answer That Custom had prevailed and that for some Ages this belief had taken so deep root in the minds of the ignorant that it was hard to undeceive them without dishonour to the Saint and danger to the whole Fabrick of the Christian Religion for this belief being equally fixed with the Doctrins of necessary Faith the confutation of this one would bring the others into question and perhaps perswade the people that they were now parting with the main Principles of the Gospel and that therefore it was thought necessary to let the Tares of false Doctrine to grow up with the Wheat of Orthodox Belief until God who knows the time shall separate them and pluck up the one without raising or extirpating the other And now that the Reader may better understand the Feasts in the Greek Church without the help of a Kalendar I shall present him with them beginning with the first Month according to their Account SEPTEMBER 8. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin 14. The Exaltation of the Cross. 23. The Conception of St. John the Baptist. 26. The Translation of St. John the Evangelist into Heaven OCTOBER 6. St. Thomas 18. St. Luke the Evangelist 23. St. James the Brother of John 26. St. Demetrio which is a day of great Devotion noted in the Kalendar with Red Letters and esteem'd amongst the Seamen both of Greeks and Truks to be stormy and tempestuous at Sea the Turks call it Cassim Gheun and will not go to Sea either ten days before or ten days after and before this day commonly the Fleet of Gallies return into Harbour and lay themselves up for the whole Winter NOVEMBER 1. The Holy Anargyri Cosma and Damianus 8. The Congregation and Seraphical Order of the Holy Angels noted with red Letters in the Kalendar 13. St. John Chrysostom 14. S. Phillip the Apostle which we celebrate the first of May. 16. S. Matthew the Apostle which we observe on the 21. of September 21. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple 25. S. Katherine Virgin and Martyr and the Martyr Mercurius 30. S. Andrew the Apostle DECEMBER 4. S. Barbara and S. John Damascen 5. S. Sabba Abbate 6. S. Nicholas * 7. S. Ambrosius Medio-Lanensis * 9. The Conception of S. Anne 12. S. Spiridon 13. The Martyrs Eustratius Auxentius Eugenius Mardarius Orestes c. * 15. S. Liberal and Eleutherius 17. The Prophet Daniel and the three Holy Children Ananias Azarias and Misaliel 20. S. Ignatius 25. The Nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 26. St. Stephen JANUARY The first day is celebrated in remembrance of the Circumcision of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and in honour of S. Basil. 6. The Epiphany and gathering together of Disciples to the Baptist in the Wilderness The 5th of January is the Vigil preceding this Festival dedicated to the day when Christ was Baptized wherefore on that day the Priests consecrate their Waters and the people drink of the same to which they are to come pure and with fasting 11. The holy Father Theodosius Caenobiarchus 17. S. Anthony the Abbot 16. The adoration of Alysius and the Apostle S. Peter 18. S. Athanasius and Cyril the Patriarchs of Alexandria 22. Timothy and Anastasius 25. S. Gregory Nazianzen 27. The Reliques of S. John Crysostom carried in procession 30. The three holy Oecumenical Divines or Doctors of the Church viz. Basil the great Gregory the Divine and John Chrysostom FEBRUARY 2. The presentation of Christ in the Temple 16. Theodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 23. The invention of the head of S. John Baptist. MARCH 9. The 40 holy Martyrs starved with cold in the Vally of Sebastia 25. The
taking the Bread and the Wine together in a Spoon from the hand of the Priest The Bread is made of the finest Wheaten Flower with Leaven from whence arises a sharp Dispute between them and the Latines the latter of which argues That it ought to be without Leaven in regard that it is more than probably presumed that the Institution of this Sacrament being ordained at the time of the Passeover it was administred with unleavened Bread which was only lawful on that occasion The Wine in the Sacrament before Consecration they mix with Water in representation of the Blood and Water which issued out of the side of our blessed Saviour opened by the Spear of the Roman Souldier The mixing of Wine with Water in this Holy Sacrament is no question of great Antiquity in the Church being acknowledged by most of the ancient Writers Fathers and Councils and particularly by Cyprian who believes it to have been so practised by Christ himself Others judge it an Ordinance of the Church only but all agree and assent unto it as to a Custom derived from a long Antiquity The Modern Writers of the Reformed Religion such as Vossius and othersâ— do not deny but that the Primitive Church mixed Waterâ— with their Wine in this Sacrament because drinking the same Wine at the Agapae or Love-Feasts as they did at the Lords Supper they might give occasion to the World to censure their Intemperance were their Wines which in the Eastern parts of the World are generous and strong not tempered and their force abated with Water This probably may be the Reason hereof rather than any Inference that can be made from the Example of our Saviour declared in the Holy Evangelists or the practice of the Church specified by the Apostles But because this Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is an essential part of the Christian Worship and greatly controverted between the Reformed and Roman Churches it will not be impertinent to set down distinctly the form and manner how it is celebrated in the Greek Church In the next place the Priest cuts off a second part from the Loaf before mentioned and forms it in the fashion of a Triangle Δ saying In honour and memory of our blessed Lady Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary through whose Prayers O Lord accept this Sacrifice to thy Celestial Altar and this Triangular is placed on the left hand of the formen with these words the Queen stood by in a Vesture of Gold c. Then the Priest takes the third part of the Loaf from which with his Lance in like manner he cuts out a small piece and places it under the first which he designed for himself and says of the honoured and glorious prophet the fore-runner of Christ John the Baptist then takes out a second and places it under the former saying of the holy glorious Prophets Moses Aaron Elias and all the other holy Prophets then taking out a third places it under the second and says of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of all the twelve Apostles and so is finished the first Order Next the Priest cuts another small piece from the remaining parts of the Bread and places it near the first part and says of our Holy Fathers and Prelates of Basil the great of Gregory the Divine of John Chrysostom Athanasius Cyril and of all the Holy Doctors then he takes another piece and places it under that immediately before going and says of the Apostle first Martyr and Arch-Deacon Stephen and of the holy Martyrs Demetrius Gregory and all the other Martyrs then he takes a third and places it under the second saying of the holy Confessors Antonius Euthymius Sabba and Onuphrius Then is taken out another particle and placed under the left Angle of that part which the Priest is to receive who proceeds and says of the holy and miraculous Anargyri Cosma †Damianus Cyrus and John the merciful under which is also placed another particle of the holy Progenitors of the blessed Virgin Joachim and Anna and last of all is taken out a ninth particle in honour of S. Chrysostom whose Liturgy is that day read naming with him the Saint whose Festival is that day celebrated which nine particles of Bread represent the nine Hierarchies of Angels and are adjoyned to this Office in honour and commemoration of the Saints and Martyrs departed Then follows the Offertory for the living The Priest taking another small piece from the Bread says Remember O Lord who art a Lover of Mankind every Christian Prelate naming particularly the Bishop of the Diocess and of him who ordained him unto Ecclesiastical Orders and places it on his right hand names all those living which are recommended to their Prayers especially those who paid for that Mass. Then last of all is taken out another small piece of Bread which is laid on the left haâ—â— in commemoration of the Founders of the Church and of the Parents and Friends of those who are departed which paid for the Mass the meaning and nature of which Commemoration we shall declare more particularly in the Chapter wherein we treat of the Office for the Dead Things thus prepared in order for the Sacrament the Priest raises the form of a Star in Silver and holds it over that Bread which is ordained for Consecration in the Eucharist saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Star stood over the place where the young Child was and repeating some short Prayers and Ejaculations that God would purifie him and make him worthy to offer this glorious Sacrifice he goes forth from the place of the Offertory and reads the Epistle and Gospel for the day in representation of the Apostles going forth into the world to preach and propagate the Christian Faith Then the Priest returning takes the Bread and Wine covers it and before the Consecration is completed and as they say themselves not yet transubstantiated sets it on his head and goes in Procession with it through all the Church at which time the people bow worship and make the Sign of the Cross casting the sick and infirm in the way that the Priest striding over them they may receive some miraculous benefit and remedy by the direct beams and influx of the Sacrament which when I have objected to some Priests as a thing strange to see the Elements adored before Consecration till which time they could not pretend them to be transubstantiated They knew not well how to answer otherwise than that they adored the Elements as being in immediate capacity and disposition to be converted into the true Body and Blood of Christ. The Creed or Symbolum Apostolicum is next repeated and then the Cover or Vail is taken off called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then over the Bread the air is moved with a Fan signifying the wind and breath of the Spirit which illuminated and inspired the Apostles when they composed the Articles of this holy Faith Then are
there will want 100 Dollars per Month to complete the Tribute according to the ancient Tax of the Monasteries occasioned by the Poverty of the three Monasteries before denoted which remain in the condition and under notion of Kesim and rendred unable to pay the Tax Wherefore it being necessary to find out the complete sum of an hundred Dollars more per Month the other Monasteries were forced to answer for the inabilities of their Brethren and to add a new Tax proportionable to the first estimation of their Revenue and Riches And now by the Premises it appears that Laura Batopedi Chiliadar and Ibero are the four chief and most flourishing Monasteries both in respect of their Revenues abroad as well as of the limits of Land allotted them on the Mountain what their Lands and Vineyards are and benefits arising from thence is well known and may easily be calculated but Donatives arising from abroad which are the charitable Contributions of well-disposed people as they are for the most part uncertain so they are hidden and concealed as much as is possible Howsoever they all plead misery and poverty which will be a Riddle and Mystery to any person to whom they will shew or expose their Treasure unless they be compared to the condition of the wealthy miser who is miserable and starving amidst the heaps of his Gold for he that sees the various Coverings they have for their Altars the rich Ornaments they have for their Churches will not easily apprehend those people to be poor For amongst their other Treasures they have first a representation of Christ in the Sepulchre which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exposed every Good-Friday at night and is very rich with Gold and Precious Stones Most of their Monasteries can represent the History of its Foundation not in Paint or Colours but in Embroideries of Gold and Pearl and other pretious Stones intermixed with singular Art and Curiosity They have also variety of rich Vestments for the Priest especially in the four chief Monasteries where are many Chests filled with such Robes as are used at the celebration of Divine Service Their Basons Ewers Dishes Plates Candlesticks and Incense-Pots of Silver are not to be reckoned many of which are of pure Gold or Silver gilt They have Crosses of a vast bigness edged with plates of Gold and studded with pretious Stones from whence hang strings of Oriental