THE MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE OF THE PRECIPICE.
There is no saint in the Oriental calendar held in more estimation, both by Moslems and Christians, than St. George of Cappadocia. The Greeks and Armenians dedicate many churches to him, and the legends they tell and believe of him correspond with those that are current in England of its patron saint. The Orientals do not reproach their favourite, as some incredulous historians do among us, with being the son of a fuller, becoming a parasite, a bacon-merchant, and a cheat, who was torn to pieces by his townsmen for his manifold crimes and vices, in the reign of Julian the Apostate. They represent him as a Christian hero, who suffered martyrdom for his inflexible adherence to Christianity in the persecution of Diocletian, but, before that, had distinguished himself by deeds of high heroic reputation. One of them seems a version of Perseus and Andromeda; and, as in many other instances, fables of pagan mythology are appropriated by Christian saints. After various achievements against Paynims and Saracens, he came to the land of Egypt in search of new adventures. He here found a winged dragon devastating the country with his pestiferous breath, and devouring those whom he had preserved. The wise men were called together, and a compact was made with the monster, that he should be content with devouring a virgin every day. They were all eaten, except the daughter of the soldan, and her weeping friends had just led her to the sacrifice, when St. George arrived. He attacked and slew the monster, and liberated the virgin. This legend, which corresponds with that of the old English ballad, is commemorated in this church of St. George, by a picture in the portico: the saint is depicted on horseback, piercing a winged dragon with a spear, exactly as he is represented on our coins and armorial blazonry; and so he is displayed in every one of the numerous churches dedicated to him in the East.
This fable, which is a popular legend both in the East and West, is, however, explained allegorically. The dragon is the devil, represented under that form in the Apocalypse; and subduing him, and trampling him under foot, by the saint, is emblematic of the faith and fortitude of a Christian. The Greeks call St. George the Megalomartyr, and his festival is a holiday “of obligation.” Constantine the Great built a church, which stood over his tomb in Palestine, and erected the first to his memory in the metropolis, where there were afterwards five more dedicated to him. Justinian, in the sixth century, introduced him into the Armenian calendar, and raised a temple to him. At the entrance into the Hellespont is a large and celebrated convent of his order, which gives his name to the strait; and the pagan appellation of Hellespont merged into the Christian one of “the Arm of St. George.” He was the great patron of Christian knights, and none went to battle without first offering to him their vows.
When Richard Cœur de Lion laid siege to Acre, the saint appeared to him in a vision, and the Crusaders attributed their victories to his interference and aid. The great national council, held at Oxford in 1222, recognized him, and commanded his feast to be kept as a holiday; and in 1330, Edward III. instituted an order of knighthood to his name in England, one of the oldest in Europe, and so he has become the patron-saint of England. His festival is celebrated on the 23d of April, in the Greek church; and the English ambassador at Constantinople, as if to identify our patron-saint with that of the Greeks, gives a splendid entertainment on the same day at the British palace, where St. George is held “as the patron of arms, chivalry, and the garter.”
But our saint has immunities and privileges which do not appear to be allowed to any other in the Greek calendar. At the early period of the reformation in the Oriental church, statues were everywhere torn down by the Iconoclasts, and excluded from their worship as idolatrous, though pictures were allowed to remain; adhering literally to the Commandment of making “no graven images,” but, by a singular anomaly of Greek refinement, venting their religious horror on wood and stone, and bowing down without scruple to paint and canvass. This distinction continues in all its strictness to the present day: the churches are profusely daubed with gaudy pictures of saints, to which profound adoration is paid, and the most extraordinary miracles are attributed; while no statue, or sculptured or graven representation, of the same persons, are tolerated: but to our saint alone an indulgence is extended. His image in some churches is formed on graven silver plates attached to a wooden block, which they affirm had miraculously escaped from the destruction of the Iconoclasts, and has peculiar faculties conferred upon it, corresponding with the pugnacious propensities of the character whose person it represents; and to its wonder-working powers many miracles are attributed.
