59.—Of the Greek religion.
It is to be noted, that the Greeks do not believe in the Holy Trinity; they do not believe in the Chair at Rome, nor in the Pope. They say that their patriarchs have as much power as the Pope at Rome. The sacrament they make of leavened bread, and take it with wine and warm water; and when the priest changes the body of God, they all fall down on their faces and say: “No man is worthy to look at God.” And when the priest has finished the Mass, he takes the bread that remains, of which he had prepared the sacrament, and cuts it into small pieces on a dish, and then men and women sit down. Then the priest or his assistant takes the bread round, and so every one takes a piece and eats it, and this bread they call prossura. This bread is not baked by any man or woman, only by a virgin or a nun. They also give the sacrament to young children, but they do not give the sacred oil to any body; and they also say that nobody is wise, and that no one goes into heaven or hell before the day of judgment; then each man will go into heaven or into hell as he has deserved. They have no Mass, unless it is asked for. They say that only one Mass is to be celebrated at the same altar in the day, and they do not let Mass be said at their altars in Latin, and Mass must not be said in any language but in the Greek language, because the Greek language is of their faith. They say also that their faith is the true Christian faith, and the others are not true. They also have the Mass on feast days only, and not on week days, because all their priests are craftsmen and must work, and all have wives and children, and their priests take one wife only; and when she dies he cannot take any more, either in marriage or otherwise. If he has anything to do with a woman, and the bishop becomes aware of it, he takes away from him his priestly charge, so that he cannot say the Mass any more. And when a bishop consecrates a priest, he girds him with a girdle, and when the priest does anything against his priestly order, the bishop takes away the girdle, so that he cannot say Mass any more, and is fallen from his office. The best and the richest marry the priests, and when they are in a house, the priests’ wives sit at the upper [end] of the table, and when women walk together, the priests’ wives go first. Their churches are not independent. When a man builds a church and dies, his heirs inherit the church like other property, and sell it as any other house. They say, it is not a sin to have to do with unmarried women, because it is not a deadly sin, as it is natural. They also say, that when one takes a monthly profit of two pfennings for one hundred pfennings, it is goodly gain, and not usury. On Wednesdays, they do not eat meat; and so, on Friday, they eat fish and oil only, and say that Saturday is not a fast-day, and one may well eat meat on that day. In the churches, the women stand separately, and neither men nor women dare to go near the altar. And when they make [the sign of] a cross, they do it with the left hand. And when one is about to die, they baptise him again, and there are many who are baptised every year. They have no font in their churches; and when their bishop stands in the choir, he stands in the middle of the church and in the choir, and the priests stand around him. Their bishop eats no meat throughout the year, and during the fasts he eats no fish nor anything that has blood, and all their clergy do the same. When they baptise a child, they have X or more godfathers; men and women bring to the child a christening shirt or a candle. They also say, that our priests sin if they have a Mass every day, because they cannot always be worthy. They also say, that our priests commit mortal sin when they shave their beard, because it is not godly, because it happens from unchastity, and to please the women. And when one dies, and prayers for the dead are sung for him, boiled wheat to eat is given to the priests and to the people, after an old usage, and this same wheat they call coleba. They wash their dead before they bury them. Their priests sell and buy like other merchants. They fast during Lent for fifty days; and the priests and the laity also fast forty days in Advent, and for the twelve holy apostles they fast thirty days; they also fast fifteen days for our Lady’s Assumption; they have only three days in the year for our Lady, because they do not keep Candlemas. Item, the Greeks do not keep the resurrection of Jhesus xpi at the same time with us; they keep it on the next Friday after Easter. Then they sing Xristos anesti, which is as much as to say, Xristus is risen.[(1)]