Pearl The Covers of their Books of the Gospel Epistles Psalters and Missals are often embossed with beaten Gold or curiously bound up with Cases of Gold or Silver gilt or plain Silver Many of which Utensils and Ornaments have been the Presents of the Dukes of Moscovy before the time that that Country declined or fell off from their respect to the Patriarch of Constantinople howsoever Moldavia Valachia and Georgia remaining constant to that Patriarchate have been anciently and still continue to be very liberal and splendid in their Presents to these Monasteries towards one or more of which some Prince or Princess of those Countries do always evidence an extraordinary devotion especially the Georgians whose Country was anciently called Iberia are ever bountiful to the Monastery of Ibero by whose Charity it is become as considerable as any of the other Monasteries With such Presents and Donatives the Churches of this Mountain are enabled to make very splendid Processions which they practice with great state and magnificence on the high Festivals of the year and the common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Procession in the time of Divine Service is so stately and pompous that it affects the hearts of the Vulgar with so much reverence and devotion to the holy Rites that scarce any of them will depart or at least think he receives a blessing by his attendance unless he leaves his gift behind him in testimony of his real and hearty affection imitating perhaps the ancient Custom in the times of Gentilism when every one who approached the Altar was obliged to offer something though but a handful of Flower or Salt It would be a matter of great work and something difficult to trace the original of these Monasteries and to render an account of the various vicissitudes of Fortune which they have undergone We know well that in the times of the Arians the divisions of Religion impoverished these Monasteries And afterwards Michael Paleologus on a politick design to maintain and support his Empire was contented to introduce the Roman Faith and the Popes Supremacy into the Greek Church as it happened about the year 1430 in the time of Pope Eugenius the Fourth which was the cause of great disturbance and ruine in this Mountain For the Kaloires remaining resolute against the Papal Authority assaulted the Romish Priests at the very Altar whereby such dissensions and skirmishes arose that some Monasteries were burnt and others demolished in the Contest and at length the Romanists being forced to give way carried with them some of the holy Spoils and much of their Riches But if you examine the Kaloires concerning these particulars they can inform you no otherwise than that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unbelievers such as Turks Saracens and they know not who or Iconomachi oppugners of Pictures or such who would place sculptile Images in the place of painted Histories being those who brought all those ruines on them of which Books relate such sad Stories Wherefore for knowledge of these matters being obliged to Books of ancient History we shall only touch on those Monasteries which are of most esteem and riches amongst them and for account thereof shall depend on such imperfect Relations as they produce and first of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hagia Laura was begun at the expence of Nicephorus the Emperour and at the instance of a most devout person in those days called Athanasius and though this Emperour was cut off about the year 803 leaving this Structure imperfect yet Athanasius continuing his endeavours perswaded others to finish this pious Work and at length obtained such considerable Contributions thereunto that the Building was completed and adorned in an excellent manner Since which time not only the main Structure but many little Chappels and Oratories have been erected within the Walls to the number of 19 by means and assistance of good and well-disposed people who entertained a particular devotion for that Monastry the which though chiefly founded by those Collections which were made by Athanasius yet it will be no wonder that so many Chappels were added thereunto if we believe what the Kaloires report that when their money failed the blessed Virgin concerning her self in the merit became their Benefactoress and supplyed whatsoever came short in the account The Story of Athanasius they report in this manner He was as they say born at Trapezond of a good Family of good parts and of some Learning and being addicted to a godly retired life he applied himself to a certain reverend person called
good and charitable people gain'd as much as served to build and endow this Monastery Dochiario was first founded by one Neophytus a Kaloir of good Parentage and esteem who with his own Estate and by the charitable contribution of well-disposed people founded this Monastery whereof making himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Prior dedicated it to St. Nicholas but afterwards the Dedication thereof was changed and made to St. Michael on this occasion A poor Boy attending the little Flocks of this Monastery in the Fields accidentally found a Stone with an Inscription thereon directing to a place of hidden Treasure after the reading of which the Prior sent some Kaloires with the Boy to discover it and bring it to the Monastery which having found they designed it for themselves and appropriate it to their own peculiar benefit without other account thereof unto their Prior to which end they threw the Boy from a Rock into the Sea with a Stone about his neck who falling called upon S. Michael which having done and secured the Treasure they returned home and reported that the Boy had feigned a false Story and for fear of punishment was run away The next morning early the Clerk of the Chappel entring into the Vestry to light the Lamps found the Boy cold and wet and half dead with the stone about his neck of which acquainting the Prior he came in haste and learned the whole truth of the Story for which cause he punished the Kaloires recovered the Treasure and therewith enlarged the Monastery and again consecrated it and dedicated it to Saint Michael by whose favour and protection the poor Boy was conserved Cheropotame was built by one Andronicus Paleologus who afterwards turned Monk or rather it was repaired by him after the old Cheropotame was fallen to ruine For the Kaloires report that this Monastery fell down at the time when John Paleologus caused Romish Mass to be there celebrated The last four viz. Gregorius Simopetra Dionysius and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paulus were built by Contributions collected by four Kaloires they were at first only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cells of Hermites but were afterwards enlarged and endowed they are all built in the Rocks and have a craggy and asperous ascent to them Gregorius is but small and at first was only the Cell of him who gave his name to it but the sanctity of his life invited several Benefactors to favour and perfect his small beginnings Simopetra was founded by one Simeon a Religious Kaloir with some reference to the name of Simon Peter it hath been thrice burnt and lastly was repaired about forty years past with great expence and charge of Presents given to the Turks for if a Church or a Religious House be burnt down or ruined by any accident according to the Turkish Law it is not to be repaired but by special Order and for that Reason such Licenses or Dispensations have always been obtained from the Turks at a high expence Dionysius was also built by a Kaloir of that Name and Alexius Comnenus in whose time it was erected contributed liberally thereunto This Monastery of Paulus was built by a Bulgarian of the same Name who begged sufficient to build it he was as they report a co-temporary with the Religious Athanasius of whom we have already spoken and one who was emulous of his sanctity So that if the Monkish Weed may be capable of such contention these Kaloires will perswade us that these two endeavoured to surpass each other in a holy and seraphical way of serving God In this manner we have said something in particular of every Monastery unless it be of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which being all three Kesim or poor Monasteries paying nothing of Tribute for maintenance of this Ecclesiastical Body are not to be accounted in the number of those which have large and splendid Revenues And though the Turks themselves being sensible of the poverty of these Monasteries have declared them Kesim yet they will not abate one Asper of the thousand Dollars per Month but what is wanting in these Monasteries they impose on the others to proportion which the Turks leave it to the Kaloires to lay the Tax as they think fit amongst whom though upon this occasion and subject there do often arise great and grievous dissentions and quarrels yet they are such as are always composed amongst themselves being unwilling to refer themselves to the charge and inequality of the Turkish Justice The Revenue of these Monasteries arises partly from the Lands adjoining to them on the Mountain which are sufficient to maintain them with Wine Bread and Olives and the Sea yields them Fish in great abundance every Monastery having its Bay or place peculiarly appropriated unto it Besides which every Monastery hath its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Farms which are seated some on the firm Land and some on Islands where being Chappels and Cells for Fryars are wholly manured by Religious men of the same Order who have liberty to sow Corn and Flax to plant Vineyards keep Flocks of Sheep and Goats to sell the Lambs Kids Wool Milk and Cheese and what shall arise in Money from hence after their maintenance is deducted and the Accounts made up refunds respectively to the Capital Monastery I say that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have liberty to keep Goats and Sheep which is not lawful on the Mountain where according to the ancient institution of this place no Female Creature is to be admitted no not so much as an Ewe-lamb or Hen in token of that severe Chastity which these people profess But besides all this they have a greater Revenue coming in from the industry and travels of their Emissaries which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who are persons sent into all places and Cities of note and esteem to collect the benevolence of charitable people towards their Monasteries especially in Constantinople Smyrna Bulgaria Servia Candia and all other parts where those of the Greek Church are numerous but their richest Gifts are from Moldavia Valachia Russia Moscovy and Georgia with which these Emissaries oftentimes return richly freighted whom in reward of their industry they not only receive with a hearty welcome but he who brings the greatest Contributions is esteemed worthy to be promoted for the year following to be Prior of the Monastery Nor are these people less cunning Artists in the skill of begging than are the Mendicants in Christendom I have observed divers of them in sundry places standing with a Box and a little Picture before it to receive the Alms for this Mountain and Mount Sina but these are under Officers to those who come with the large Commission And though the Greeks are now generally poor and narrow-hearted yet there are few but out of pride or devotion esteem it necessary to bestow Alms on this place Some who have been