In the monastery of St. George, in one of the islands of the Archipelago, is a statue of this kind, which is highly serviceable to the Caloyers. If any one is indebted to the convent, and does not pay his dues−if a penitent omits to perform the penance, or violates the strict abstinence imposed upon him during the many seasons of fasting−above all, if he neglects to perform any vow made to the saint−the image immediately finds him out. It is placed on the shoulders of a blind monk, who trusts implicitly to its guidance, and walks fearlessly on without making a false step. It is in vain that the sinning defaulter tries to hide himself. The image follows him through all his windings with infallible sagacity, and, when at length he is overtaken, springs from the shoulders of his bearer to the neck of the culprit, and flogs him with unmerciful severity till he makes restitution and atonement for all his delinquencies. A French writer, who was a firm believer in the miracles wrought by the images of saints in the Latin church, in recording these absurdities of St. George, adds with great naïveté: Les Grecs sont les plus grands imposteurs du monde.
In the church of the convent is a picture highly prized as a chef d’œuvre of Grecian art; it represents the last day, a subject which the Greek Caloyers are fond of impressing on their people. In some, the punishments of a future state, as painted on the walls, are hardly fit to be looked at. Devils riding ploughshares, and driving them through naked bodies of men, and serpents twining round the limbs of offending women. This picture, however, is less exceptionable; it depicts the Deity on the summit, dressed in sumptuous robes, and crowned like a king, having an expanded book before him, in which the fate of every mortal is recorded: below, on one side is a garden, having various departments like the pews of a church, in each of which is enclosed some celebrated individual. In one, Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom,−in another, the penitent thief with his cross on his shoulder. Immediately below, are the extended jaws of a vast monster, into which demons are casting the souls of the condemned, among whom are all the apostates and persecutors of Christianity−Judas, Julian, and Diocletian; with sundry Turks. Among the condemned, one is surprised to see a Greek with his calpac; he had been a dragoman of the Porte, who had offended the artist, and he took this not unprecedented mode of avenging himself on his adversary.
| T. Allom. | J. Sands. |
GUZEL-HISSAR, AND THE PLAIN OF THE MEANDER.
ASIA MINOR.
The river Meander is perhaps the most celebrated of all antiquity, and has been made a generic term, in most languages, to designate a winding stream; poets and historians equally commemorate it. It rose near the ancient city of Celene, and, increased by various tributaries, it fell into the Ægean between Miletus and Priene. So tortuous was its course, that it was counted to have made 600 windings in its progress to the sea. It afforded Dædalus the model for his labyrinth, and travellers have discovered in many parts the various accurate outlines of some of the most convoluted letters of the Greek alphabet. It was remarkable for the alterations it caused in the countries through which it wound its way−obliterating old, and adding new tracts. This was so frequent, and attended with such damage, that an indictment lay against the river; and the person who suffered was remunerated out of the tolls of the bridges which passed over it.
This constant undermining of its banks, and the fall of them into its current, was the probable cause of its devious course. The soil, obstructed in one place, was deposited in another; while the great quantity held in suspension, was suffered to fall when the waters, meeting the obstructions of the sea, no longer supported it in the current. In its mouth it formed great bars, and threw up new lands. The changes thus made were celebrated by the ancients as so many mythological and preternatural metamorphoses:−
“The magic river in its tortuous wheel
Defrauds the mariner; and where his keel
Plough’d up the pliant wave−the rustic’s share
Delves in the soil, and plants his harvest there.
The moving waves to fixed furrows rise;
The sportive kid the dolphin’s place supplies.
The shepherd’s pipe delights the grazing sheep,
Where the hoarse sailor’s voice outroared the boisterous deep.”
Thus it happened that several celebrated towns, situated on its banks, are not now to be traced there. The city of Myus stood on a bay; the constant deposit of mud by the river obstructed the ingress of salt-water, and the bay was changed into an inland lake; the alluvial and marshy soil, generated by the slime, afforded a nidus to vast swarms of insects; and so Myus was infested, and called “the city of gnats.” The swarms at this day are an intolerable nuisance; towards evening, the inside of tents become black with them. Myriads of winged insects cling to the poles and canvass. The torture they give is so insupportable, that the sufferers blow them up with gunpowder, and often set fire to their tents, to get rid of a plague equal to any of those of Egypt. Miletus, celebrated for its woollen manufacture and rich dyes−the birth-place of one of the seven wise men, and the capital of Ionia−was ruined by the Meander; the capricious stream removed itself from its vicinity, and, for an easy and inviting approach, prohibited ingress by depositing inaccessible mounds of mud.