Oppressours and lived perhaps upon Rapine and Violence are of Opinion that they attone for their sins by sacrificing part of their prey to this Mountain by which and other Offerings I have heard that within the space of six months there stands Registred above 2000 Dollars in the Book of Laura which have been given at home besides the Collections from Foreign Parts The number of Kaloires viz. Priests Deacons and Lay-Brothers belonging to the Mountain is calculated to amount unto six thousand of which commonly two thousand may be abroad and employed in making Collections and this number is reported by Bellonius to have been in his time which may have been about a hundred years past so that it seems in these late years the number hath not been abated though before the conquest made by the Turks we may suppose that they were far more numerous These Monasteries having for the most part been founded by Kings and Princes have obtained an Original priviledge of being exempted from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch so that they are not obliged to make the acknowledgment of one Asper of benefit unto him All the power he hath is to constitute an Arch-bishop over them whose Seat is at Careis and another at Sidero-Capti but subordinate to the Metropolite of Thessalonica The which Bishops are not farther concerned with them than to say their Liturgy and ordain Priests to whom for every Ordination there is due a Zechin and no more But all matters of Rule and Government are solely in the hands of the Chiefs or Priors of the Monasteries respectively The reason whereof is because that the receiving of members into the Convent or the passing from a Secular into a Religious or Regular life is no part of Priesthood which requires Ordination or a new Character but only the profession of a Vow or Solemn renunciation of the World which comes not within the compass of the Episcopal cognisance Nor yet hath the Patriarch so much power as this over all the Monasteries for Batopedi Laura Contlomouses Philotheo Stauronichetu Pantocratora Simeno Dochano and Ibero are exempted having about 20 or 30 years past purchased their Enfranchisement from the Patriarch so that having no power over them not so much as to confine them to a particular Bishop for conferring of holy Orders they remain at liberty to take and chuse what Bishop they think fit But in most other places where there are Monasteries another Rule is observed for the Patriarch hath not only power to Ordain their Priests but to constitute their Priors and to bestow the Office on him who makes the best Offering and richest Present to the Patriarchate I said in most other places because the Monastry at Mavra Mola on the Bosphorus as also the Monasteries of this Mountain are excepted having the great Bostangeebashee for their Protector who yearly at the beginning of March constitutes some Aga for his Deputy to collect the yearly Tribute or Rent of 12000 Dollars out of which he is allowed ten Purses or 5000 Dollars for his maintenance besides a Sheep a month from each Monastery besides the Presents of Lambs Kids c. at Easter he hath a house at Kareis where he is attended with three or four Servants but no woman hath there admittance This Town of Kareis or Kareais as they write it is seated about the middle of the Mountain where a plentiful Market is held every Saturday to which great numbers of people I mean of the Male Sex do there meet where the Fryars buy Cheese Eggs and as many Male-Sheep and Goats as may supply them with a sufficient provision of Wooll for working and for Presents to their Aga. Here also they sell their Manufactories such as Iron worked into Shovels Tongs Horsshoos c. also Boots Shoos Beads Crosses and what else is the Fruit of their Lands or Surplusage of their provisions for all which they are paid in ready money At this place the chief Monasteries have a house or lodging to receive their respective members who have occasions at that place where formerly did reside a Steward or Representative of every Monastery though now fix only which are the chief remain there for all the rest viz. of Laura Ibero Batopedi Chiliadar Dionysius and Contlomouses Above all there is a common House or Hall where Synods or Councils are held touching the united interest of all the Monasteries which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereunto there is near adjoyning a very fair Church built by Constantine the Great dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sleeping of the blessed Virgin which Church being very ancient was repaired about 164 years past as appears by an Inscription on one of the Walls For maintenance of these publick Buildings and the persons which inhabit them and for defraying the charges of Candles Oyl and Lamps and support of those who Weekly that is on Market-days read the Liturgy every Monastery is taxed in proportion to its Revenue In all which Exercises of Religion and performance of Secular Negotiations they live so free under the Turkish Aga that no Turk whatsoever without his License can set his Foot upon the Mountain which notwithstanding many persons of the best and civillest quality obtain when in the spring for their health and in the Antumne when the Fruits are ripe they desire admission for their pleasure and pastime and at their departure are free and liberal in their acknowledgments to the Monastery where they received their Entertainment This Kareis is now the only Town on this Mountain though in the time of Strabo there were five viz. Dion Kleones Thyssan Holophyx and Akres-thous We have said that this Town of Kareis being the common Mart whereunto the Kaloirs bring their Manufactories it is observable that the Lay-brothers when they enter into this Religious life are employed according to that Trade and work in which they profess themselves most skillful without doors they plant Vine-yards ditch and hedge them in gather Olives and press out the Oyl keep and shear their Sheep but they neither Plow nor Sow within doors they have their Black-smiths who work in Iron to provide them with Matocks Spades and other Instruments of that sort for the Fields they have their Taylors Weavers Cappers and Workers in Leather who having supply'd the Monasteries with conveniences of that Nature sell the remainder to Strangers for money the which accrues to the benefit of the Convent which out of the common Stock provides the materials whereon to work which when they are wrought they are then esteemed to be the Goods of the Monastery For as in Christendom no Fryar is capable of acquiring Wealth unto himself so neither here can a Kaloir appropriate the benefit of his own labours though perhaps an industrious and skilful Workman shall have more respect and care taken of him that he want nothing which is convenient for him
than those who are Drones or unskilful in any Art or Trade Whether such men as these can read or not it matters not much for there is not one of a hundred of them so well learned it is sufficient if he can make his Cross and his Metagnia before the blessed Virgin which is a bowing on their Knees touching the ground with their Forehead which some will do 300 times together as I have already declared in the foregoing Chapter But the Fathers or Priests are of a Classis or Form above these for they can all read and write from the Prior to the lowest Deacon though very few of them understand the learned or School Greek in any perfection for it would puzzle the wisest heads amongst them to interpret every word in their Liturgy and yet they are so expert and ready therein that they can run from the beginning to the ending without stop or hesitation and gallop it over at that rate that one must have a good ear and some skill in the Greek Language to distinguish the different sound of the words which they utter besides which their chief study is of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hymns of John Damascen and to find out and know the proper Lessons for the day and the Offices of the Church with all the Responses and Suffrages which is a Learning so intricate as requires some practice and application of the mind But such as have any Learning more than the rest it consists for the most in the knowledge they have of the Fathers and Councils of their own Church and in the Ecclesiastical Authors of the first Century after Constantine the Great The Latine and Hebrew Tongues and any besides the Greek they contemn and esteem as prophane Philosophy and Mathematicks being matters of Humane Learning they account as unnecessary for men who lead a mortified and spiritual life to whom also all Books are unlawful but such as treat of Divinity and a holy and devout way of living Every Monastery hath its Library of Books which are kept in a lofty Tower under the custody of one whom they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who also is their Steward receives their money and renders an account of all their Expences but we must not imagine that these Libraries are conserved in that order as ours are in the parts of Christendom that they are ranked and compiled in method on Shelves with Labels of the Contents or that they are brushed and kept clean like the Libraries of our Colleges but they are piled one on the other without order or method covered with dust and exposed to the Worm They have few Books amongst them but what treat of Divinity and as I have heard they have scarce any of much worth in regard that the Emissaries of France and other parts have by force of money deprived them of all the choicest Books in their Libraries Nor have they as I have been well inform'd one Book that varies in the least from the Doctrine of the Seventh Council for there is not one Book to be found of those which were wrote by those whom they call Hereticks esteeming that the easiest way to confute a Heretick and stop his Doctrine in its progress is to condemn the same and burn his Book In every Monastery they have Bells such as they daily use are small but those of greatest bigness are of about 4 or 500 weight which they ring at Festivals when they would make the greatest noise and rejoicing on these their Clocks strike which are fixed like those on our Churches in England which are not to be found as I remember in any other place in Turkey unless at Buda where I saw one of this sort For conclusion In this manner this Mountain of Athos is inhabited and this is the Government amongst these Religious men of the Greek Church who are for the most part good simple men of godly lives given greatly to devotion and acts of mortification for as out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks so these men discoursing with a lively sense of God and of his Service we may without over-much credulity or easiness of belief conclude them not only to be real and moral good men but such also as are something touched with the Spirit of God whose devotion and affection to his Commands and Precepts shall carry them farther in their way to Heaven than the Wisdom of the most profound Philosophers or the wisest Clerks And that such people are found in the world endowed with such Priviledges in the Countries of the Grand Oppressour of Christendom to God's Name be Glory and Honour now and for ever Amen CHAP. XII Of Confession Contrition and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the sanctified Oyl practised in this Church BEfore we treat of this last Mystery which is the Oyl of Prayer let us premise something touching the Confession of sins which is to be performed four times in the year to a Priest lawfully Constituted and Ordained that is for such who have leisure and convenience of living Priests and others entred into holy Orders or into a life of Regular Devotion are obliged to a Confession once a Month. The labouring and common people are enjoined to a Confession but once a year and that before their entrance into the great Lent which is before Easter To sick and infirm people it is recommended as a Remedy against the Diseases of the Soul and ease of a burdened Conscience Repentance the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is by them defined to be A sorrow of heart for sin of which a man accuses himself before a Priest with a firm resolution to correct the errours of his past life by that which is to come and with intention to perform whatsoever shall be enjoined him by his Spiritual Pastor for his Penance By which definition it appears how necessary the Greeks esteem Confession to a Priest having these words in the Orthodox Doctrine of the Oriental Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Priest cannot release unless he enquire first what he is to release and likewise it is apparent by the foregoing Definition That the Priest hath power to enjoin Penance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as Prayers extraordinary Alms Fastings visiting of holy Places and the like When the Penitent comes to Confession the Priest utters these words to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold the Angel of the Lord is at hand to take thy Confession see therefore that thou conceal no sin for fear of shame for I also am a man and a sinner as thou art To such Penitents who are sick and languishing and find their Consciences guilty of any mortal sin as Fornication Adultery or Pride which tends to the contempt of God is administred the Sacrament of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The Oyl of Prayer which is performed by the Bishop or Arch-Bishop assisted by seven Priests and begins