The process, which for revolving centuries marked this singular river, is still going on; deposits are daily made of soft soil, and that which had been left before, hardened into firm ground. This new-created land is stretching beyond the estuary of the stream, and the promontories which marked its mouth, as its barrier against the encroaching of the sea, are now so remote from it, that they are seen distant inland hills. A judicious traveller remarks, that it is probable the land will be pushed away, to join the island of Samos, and such a change will be wrought on this coast by the caprice of the river, that “barren rocks may be enamelled with rich domains, and other cities may rise and flourish on the bounty of the Meander.”
The rich valley through which this river winds its way, was formerly filled with many famous cities, and some distinguished for that luxury and effeminacy which a balmy climate and a fertile soil are apt to generate. Tralles and Alabanda sent from hence their swarms of “esurient Greeks,” with their cargoes of figs and prunes, to taint the Roman citizens, already sufficiently corrupt. Notwithstanding the desolation which Turkish indolence and barbarism brought into these fertile regions, the active spirit of the ancient Greeks still seems to animate their oppressed descendants. The whole plain is seen by the traveller in the highest state of cultivation: corn, wine, and oil, the evidence and emblem of fatness and fertility, are now abundant here, as in the days of the free Greek cities,−pastures covered with sheep and oxen, fields waving with golden crops of wheat, vineyards bending under vast clusters of grape, and gardens shaded by the broad foliage of the fig, are still the prospects which present themselves.
In the midst of this abundance is situated the town of Guzel-Hissar, appropriately called “the Castle of Beauty,” which its name imports. It lies on a small stream, about ten miles from the Meander, and on an eminence which commands a prospect of the lovely vale through which the river winds its way. Our illustration presents a view of it, with Mount Thorax rising behind it, and the ridges of the Messogeis before it−the wooded plain of the Meander lying between, and spread out under the city. Both seem to partake of the same quality of rank vegetation. Among minarets, and domes, and houses, rise cypress, terebinth, and oriental platanus, so that the whole is a forest of mingled spires and trees; among these, myriads of turtle-doves take up their abode, and they and their progeny, in surprising numbers, covering the branches and roofs, fill the air all day long with their incessant and plaintive cooing. The town is the residence of a pasha, but its edifices have little to boast of; they are mean and ragged, and travellers complain of the caravansaries, as being more comfortless and destitute than even Turkish khans. The inhabitants feel the effects of a rank and exuberant vegetation. During the sultry months, a mal-aria is generated, highly pestilential. The plague sometimes rages with mortal malignity; and the traveller, shut up in a small and naked room of a filthy house, panting with heat and devoured with insects, rather endures any thing within, than walk abroad, and encounter the ghastly and infected objects that stalk along, and carry contagion with them through the streets.
| T. Allom. | Thos Turnbull. |
GREEK CHURCH OF BALOUKLI, NEAR CONSTANTINOPLE.
ATTACHED TO THE SPRING OF THE MIRACULOUS FISHES.
There is no superstition so strong in the Greek church as the efficiency ascribed to fountains, and there are no objects of veneration to which they are more fondly attached. Like their pagan ancestors, they consecrate a well to some presiding being, and ascribe to it corresponding virtues. The efficacy, however, is not of the same character. A modern Greek recognizes no Hippocrene, whose draughts inspire him with poetry; but he has innumerable sources of salutary waters, which, by some supernatural power coupled to it by its patron, heals diseases; and around Constantinople are many wells dedicated to different saints, which retain all the virtues of the pool of Bethesda.
Beyond the walls of the city, about half-a-mile from the Selyvria gate, approaching to the sea of Marmora, is one of the most celebrated of these fountains, which, from the earliest period of its dedication to Christianity, has been held in the highest veneration. The tradition of a miracle wrought by its waters in restoring sight to a blind man, attracted the attention of the Greek emperors, and it afterwards became the object of their peculiar care. Leo the Great, in the year 460, first erected a church over it. The emperor Justinian was returning one day from hunting, and perceived a great crowd surrounding it. He inquired into the cause, and learned that a miracle of healing had just been wrought by the waters; so, when he had finished his gorgeous temple to “the Eternal Wisdom of God,” he applied the surplus of his rich materials to adorning this church. It stood for two centuries, an object of wonder and veneration, till it was shattered by an earthquake, when it was finally rebuilt by the empress Irené with more splendour than ever. Such was the sanctity and esteem in which it was held, that imperial marriages were celebrated in it, in preference to Santa Sophia, or other edifices in the city. When Simeon the Bulgarian defeated the Greeks under the walls of the city, he married his son Peter to Maria, the daughter of the emperor Lacapenus, here; and again, the nuptials of the daughter of Cantacuzene with the son of Andronicus Palæologus were celebrated in it with great pomp.
But, besides the sanctity of the place, its natural beauties present considerable attractions. The Byzantine historians describe them in glowing colours: meadows enamelled with flowers of all kinds, gardens filled with the richest fruits, groves waving with the most varied and luxuriant foliage, a balmy air breathing purity and enjoyment, and, above all, a fountain which, to use the language of the times, “the mother of God had endowed with such miraculous gifts, that every bubble that issued from it contained a remedy for every disease.”
This lovely and health-giving place was the resort not only of the pious, but of all who sought recreation in rural scenes. The emperors erected a summer-residence beside the church, and the celebrated region was called “the palace and temple of the fountain.”
When the Turks laid siege to the city, their principal attack was at the gate of St. Romanus, near this spot. The rude soldiers, encamped round it, destroyed its groves, dilapidated its walls, and defiled its fountain; but a traditional anecdote is told, which conferred, in the eyes of the superstitious conquerors, a character as miraculous as that which the Byzantines bestowed upon it. So sure were the infatuated Greeks of Divine assistance to repel their enemies, that they expected the angel Michael every moment to descend with a flaming sword and destroy them. When the Turks made their last successful attack, and entered the city over the body of the emperor, a priest was frying fish in a part of the edifice still standing; and when it was told him the city was taken, he replied, he could as soon believe the fried fish would return to their native element, and again resume life. To convert his incredulity, they did actually spring from the vessel into the sacred fountain beside it, where they swam about, and continue to swim at this day. This circumstance is said to have rendered the place as miraculous in the eyes of the Moslems as the Christians; so they changed the name, to commemorate the miracle, into Baloukli or “the place of the fishes,” into which its former appellative merged, and by which it is now known.
As this was a place held by the Greeks, from the earliest times, in great distinction, and the Turks themselves partook of the impression it caused; it was the object of their attention, when the insurrection broke out in 1821. They rushed in a body to this celebrated place, tore down what of the edifice had been suffered to remain, and attacked the unfortunate persons who had presumed to venture to celebrate their primitive festival. In this state it continued for several years, and the traveller who visited it saw a desecrated ruin, occupied only by a poor Caloyer in his tattered blue tunic, lamenting over the devastation of his sacred enclosure. The miraculous fishes, however, seemed to be the only objects that did not suffer by the sacrilege. They still might be seen darting through the water, and the countenance of the poor priest lightened up with pleasure, when he could find them out, and say, idhoo psari afthenti−look at these fishes, sir.
At length, when affairs became settled, and the revolution was completed and recognized, a firman was issued by the sultan, to repair all the Christian churches that had been injured, and this was among the first to which attention was directed. The former celebrity and great sanctity conferred upon it a more than usual interest; and the Russian government, as members of the Greek church, contributed to its re-erection on a more extended plan. It is surrounded by an area, in which is built a residence for the priests of the well. From hence is the approach to the church, which has a certain subterranean character, and is entered by a descent of marble steps. The interior has been finished with much care, indicating considerable anxiety to adorn such an edifice with corresponding ornaments. The walls are covered with a light and glittering coat of gold on white varnish, so as to resemble the finest porcelain China, and present a rich surface to the eye, perfectly dazzling. This effect is heightened by splendid glass lustres suspended from the ceiling, and presented by the emperor Nicholas.
Our illustration presents the church under its characteristic and usual aspect. Before the ornamented screen which separates the nave from the sanctuary, is stretched the sick brought here to be healed after the ablution of the water, by the panayia who presides over it. Another trait of Greek superstition is also displayed: at the entrance to the church is a large case, in which a number of slender tapers are deposited; every male, on coming in, purchases at this counter a taper, which he lights, and bears in his hand to a stand placed before the sanctuary. Here he sticks it on a point prepared for it, and suffers it to burn out, as a necessary part of his devotion. This ceremony is particularly practised by Greek mariners, who thus propitiate the Virgin before they sail. The Greek church, like the Latin, prescribes a formula for blessing those candles, and believe, that whenever the benediction is said over them, they have a power conferred upon them of chasing away demons and evil spirits when they are lighted.
| T. Allom. | T. A. Friar. |
GREEK CHURCH OF SAINT THEODORE, PERGAMUS.