but the very Sacraments and to expose the most reverend and mysterious Offices of Religion unto sale for maintenance and support of the Priesthood The taking off Excommunications after death hath been usual but the Excommunicating after death may seem a strange kind of severity for so we read that Theodosius Bishop of Alexandria excommunicated Origen two hundred years after his decease On the same Authority of Excommunication depends the power of re-admission again into the Church which according to the Greek Canon is not to be obtained easily or at every cold request of the Penitent but after proof or tryal first made of a hearty and serious conversion evidenced by the constant and repeated actions of a holy life and the patient and obedient performance of Penance imposed and enjoined by the Church Such as have aposâ—â—â—tized from the Faith by becomiâ—â—â— Turks under the age of 14 years upon their repentance and desire of return to the Church sought earnestly with tears signified and attested by 40 days fasting with bread and water accompanied with continual Prayer day and night are afterwards received solemnly into the Church in presence of the Congregation the Priest making a Cross on the Forehead of the Penitent with the Oyl of Chrism or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usually administred to such who return from the ways of darkness and mortal sins But of such who in riper years fall away from the Faith as many Greeks do for the sake of Women or escape of punishment their re-admission or reception again into the Church is more difficult for to some of them there is enjoined a Penance of six or seven years humbling themselves with extraordinary Fasts and continual Prayer during which time they remain in the nature of Catechumeni without the use or comfort of the Eucharist or Absolution unless at the hour of death in which the Church is so rigorous that the Patriarch himself is not able to release a Penance of this nature imposed only by a simple Priest and for receiving Penitents of this nature there is a set Form or Office in the Greek Liturgy But now we have few Examples of those Apostates who return from the Mahometan to the Christian faith for none dares own such a Conversion but he who dares to dye for it so that that practice and admirable part of Discipline is become obsolete and disused Yet some there have been even in my time both of the Greek and Armenian Churches who have afforded more Heroick Examples of Repentance than any of those who have tryed themselves by the Rules and Canons prescribed for after that they denyed the Faith and for some years have carried on their heads the Badge or distinction of a Mahometan feeling some remorses of Conscience they have so improved the same by the sparks of some little grace remaining that nothing could appease or allay the present torment of their minds but a return to that Faith from whence they were fallen In this manner having communicated their anguish and desires to some Bishop or grave person of the Clergy and signifying withal their Courage and Zeal to dye for that faith which they have denyed they have been exhorted as the most ready expiation of their sin to confess Christ at that place where they have renounced him and this they have resolutely performed by leaving off their Tulbants and boldly presenting themselves in publick Assemblies and at the time of publick prayers in the Church and when the Turks have challenged them for having revolted or relapsed again from them they have owned their Conversion and boldly declared their resolution to dye in that old Faith wherein they were baptized and as a Token or Demonstration hereof being carried before the Justice of the City or Province they have not only by words owned the Christian Doctrine but also trampled their Turkish Tulbants or Sashes under their Feet and withstood three times the demand whether they would still continue to be Mahometans according as is required in the Mahometan Law For which being condemned to dye they have suffered death with the same chearfulness and courage that we read of the Primitive Martyrs who daily Sacrificed themselves for the Christian Verity Considering which I have with some astonishment beheld in what manner some poor English men who have fondly and vilely denyed the faith of Christ in Barbary and the parts of Turky and become as we term them Renegados have afterwards growing weary of the Customes of Turks to which they were strangers found means of escape and returned again into England and there entered the Churches and frequented the Assembly of Gods people as boldly as if they had been the most constant and faithful of the Sheepfold At which confidence of ignorant and illiterate men I do not so much admire as I do at the negligence of our Ministers who acquaint not the Bishops herewith to take their Counsel and Order herein But perhaps they have either not learned or so far forgot the ancient Discipline of ours and all other Christian Churches as to permit men after so abominable a Lapse and Apostasie boldly to intrude into the Sanctuary of God with the same unhallowed hands and blasphemous mouths with which they denyed their Saviour and their Country But what can we say hereunto Alas Many are dissenters from our Church which by our divisions in Religion hath lost much of its Power Discipline and esteem amongst us and men being grown careless and cold in Religion little dream or consider of such methods of Repentance for whilst men contemn the Authority and censures of the Church and disown the power of the Keys they seem to deprive themselves of the ordinary means of Salvation unless God by some extraordinary light and eviction supplies that in a sublimer manner which was anciently effected by a rigorous observation of the Laws and Canons of the Church It is a strange Vulgar Errour that we maintain in England that the Greek Church doth yearly excommunicate the Roman which is nothing so and common reason will tell us That a Church cannot excommunicate another or any particular Member thereof over which it pretends no Jurisdiction or Authority and that the Greek Church hath no such Claim of Dominion or Superiority over the Roman no more than it owns a subjection to it is plainly evinced in the third Chapter of this Book and this I attest to be so upon enquiry made into the truth thereof and on Testimony of Greek Priests eminent and knowing in the Canons and Constitutions of their Church Though we cannot deny but that anciently one Patriarch might renounce the Communion of another over whom he had no Jurisdiction for his notorious Heresie as S. Cyril did to Nestorius before the Assembly of the Council of Ephesus CHAP. XIV Of the treatment the Greeks use towards their dead and the Opinion they have of Purgatory or the middle state of Souls THE Greeks in the time of sickness and
by not painting Pictures to the life or not using engraven Images or by not drawing them farther than to the Waste with an ill-favoured sort of flat painting as if they would thereby excuse the inconvenience which may be objected Yet certainly the use of them is so scandalous amongst Turks who have scarce any thing good in their Religion but that they profess one God and are Enemies to Idolatry that though Pictures and Images may be allowed indifferently in other Churches yet being no essential part of Gods Worship they ought wholly to be rejected and wiped out in Turkey and all the Eastern parts of the World CHAP. XVIII Of Prayers to Saints and Adoration of Angels THE Greek Church in their Prayers to Saints in Heaven and Angels which enjoy the Beatifical Vision of God Almighty differ little or nothing in Doctrine from the Roman which we shall best understand by that which they call The Orthodox Confession of the Anatolian Church in which we have these words We crave the intercession of Saints with God that they should pray for us and we invoke them not as Gods but as his friends who serve him and praise him and adore him and we crave their assistance not as if they were able to assist us by their own Power but that they should procure for us the Grace of God by means of their administrations They say farther But some will say that they do not know nor understand our Prayers To whom we answer that they of themselves do not know nor hear our Prayers but only by Revelation and the Divine Grace which God hath richly bestowed on them they both understand and hear us In like manner we invoke Angels that they would mediate for us by their Ministry with God wherefore they offer to the Majesty of God the Prayers Alms and good works of men And farther they say That as God commanded the Friends of Job that they should bring their Sacrifices and offer them for themselves and that Job should pray for them for that him God would accept so we bringing our Sacrifices of Prayer to the Footstool of the Throne of Grace have them there tendered to the Majesty of God by the Saints and Angels his accepted and beloved Ministers Who sees not here that the Greeks have learned the distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the Roman Schools of whose Doctrine as we have said before they have extracted the Principles by their studies and Conversation in Italy which is the sole Gymnasion and Library of their knowledge and learning for in most points of Controversie where the Patriarchal Autority is not concerned they exactly concur with the sense of the Roman Schools But yet I do not find that their Prayers to Saints and Angels are so frequently enjoyned as they are in the Roman Offices and Rosaries but scattered here and there in their Breviaries of which for satisfaction of the Reader I have made some Collections Forms of Prayers to Saintsused in the Greek Church Holy Martyrs who have stoutly fought and are Crowned pray to the Lord to have mercy on our souls Holy Apostles beseech the merciful God to grant remission of sins to our souls These following are short Prayers appointed to be learned by Children and are commonly the Morning and Evening Devotions of private persons All holy Lady ' Mother of God pray for us Sinners All Celestial Powers of Angels and Arch-Angels pray for us Sinners Holy John Prophet and Fore-runner and Baptist of our Lord Jesus Christ pray for us Sinners Holy Orthodox Apostles Prophets and Martyrs and all Saints pray for us Sinners O sacred Ministers of God our Fathers Shepheards and Teachers of the World pray for us Sinners O invincible indissolvable and Divine Power of the Reverend and life-giving Cross forsake us not Sinners These particulars shall serve for instances that in the Greek Church Prayers are made to Saints in the same manner as in the Roman CHAP. XIX Of the Greek Islands in the AEgean Sea now called the Arche-Pelago and the devision there of Religion between the Greek and Latin Churches AMongst the many Isles in the Arche-pelago since the Conquest of Candia by the Turks none remains subjected to Christian Government but only Tino which belongs to the Venetians Tenedos Myteline Scio Negropont and some others are thought worthy of the Fortresses and defence of the Ottoman Sword The others lye open and ungarded and are the possession and prize of every Pyrate and Rover but yet according to the last Peace concluded between Venice and the G. Signor they are all annexed to the Dominions of the Turk to whom they pay a yearly Harach or Poll-money which is four Dollars per head whereas in the time of the War they paid the same both to the Venetians and the Turk The Turk looking on the Inhabitants of those Isles like out-lying Deer lodged without pale or defence and rather such who afford harbour and succour to Pyrates and Enemies than strength or Riches to the Borders of his Empire hath of late entered into consultation for dispeopling those Islands and transporting the Inhabitants into more secure Enclosures where they may render greater benefit and improvement to their Grand Landlord than they do at present but as yet no resolution hath been taken therein The Greeks are greatly divided in their Religion and consequently alienated each from other in their humour and inclinations some acknowledging the Patriarchal See at Constantinople some at Rome It is not to be doubted but that the Romanists possessing most of Wit and Money are always too hard for the Ignorance and Poverty of the Greeks by which and the convenient shortness of the Latin Mass they draw many of the Greeks from attendance on their own tedious Services to better ordered and more easie Devotions though as yet they cannot perswade them to renounce their obedience to their Church and Patriarch Moreover whilest the Venetians exercised an Authority over many of these Islands which was before they were constrained to render them to the Turk the Church of Rome enjoyed an opportunity of fixing a deep Foundation for that Religion and thereby so far encroached into the possessions of the Greeks that their Religion remained under great discouragements their Rites being suppressed in all the Isles of that Sea for want of protection and redress of their aggrievances until the Greek Bishop or Metropolite of Scio called Ignatius Neochori in the year 1664 being a person of an active Spirit and reported by his Adversaries to be of a proud and haughty disposition inclined to Covetousness and versed in crafty and subtle Arts endeavoured to buckle with the Power and Jurisdiction of the Latines To effect which he at first cunningly suggested to the Turks the danger of that people by reason of their nearness and affinity with the Venetians and constant correspondence with the Enemies
of this Quarrel between Christians who in matters of Religious and Ecclesiastical Concernments sought Justice from the determination of Turks Besides this difference others have arisen of later standing and date but we shall only instance in that one which is very remarkable happening at Jerusalem about the time of Easter in the year 1674. when Monsieur de Nointel Ambassador for his most Christian Majesty to the Grand Signor had a curiosity in his other Travels to make a Pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre which having been anciently in the hands of the Latines at least in equal possession of both one and the other was now demanded by the Greeks as their right and as the true and only lawful Guardians of that place the which Title they took the boldness to assert not only by words but by force and violence For some days before Easter when the Latines were making their usual preparations to adorn the Sepulchre the Greek Priests assaulted them with Clubs with which the Latines being equally provided there followed such a skirmish in the Church maintained with zeal and fury that several both of one side and the other were grievously wounded and one of the Greeks killed but as one of the Fryars of Jerusalem then present told me that he received not his mortal wound from them but that he starved himself obstinately refusing all sustenance for no other Reason than that his blood might be required of the Latines which he imagined to have been of so great import as would cause the Latines to be expelled the Holy Land being desirous in this good Cause to suffer death which he esteemed a Martyrdom for revenge of his Religion and Country The cause which moved the Greeks to revive their pretence to the custody of the Holy Sepulchre with so much resolution and fervour is diversly reported Some say that Panaioti the Viziers Interpreter a Christian of the Greek Church had through the favour of the Vizier obtained a Hattersheriff for investing the Greeks solely in possession of the Sepulchre the which he concealed and laid by him during his life time well considering the opposition and trouble he should encounter by putting it into execution from the union of all the Representatives of the Christian Princes against him and how far a Contention of this nature might proceed to the ruine of his life and fortune at least of his quiet he was too prudent and cautious to make the Experiment but rather chose to conceal it until the time of his death when he bequeathed it for a Legacy to the honour and benefit of his Church Others say That Sultan Morat had granted this Hattersheriff which at the intercession of all the Christian Ambassadours had until now been suspended and lay dormant being only revived by this Quarrel between the Latin Fathers and the Greek Kaloirs for the Vizier to correct as is judged the insolence and presumption of the Latines upon the great Complaints of the Greeks renewed the rigour of the ancient Hattersheriff the which Dositheus Patriarch of Jerusalem an active bold and stiring man put into execution with that briskness and zeal as highly provoked the Latins to an extreme heat of indignation but their passion was little available in the Case whilest they wanted force to right and revenge themselves For notwithstanding all the applications they could make to the G. Vizier enforced by the strong and prevailing Arguments of Money and by the Instances of most of the Christian Ambassadors at the Court the Vizier remained inexorable and not to be moved with any Intreaty or Sollicitation whatsoever And when the English Ambassador about August 1675. designed to make experience how successful and powerful his Interest might prove at Court above the Addresses of other Ministers he was privately advised by a person of nearest intimacy to the Publick Counsels not to move in a matter which was so ungrateful and which would force the Vizier against his Will to give him the first denyal of what he had demanded from him In this manner for some years this business remained in which interim Addresses were made to the Pope at Rome and to the Courts of Christian Princes for a Remedy but no Interest of Money or Favour could incline the Vizier Ahmet Pasha during his Life and Government to alter his Sentence or Judgment in the Case but now Kara-Mustapha Pasha succeeding to the Government a recovery may probably be expected in case those Arguments of Money and Presents be applyed which had little power on the resolution and integrity of the Vizier deceased The Greeks of the Islands are men of robustious and well-proportioned Bodies strong and fit for War for which reason the Turks employ them for Levents or Souldiers for Sea-service but being Christians they deny them the priviledge of exercising Arms at Land They are a people extremely well contented with their condition and would not change their Possessions on their little Rocks and Isles for all the Antick Glory of the Grecian Empire where they pipe and dance promiscuously Men and Women together in despight of Enemies or the double Duty and Tax which they paid in time of War to the Venenetians on one side and to the Turks on the other But since Peace between the G. Signor and the Venetian is concluded all the Isles of the Arche-pelago are solely allotted to the Dominion of the Turk except the Isle of Tino as we have said before which by Articles is reserved to the Venetians who have there a Proveditor and Castle to defend it The other Isles are open having no other Fortresses than their little Chappels and Oratories for which cause they are much infested by Corsaires or Free-booters under the Colours of Ligorn Malta Mayorca c. to whom these Islanders are so perfectly subject in all duty and service that their goods are liable to their rapine and the bodies of their Wives and Daughters to their lusts Notwithstanding which these poor people rejoice in their homes and can dispense with all inconveniences rather than abandon their beloved rocks so powerful is that affection which every one bears to his own Country But the entertainment which these Islands afford the Corsaires hath so far moved the indignation of the Turk that as we have said before he hath more than once taken a resolution entirely to depopulate all the open or unfortified Islands by transporting the people to some places on the Continent where their industry and labours might bring them more profit and advantage but as yet the design hath not succeeded though greatly feared and sadly expected by that miserable people But in no place of the Turks Dominions do Christians enjoy more freedom in their Religion and Estates than on the Isle of Xio or Scio to which they are entituled by an ancient Capitulation made with Sultan Mahomet the Second to whom they surrender'd themselves on Composition and Articles of liberty and enjoyment of their Estates which to
or the Turks themselves yet treating here of the Oriental Churches it may be some elucidation of the premises to give the Reader an instance whereby he may understand how constant the minds of men living in the East are to their Traditions and to keep up their fancy to any ancient superstition which particular is undoubtedly true being transmitted to me by a worthy and ingenious person residing at Aleppo It is well known how much the Telesmatical Doctrine which was anciently the wisdom or rather folly of the Learned prevailed in the Eastern Quarters of the World in imitation of which on the 15th of April 1671 there was brought into Aleppo a little Copper-Vessel of Water out of a strong imagination that it was endued with a Telesmatical Vertue to draw thereunto a sort of Birds which feed on Locusts commonly called by the Arabs Smirmar I have seen them every Summer about the parts of Constantinople and Smyrna they are about the bigness of a Starling and very like it in the Bill and Legs but of various Colours on the Head Breast Back and Wings This Bird as they report hath so shrill a note that the very sound of it will strike down a thousand Locusts at a time and are such Acridophagi that when they come in great numbers are sufficient to devour and destroy those vast swarms of Locusts which in some years consume all the green Corn Grass Herbs and Plants in the Country and turn the hopes and expectation of a plentiful Spring into a barren Autumn and a Winters Famine so that to be freed of this Plague to which the parts about Aleppo are greatly subject no more happy or easie remedy could be found than something endued with a power attracting such beneficial and useful Guests to perform which nothing was esteemed more effectual than a certain Water fetched as they say from a Pool in Samarcand or rather from a holy Well of the Arabs called Zimzam the which Water was not to be carried under any Arch unless the immediate Arch of Heaven This being the Opinion of the Inhabitants of Aleppo the Water was sent for and brought into the City with great pomp and solemnity The procession was made at the Southern Damascus Gate every Religion and Sect attending in their Habits with the most formal Devotion imaginable according to their different Rites and Ceremonies every Nation bearing before them the respective Badges of their profession viz. The Law the Gospel and the Alchoran with Songs in their mouths according to their several Religions The Mahometans surpassed all the others in the Gallantry of their Streamers their Prophets Banners being near about a hundred in number were carried by sheghs who bellowed most hideously till they foamed at the mouth out-doing themselves with the violent agitation of their Spirits being of the Order of Kadri whose lives and Institutions we have declared in the Ottoman State A Dispute happened before they entered the City between the Christians and Jews for precedence which they challenged on the score of Antiquity but after a little striking and a greater Avania afterwards it was determined that the Christians were the better men and payed most for the exercise of their Religion The concourse of all sorts of people was exceeding great and the Pageantry seven hours in acting for the Water was drawn up over the Gate and over all covered passages and finally over the Castle Walls where in a Mosch it was lodged with all reverence and devotion This kind or species of Birds which resort to this Country are according to the Opinion of all Sects drawn thither by the vertue of this Water which though they have nothing of effectual vertue in them yet this fancy is so strongly rooted not only in the Vulgar people but also with those of greater quality that it seems to be a durable remain of the Sabean Superstition In this manner Reader I have finished this short discourse of the Greek Church what is to be amended or added hereunto is a work of time and worthy the pains and consideration of curious and ingenious Travellers into those Parts FINIS THE PRESENT STATE OF THE Armenian CHURCH CONTAINING The Tenents Form and Manner of Divine Worship in that CHURCH 1678. By PAUL RICAUT Esquire LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Mitre near Temple-Bar 1679. READER THIS Discourse touching the Armenian Church may for divers Reasons probably delight thee First because few have wrote thereof and I think none so distinctly as I have done Secondly because it is a Christian Church far remote from us and therefore their Customs and Doctrines may be the more acceptable to the curious Thirdly because their Learning and Tenents are confined within a Language peculiar to that Nation and known to few of the Western Christians Add likewise to this difficulty an Universal Ignorance in the Armenian Clergie who are neither very willing to learn themselves nor very apt to instruct others So that what I have here briefly delivered is the effect of a difficult Enquiry and the small fruit of much Labour in whatsoever therefore I come short of an exact account of the Armenian Doctrine and Practice be pleased Courteous Reader to pardon and compassionate the ignorance and inability of my Teachers and the difficulty of my Task for it seems unreasonable to exact more learning from the Scholar than what he hath been able to copy from his Master Farewel THE PRESENT STATE OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH CHAP. I. Of the Armenian Church in general THE Armenian Nation being much dispersed in many Countries of the Turks through the encouragement of Trade and Traffick to which they are much addicted I have had the opportunity of conversation and acquaintance with many of them by which means and that curiosity and desire of knowledge which always guides me I have penetrated as far as my leisure and abilities would permit me into the Humours Customs and especially into the Religion of this People It will not be to our purpose to deduce their lineage from its original or recount the various successes of their Princes in past times or their martial actions and fortunes against the Romans It is sufficient as to their Secular and Temporal Estates to describe them as men naturally of healthy strong and robustious Bodies their Countenances commonly grave their Features well proportioned but of a melancholy and Saturnine air On the contrary their Women are commonly ill-shaped long-nosed and not one of a thousand so much as tolerably handsom The men are in their humours covetous and fordid to a high degree heady and obstinate hardly to be perswaded to any thing of Reason being in most things of a dull and stupid apprehension unless in Merchandise and matters of gain and in that they cannot or will not understand other than what is agreeable to their advantage I have never read or heard of any amongst them famous for Poetry or Romantick Fancies or that they were of late years
heard of unless in Moldavia Valachia and Mount Athos It is also called Ouch Chilse or the three Churches because of the three Churches which are there built in a Triangle the first of which as we have said is this Etchmeasin the second Rupsameh and the third Gayeneh The Armenians report That these three Churches are founded on three Rocks placed in a triangular form under which was a strange hollowness or Cavity replete in the time of Gentilism and Idolatry with the voices of Prophetick Spirits or Ghosts which gave Answers to all Questions that were made to them in the same manner as the Oracles of Delphos or Jupiter Haman until such time as Jesus Christ intending to have his Name worshipped there descended from Heaven on that place and taking his Cross on which he suffered struck one blow therewith on each Rock with which they sunk into the Ground and thereby the Diabolical Spirits were displaced for the word Etchmeasin signifies one blow or stroak and there these three Churches were founded which are the highest in esteem amongst the Armenians They have a large History of the other two Churches called Rupsameh and Gayeneh wrote by one Acutanghios which remains amongst the Registers of Etchmeasin being to this purpose In the time of Dioclesian the Emperour when a violent Persecution arose against the Christians at Rome seventy Virgins which had taken a Religious Vow upon them were by Divine Inspiration directed to the Eastern parts of the World of which Rupsameh and Gayeneh two Sisters and Daughters of Gohetea for so they call their Father a noble Roman were the chief and arriving first at Alexandria in Egypt they travelled thence to Jerusalem and so into Armenia where at that time Tyridates governed as King In which long Journey forty of the seventy dying the other thirty designed to build their Monastery and therein to serve God according to the Christian Faith and Discipline The arrival of these new-come Guests being of the Female Sex was such a Novelty as filled all that Country with the rumour thereof and more particularly the incomparable beauty of Rupsameh and Gayeneh was the whole discourse at the Court of Tyridates whose heart was so affected therewith that he sent for the two Sisters supposing that the splendour of his Court and the greatness of his Authority was sufficient to command their affections and consent to his amorous addresses but they having their hearts enflamed with divine love gave no ear to his sensual Courtship but rather slighted and contemned all the fine words he could use and the large proffers he could make which applications were daily renewed to these Religious Virgins until the Prince disdaining to be so neglected converted his love into hatred and fury in the heat of which he caused an Executioner to cut off both their heads which being done accordingly their Corps were exposed in the Fields to be entombed in the bowels of wild beasts This matter happened at that time when Surp Savorich as they call S. Gregory who converted Armenia to the Christian Faith by order of Tyridates was for preaching the Gospel cast into a most profound Dungeon so damp and dark that it was a Habitation for none but Bats and Serpents where â—â—r the space of thirteen years he was most miraculously preserved by the administration of an Angel which daily supplyed him with bread and water than which he received no other sustenance during which time all the world believed that Savorich had been long dead and buried in his loathsom habitation until at length the Sister of Tyridates called Castrovitught being frequently disturbed in her sleep by an Angel which ordered her to supplicate her Brother for the releasement of Savorich could find no repose until she revealed the Vision which seeming strange and no other at first than a melancholy Dream did afterwards upon the tryal prove true Savorich being found alive in the Dungeon and strong and healthful Notwithstanding which Miracle and the Petitions made in behalf of Savorich by several Chief Officers and by his Sister in particular yet Tyridates having his heart hardned like Pharaoh refused to give license for the liberty of Savorich which sin of obstinacy so moved the anger of God against him that one day appointed for a general hunting being in pursuit of a wild Bore he was on a sudden transformed into the shape of a Swine and all his Followers into Hobgoblins and Fairies such as the Turks call Gin which metamorphosis is something like that of Ulysses and his Companions This Judgment of God Struck all the people into such an amazement that they immediately resolved to free the Saint begging him to pray unto God to restore their King and Attendants to their former shapes of Human Form Savorich or S. Gregory being released immediately sought for Tyridates and having found him was received by him with as much grace and in as good a fashion as could be expected by a person of so ill a feature and having prayed to God for him both he and all his Followers were transformed again to their natural shapes By which Miracle all the Country of Armenia was converted to the Christian Faith After this Savorich was commanded to gather up the Bodies of Rupsameh and Gayeneh preserved by divine Miracle and carry them to Etchmeasin to which place he was conducted by an Angel where he buried those bodies under the two Rocks which are therefore now called by their Names which place also being the Sepulchre of Savorich hath added much unto that devotion which the Armenians bear thereunto Next to this place of Devotion Virap which was the Dungeon of Surp Savorich is most in esteem of any in Armenia over which they have built a famous monastery which is seated in the Country of Ardashat being two days journey from Etchmeasin and one from Rivan This Savorich or S. Gregory is so high in esteem amongst them that they take the account of their years from the time of his Preaching and the Conversion of that Nation to the Christian Faith which in this present year is reckoned to be 1128. which answers to ours of 1679. To these Churches they commonly make their Pilgrimages being for their sanctity in opinion of this people esteemed before Jerusalem and are accounted so holy that before a person can be qualified to appear in that place he is required to prepare himself seven years beforehand which is performed by a Fast or Lent of 40 days in every one of those seven years purposely designed for this preparation besides the usual Fasts and Lents of the Church and with a sole intent to render himself worthy to receive the benefits and endowments which are acquired by this most acceptable and holy Pilgrimage For they say that he who comes thus prepared with humility and devotion shall have his desires satisfied in any gift qualification or blessing he expects unless it be Riches for Money being the Mammon of this World is
his own will dyed corporally and yet was alive as God was buried and his Deity was mixed with him in the Grave his soul descended into Hell and was always accompanied with his Deity he preached to the souls in Hell whom after he had released he arose again the third day and appeared to his Apostles I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ did with his body ascend into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God and that with the same body by the determination of His Father He shall come to judge both the quick and the dead And that all shall rise again such as have done good shall go into life eternal and such as have done evil into everlasting fire This is the sum of the Armenian Faith which they teach their Children and young Scholars and is repeated by them in the same manner as our Apostles Creed is in our Divine Service CHAP. V. Of Fasts in the Armenian Church THEIR Fasts are the most rigorous of any Nation in the World for as the Eastern people have always been more abstemious in their diet and less addicted to excess in their Tables and ordinary Banquets than the Western or Northern Nations so by this custom of living they support more easily the severe Institution of their Lents who in the time of their Feasts are not so free in their eating and drinking as we are in our times of Abstinence and Fasting for that which we call a Collation or Lenten-Table will serve an Armenian for an Easter Dinner For in the first place they observe the Great Lent before Easter beginning at the same time with the Greek Church following in this particular the Rule ordained by the Council of Nice which is observed by all the Christian World And in this Lent they eat not Fish with blood as do the Papists nor Shell-fish as do the Greeks nor yet so much as Oyl of Olives as being substantial and that which yields too much nourishment and pleasure to the Palate only they may eat the Dregs and Lees of the Oyl of Olives or the Oyl of Sousam which is pressed from a Seed so called in Turkish like our Rape-seed the smell of which is sufficient to overcome a tender stomach In which time of mortification they account it a sin to accompany with their Wives and perhaps they may not have much inclination thereunto in regard that at the beginning of Lent many of them pass three or four days without receiving any refreshment either of Bread or Water into their Stomachs and perform the like at the end thereof not breaking their Fasts until they eat and drink the Sacrament on Easter-day in the Morning Besides which they observe a continued Fast through all the days of Lent not eating until three of the Clock in the Afternoon which some call Cornelius his Fast and is a Custom of great Antiquity But Easter being come they make some recompence to the Body for this long abstinence by a permission to eat flesh till Ascension-day without accounting of Frydays or other days which the Greeks call days of abstinence The like indulgence they have for the whole week after Epiphany but excepting these Weeks aforesaid they keep Wednesdays and Frydays for days of abstinence through the whole year As to their other Fasts they observe a short Lent of nine days before the 15 th of August which is the Feast of our Ladies Assumption They have one which begins the Week after the Feast of Pentecost that is on Trinity Monday being performed in honour to the Holy Ghost two Weeks after which they fast one more on the same account then after two Weeks they fast one more then after four Weeks they fast one then after one Week they fast another then after seven Weeks they fast another then after two Weeks they fast one again after three Weeks they fast the fourth and seven days before the Epiphany they keep a severe Lent so that they always fast in our Christmas till Twelf-day In which manner they mix the whole course of the year with fasting but the times seem so confused and without rule that they can scarce be recounted unless by those who live amongst them and strictly observe them it being the chief care of the Priest whose Learning principally consists in knowing the appointed times of fasting and feasting the which they never omit on Sondays to publish unto the people CHAP. VI. Of the Feasts in the Armenian Church THE Feasts of Easter and Pentecost they celebrate according to the Custom of the Greek Church and with us who keep our account according to the Old Style But our Christmas Day they observe not but in lieu thereof they celebrate with great Solemnity and Commemoration the Birth Epiphany and Baptism of our Saviour on the sixth of January which is our Twelf-day the which day they keep with high devotion and more especially because they hold that one of the Wise-men of the East who came to offer his Gold and Incense was an Armenian Prince with whom they are so well acquainted that they know him by name to be Gaspar before which sixth day of January which is our Epiphany they observe as we have said seven days of Fast according to their usual severity and rigour All their other Feasts unless it be Easter which through all the Catholick Church is preceded by the grand Fast of Lent are ushered in but with five days of Fast. As to that of Epiphany it is certainly very ancient as Dr. Cave learnedly writes in the first part of his Primitive Christianity having these words Whether the Feast of Christmas was always observed on the same day that we keep it now that is on the 25th of December is uncertain for it seems probable that for a long time in the East it was kept in January under the name and at the general time of the Epiphania or Theophania until receiving more light in the case from the Churches of the West they changed it to this day The other Feasts of the Armenian Church are these which follow First of Surp Savorich which is celebrated in May or June according to the rule of their Canon which as I take it is herein governed by the Moon Vertevar or the Transfiguration of our Lord in June or July Asfasasin or the Assumption of our Lady in August Surp Chatch or the Holy Cross in September Surp Chevorich or S. Demetrio in October Surp Nicolo in November Surp Acop in December Surp Serchis or S. George in January or February These are the only Feasts in grand request or of precept amongst them the observance of which is strictly enjoined to the Laity which if reckoned with the grand Festivals will not amount to above ten in the whole year Howsoever the Clergy who have nothing more to do but to pray and read have many other days enjoyned them in commemoration of Saints which are so many that there is not one day in the whole year
which is not either appointed for Fast or noted for a Festival CHAP. VII Of their Monasteries and Rules observed therein BEsides the Monastery of Etchmeasin of which we have already treated they have several others in divers places of Armenia Persia and Dominions of the Turks But those of greatest note are these That of S. John Baptist called by them Surp Carabet on the Borders of Persia Varatch or the Holy Cross scituated near Van where they report that Rupsameh fixed the real Cross of Christ Asfasasin or the Blessed Virgin is another Monastery near Darbiquier Surp Bogas or S. Paul at Angora Their Orders or Rules observed are three viz. Surp Savorich or that of S. Gregory Surp Parsiach or that of S. Basil and Surp Dominicos or that of S. Dominick The first wear Vests of black with Hoods of the same but when they officiate in their Mass they are cloathed in white with Crowns on their heads The second are habited like Greek Kaloires of that Order And the third are cloathed in black with no other difference from the first than in the cut and shape of their Hoods This latter of S. Dominicos they seem to have taken from the Roman Priests who have gained footing and admission amongst them for otherwise that Western Name and Modern Order could never have found place so far East-ward nor society with those other two more ancient Religions unless by imitation or in conformity to Rome They observe almost the same Rules and Orders in their manner of Worship and Service They eat no flesh nor drink Wine yet on Saturdays and Sondays out of Lent they have liberty to eat Eggs Milk Butter and Fish They have used themselves so much to fasting from their Infancy that it is very curious to observe what Custom is able to effect in our Bodies and with how small a proportion Nature can be contented in which strict manner of living some have so far endeavoured to exceed that they have daily diminished of their slender Diet and supposing still that Nature might be content with a meaner proportion have so extenuated and macerated their Bodies that at length they have miserably perished with Famine They arise from their Beds at Midnight and continue in Prayer and Fasting until three a Clock in the Afternoon during which time they are obliged to read over the whole Psalter of David There are Women likewise in this Country who put themselves into Nunneries and live with the same severity and strictness as do the men They have also some Hermites whom they call Gickniahore who live upon the tops of Rocks confined thereunto almost as severely as Simeon Stylites was to his Pillar Nor is this Country so remote and obscure nor the Language so much unknown but that the Roman Clergy hath gained a considerable footing amongst them whereby they have established no less than ten Monasteries in that Country all of the Order of S. Dominick of which I have seen and discoursed with some of the Friers and particularly I had once opportunity to discourse with the Arch-Bishop who was of the same Order and constituted by the Pope over this Church as he was going to Rome to receive his Consecration and to obtain a Stipend of 200 Crowns a year for his maintenance he told me that he had ten Monasteries under him all of the Order of S. Dominick that his place of Residence was at Nachavan three days journey from Tavris which was the place where Noah's Ark rested after the flood These of the Roman as well as of the Armenian Church are so wretchedly ignorant that they are not capable to render a satisfactory answer to a curious Stranger in any thing relating to their own Customs and Manners but commonly make a reply to his Queries by begging for if you ask them Questions they will demand Alms of you The first time that the Roman Religion crept into this Country was about 350 years past by means of one Ovan de Kurnah who having a wandring head and a genius towards Learning somewhat more curious than the generallity travelled into Poland and thence into France and Italy where having comprehended something of the Western Knowledge and Doctrine returned into his own Country where he preached and instructed them in the material points of their Religion which seemed unto them to be all new matters and high notions and had not entred into the consideration and brains of the wisest amongst them so that the Doctrines and Tenents of Kurnah began to pass currant amongst them to the great admiration and applause of this travelling Doctor But at length touching on the Popes Supremacy to the prejudice of the Patriarchal Authority and Jurisdiction the whole mass of his Doctrine became leavened and he forbidden farther to preach or the people to hear him Howsoever a considerable number adhered to his Doctrine and to this day rather gain than lose ground in Armenia of whom there is a Church licensed at Rome and the form of their Mass priviledged and squared according to that of the Latines but excessive long and tedious and much differing from that of the Armenian as I have seen them revised and compared together In the year 1678 when I was passing through Rome and Italy in my way from Smyrna into England it was confidently reported in the Dominions of the Pope that the Chief Patriarch of the Armenian Church together with many of his Metropolites were on their journey towards Rome with intention to submit themselves to that Church but having remained in those parts for some Months after that report began and neither seeing nor hearing of their nearer approach I may confidently conclude that this Patriarch is still as far off in his agreement with the Church of Rome as he is at a distance by the situation of his Country As to the Service-Book which belongs to the true and that which is properly called the Armenian Church it was compiled as they report in part by S. James and the rest by S. Chrysostom and S. Basil whose forms of Prayer and Service are wholly in use amongst the Eastern Christians for I have not heard of any Liturgy of Surp Savorich or S. Gregory in this Church which to me is very strange There not being much Literature amongst these people we cannot expect to find great Libraries wrote in their Language or many Books wherein the retired Monks may exercise their Studies That Book which is of most note amongst them and agreeable to the design of Religious men is the Book of one Gregorio of the Monastery of Stat which treats of the lives of holy men and serves in the place of Homilies read on Festival Days the study of which is the chief employment of the Armenian Monks CHAP. VIII Of the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper and Panis Benedictus IT would be very difficult to be resolved by Armenian Doctors whether they hold seven or two Sacraments in their Church for that word
not being understood amongst them it would be impossible to form a definition which may accord with their capacity we shall therefore tell you in what manner they celebrate those two Sacraments in their Church The Baptism of Infants they use and esteem necessary as being that which washes away their Original sin in performance of which the Priest takes the Child by the Feet and Hands and dips it three times under Water which immersion of three times these with the Greeks esteem essential unto this Sacrament so that where the Vessel is shallow and not capable to recieve the whole Body the Priest pours it with his hand that not Part or Member may remain unbaptized After Baptism they apply the Chrism anointing the Fore-head Eyes Ears Breast Palms of the hands and soals of the feet with consecrated Oyl in form of a Cross and then they administer unto the Child the Holy Eucharist which they do only by rubbing the Lips with it The distribution of the Panis Benedictus which they call Maz is in use amongst them as with the Greeks Surp Usiun as they call the holy Eucharist they celebrate only on Sondays and Festivals though on other days they perform the publick Services of the Church whereby it appears that they have other Morning Services besides that of the Communion They put no Water into the Wine nor Leaven into the Bread as do the Greeks They hold Transubstantiation as do the Papists from whom the Priests readily accepted of such a Doctrine as tends to their Honour and Profit Christ saith This is my Body and This is my Blood which plain words these good men are willing to accept in their litteral sense that so they may not be put to the subtilties of the Schools nor to the interpretation of Mystical and Sacramental Terms Let the meaning be how it will the Church of Rome which is more wise and learned than they hath so determined it and if they erre be the fault and errour upon them Howsoever this Tenent of Transubstantiation is held and discussed but of late years amongst them and is not altogether Universally accepted some of them will pretend to maintain and others will deny it and declare that the Epitome of their faith which is mentioned only in the 12 th Chapter of this Book was subscribed by some few of their Bishops and extorted from them by threats and rewards Their manner of distributing the Communion is done by sopping the Bread into Wine so that the Communicant receives both species together which is different from the Form and Custom of the Latine Greek and reformed Churches They differ from the Greeks in that they administer Bread unleavened made like a Wafer they differ from the Romans in that they give both Species to the Laity which the Priest doth by putting his Fingers into the Chalice out of which he takes the Wafer soaked in the Wine and delivers that unto the Communicant And it is pleasant to observe that he hath no sooner done so but that some Boy or young Lad is presently at hand to lick his Fingers which he willingly grants him in regard that they esteem it a kind of initiation or Pledge to them of receiving the Sacrament hereafter when they come to years of understanding as the rubbing of the Lips of the Infant with the consecrated Elements is to Children at the time of their ad-admittance to Baptism So that when I consider and observe in what a plain manner our Saviour instituted this Sacrament how easily understood and how clearly practised and how facil to be followed and brought into imitation for it is said he took Bread and blessed it and brake it and gave it to his disciples c. in like manner he took the Cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink you all of this Notwithstanding which we may see how far the Churches have deviated from this easie and plain rule The Latines administer it with a Wafer and deny the Cup to the Laity the Greeks give both Species in a Spoon together the Armenians soak the Bread in the Wine Only God hath illuminated the Reformed Churches and taught them how to follow the Examples of the first Institution and yet amongst them likewise there is some difference and amongst the Sectaries yet greater whereby we may judge of the malice and subtlety of the grand Deceiver who would render that salutiferous food unwholesome and make this principal Instrument of Grace and Salvation to become the most dangerous snare and ruine of Humane Souls CHAP. IX Of Penance and Excommunication THEY use Confession in the Ear of a Priest who is for the most part very rigorous in the Penance he imposes for if the Sin be enormous and very foul he is not contented with one bare Act of Penitential satisfaction but lays a penance to continue for several years at the end of which it is seldom that the Penitent escapes or obtains absolution without some pecuniary mulct by way of peace-Offering or Atonement for sin and by which also the indignation of the Priest himself may be satisfied and appeased and this penance once imposed no man can remit no not the Bishop nor Patriarch himself Some I have known who have been enjoyned a whole weeks fast that is from Sonday night to Sonday Morning following during which time they have taken nothing into their Mouths of Meat or drink only on Wednesday night they had license to drink one draught of Sherbet Excommunication is made use of as frequently by them as by the Greeks by the abuse of which the Priests procure the most considerable part of their gains Nor is any Ecclesiastical Rite as we have said before performed nor a Benefice conferred without Money the Oppression and Exaction under which they live both of the Turks and Persian being a plea as they suppose sufficiently forcible to excuse from the Crime of Simony CHAP. X. Of their Marriages MArriage is not only lawful for a Secular Priest but is esteemed so necessary that none can be a Priest unless he enter first into the state of Matrimony I say a Secular Priest because a Bishop or a Monk cannot marry or rather that state is not inconsistent with the Office of a Bishop as a Bishop but as the Bishops are Monks being always chosen out of the Monasteries of Religious men In case the Wife of the Secular Priest dies and he marries again he is ipso facto degraded and suspended from his Sacerdotal Ministry Lay persons are permitted to marry twice but the third Marriage is abominable and esteemed as scandalous and as great a Sin as Fornication A Widow cannot marry with other than with a Widow as one that hath not been married must take one who is reputed a Virgin in which they observe the same degrees of consanguinity as are agreeable to the Canons of the Western Churches They usually chuse Monday Morning at or before break a-day for the time to be
married they begin the Feast on Sonday Evening and continue it three or four Days with much jollity during which time the Bride is kept in her Chair and State and almost the whole time waking and the Bridegroom in like manner is obliged to keep his distance and not permitted to consummate the Matrimonial Duty until Wednesday night or Thursday morning when they expose the signs of Virginity in the same manner as the Greeks Turks and Jews do and all other Nations of the East CHAP. XI Their Opinion of Souls in the state of separation and their Ceremonies used towards the dead THEY believe that neither the Souls nor Bodies of any Saints or Prophets departed this life are in Heaven unless it be the Blessed Virgin and Elias the Prophet They believe that a person dying contrite goes not immediately to Heaven nor a Sinner unto Hell but are intercepted in the way and lodged together in the same place which they call Gayank which is the Eighth Heaven where the Stars are and have there no other joy or grief but what proceeds from a good or a bad Conscience Those which dye with the burden of minute sins such as the sins of evil thoughts or words go to the same place and are freed from Punishment by the Alms and good works of the Faithful They believe that until after the day of resurrection the souls of the Righteous shall not see the face of God or enjoy the Beatifical Vision but only be filled and replenished with certain beams of his glory and Divine illumination Notwithstanding which opinion That the Saints shall not enter into Heaven until the day of judgment yet by a certain imitation of the Greek and Latine Churches they invoke them with prayers reverence and adore their Pictures or Images and burn Lamps to them and Candles The Saints which are commonly invoked by them are all the Prophets and Apostles likewise S. Silvester S. Savorich c. As to the Ceremonies used towards their Dead they observe several particulars The Corps of their Bishops and Priests they anoint with confecrated Oyl before they are interred but the Bodies of the Laity are only washed after the manner of the Turks and fashion of the Eastern parts of the World When any dies under the Age of nine years the Parents or Kindred employ some Priest for the space of eight days to make Prayers for the Soul of the deceased who during that time have their entertainment of Meat and Drink defrayed at the charge of such Parents and on the ninth day a solemn Office is performed for the Soul of the Deceased But those who are rich and Religious do yearly at their expence appoint one day for Commemoration of their departed Relations and for performance of those Offices which are instituted and appointed for the same Easter Monday is the day ordained by Custom for visiting the Sepulchres of their deceased Relations where having lamented them a while with howlings and cryes after their manner and the Women with most barbarous Screeches they presently change the Scene and retiring under the shadow of some Tree they eat drink and forget their sorrow which their Wine soon chases away and then they become as dissolute in their Mirth as they were before undecent and extravagant in their Grief This Custom we may suppose to have been derived from those ancient Solemnities which were at first kept at the Tombs where Martyrs had been buried which usually were in the Caemeteria or the Church-yards distinct from the Church and in the Eastern parts are commonly at some distance without the City To these places the people annually resorted to celebrate the memory of Martyrs with Prayers Incense Psalms and Sermons which by the multitude of Martyrs became afterwards so common that the people began to think it their duty to perform this Office at the Graves of their Relations which time hath now made accustomary and is a great part of the service and pastime of Easter Monday CHAP. XII Of the manner how some Friars of the Roman Church perswaded the Armenian Patriarch and Bishops at Constantinople to subscribe a Confession agreeable to the Tenents of the Roman Faith THough the great Marshal Turenne as is credibly reported had alwayes inclinations towards the Roman Church which for many years he concealed for reasons best known to himself Yet being desirous at length to be owned as a Member thereof he suffered himself to be wrought upon by such arguments as were then suggested amongst which none seemed more convincing or forcible to him than that the Eastern Churches concurred with the Roman in all points wherein there was any difference between the Papists and the Protestants to prove which the Ambassadour Resident for his most Christian Majesty at Constantinople in the year 1674 assembled the Armenian Patriarch and some of his Bishops from whom without much difficulty he procured a certain Confession very agreeable to the sense of the Roman Church A Copy of this Confession I saw and read as it was delivered to me from the Martabet or Armenian Bishop wrote in the Armenian Language and Character the which was faithfully Translated for me which when I well considered it appeared plainly to me to be origiginally the invention form and contrivance of some Fryer of the Roman Church rather than the thoughts or Stile of an Armenian Author For first though I understand little of the Armenian Tongue yet I have some reasons to perswade me that there is nothing in the Idiom of that Language which corresponds with the word Sacrament agreeable to that definition whereby we would understand the notion of Sacramentum Secondly the professed Armenian Doctrine holds That there are no other Saints in Heaven but the blessed Virgin and Elias the Prophet and yet in this Confession they seem to place as many in Heaven it self as the Church of Rome Thirdly in another place one would believe that to avoid confusion they meant to set up the Pope for Head of the Universal Church which when they come to explicate a little farther they only condemn those who allow not the Government of the Church by Bishops and those who believe that one Preacher is sufficient and that one Priest can make another But who this latter sort of people is and where to be found they would have done well to have declared before they had taken so much pains to bestow the Anathema upon them This Confession which I here mention was in part the Occasion and Ground of the Report which in the year 1676 was spread at Constantinople of a new reconciliation which though it was some years after this Confession yet that and the Conversion of an Armenian Bishop to the Church of Rome was the cause of all the discourse but he being a person of no greater Revenue than of 200 Dollars yearly Rent the mistake soon appeared it being probable that the acquisition of a poor ignorant person could have no great influence on
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Liv. li. 34. * In the Morea and parts of Greece The Esteem which the Greeks have of the power of the Keys The Greeks presume not to vary in their Doctrine or Practice The Turks have some opinion of the sanctity of the Christian Religion The pride of Pharisaical Professors The advantage of the Latine Church above the Greek Tmolus Smyrna * Besides 10 old Fountains which were dry but again repaired The Theatre The original of Smyrna Ephesus The River Cayster The Temple of Diana S. John's Church The Temple of Diana in its ruines Tac. An. lib. 3. Acts 19. 27. The seven Sleepers The Theatre The Aquaeduct Phygela Tyria not Thyatira Lib. 37. Laodicea The Meander Dingizlee Vespasian's Circus Hierapolis The Theatre The pestilential Grota Philadelphia Sardis Selimus The true Thyatira * The Greeks call their Bishops by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Cyprus 1678. The Ceremony in creating the Patriarch of Constantinople Contentions for the Office of Patriarch The late differences in the Church Copy of a Patent whereby the G. Signior makes Bishops The other three Patriarchs Revenue of the Patriarchs And of Secular Priests The Bishops of Rome and Constantinople compared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obedience due to the Orders of the Church Cosma and Damianus S. George Canonizing Saints used by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Eucharist The question of Transubstantiation how determined in the Greek Church Ep. 6.3 Offertory to the dead Offertory for the living The Consecration The Administration Distinction of Priests The severe lives of Kaloires The Reformed of this Order The Description of the Mountain The antiquity of the Monasteries on this Mountain The manner of taxing the Monasteries The Riches of the Monasteries The ancient troubles amongst the Friers 1430. In the time of the Council of Florence Laura Athanasius the Monk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caracal Ibero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Revenue of the Monasteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Devotion and Charity of the Greeks to these Monasteries The number of Kaloires in this Mountain Their indepen dency on the Patriarch A Turkish Aga set over them Kareis The employment of the Kaloirs The learning of their Priests Their Libraries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the holy Oyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Excommunications granted on every trivial occasion The manner of receiving into the Church such as have denyed the faith Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The â—imes appointed to commemorate the dead The Opinion of the Greeks touching the state of Souls after death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Greek Church easie to grant divorces The Islanders of a different humour Greek Women making Kabin with Turks in the Morea and Romania 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. 70◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Job 42. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A difference between the Latines and Greeks at Jerusalem The disposition of the Greek Islanders Xio It proceeds from the Lentiscus which in other parts of the world produces the like Gum.