ASIA MINOR.
The Hagiography of the modern Greeks resembles, in many respects, the Mythology of their ancestors. Their saints are divided into Megalo and Micro, like the Major and Minor deities of their pagan forefathers. They attribute to them preternatural powers and miraculous gifts, the exercise of which is displayed pretty much in the same manner in both; and there are many of the same name, to each of whom the actions of all are sometimes attributed. The name of Ayos Theodoros is borne by five individuals in the Greek church, who have all festivals in different months in the year; there were three edifices consecrated to them in the capital; and churches bearing their name are found in every part of the empire where a Greek community exists, at this day.
Ayos Theodoros, which the church of Pergamus acknowledges, was called Stratiolites, or “the Soldier.” He was born at Heraclea, and was general under Licinius, the last rival of Constantine the Great. After various acts of valour and services to the state, he was decapitated by the tyrant, in 319, for his attachment to the Christian cause. He was brought by his adherents, to be buried at Apamea, which was thence called Theodoropolis; and pilgrims visited his shrine, and fulfilled vows in “the spiritual meadow” beside it, where many miracles were performed. His personal powers did not cease with his death. Like the twin-brothers, Castor and Pollux, he appeared in battle, and discomfited the enemies of his votaries. Six hundred and fifty years after his death, the wicked Johannes Zemisces, by his aid obtained a signal victory. He is represented in armour with a sword and shield, consonant to his church-militant character. His effigy formed one of the twelve flammulæ on the ensigns of the empire; his shield is preserved in the church at Dalisand, in Asia; his body was brought by Dandolo from Constantinople to Venice, in 1260; but his head was claimed by another place, and deposited at Cajeta.
Other saints, of the same name, had various similar acts attributed to them, and were frequently confounded together. Theodore of Siceon in Galatia, was a prophet, and predicted that Mauricius should be emperor, which accordingly took place; and he was afterwards sent for to the imperial palace, to confer his blessing upon the new royal family. Another Theodore was particularly distinguished for his miracles. In the language of his panegyrist “he expelled devils, healed distempers, and conferred miraculous gifts on all who touched his tomb.” A fourth, seized with prophetic inspiration, and while sailing on the Nile, exclaimed “that Julian the apostate from Christianity was dead;” and his death was found to have occurred at that moment, in Persia: and so he emulated Apollonius Tyanæus in declaring the death of Domitian. The fate of the last of the name is somewhat peculiar: he lived at the era of the reformation of the Greek church, begun by Leo: he adhered rigidly to the worship of images, which was then proscribed, and carried them off whenever the Iconoclasts attempted to deface or destroy them. Certain Iambics were composed, in which the practice was declared superstitious and impious, and every person detected in it was seized, and a mark set upon him like Cain. The lines were indelibly inscribed on the person by puncturing them on the skin. In this way St. Theodore was stigmatized; the denunciation was tatooed on his forehead, and thence he obtained the name of Graft, or “the inscribed.” He is held in great estimation by the Latin church, as a martyr to orthodoxy; but is of no repute in the Greek, which still professes a horror at image-worship.
The present church of St. Theodore at Pergamus, is a poor, mean edifice, forming a strong contrast with the noble remains of the church of St. John, beside it: yet it is the only place of Christian worship now in the city. It stands on the side of the hill of the Acropolis, and appears but the remnant of a former church. The sanctuary is the only part not altogether dilapidated, the rest being only a mud-built heap. The screen, which in all Greek churches, however humble, glitters with gilding and gaudy paint, is here so dark and dingy, that even in the glow of the sun, or the ever-lighted lamps, the figures are scarcely discernible; yet it is pleasing to find, even in this dim temple, a spark of Christianity is cherished, likely to beam into a clearer light. The poor papas of the church have formed a school under the roof, in which more than thirty children are instructed, and the bibles of the British and Foreign Society are introduced.
Among the objects presented in our illustration, is one characteristic of the saint to whom the church is dedicated. The expulsion of devils was included among the miracles performed in the name of Theodore; and in our illustration is a poor maniac waiting before the sanctuary, for the purpose, while the appointed papas are exorcising him. A belief in actual possession by evil spirits, is the dogma of the Greek church at the present day; and in many of them are seen chains and manacles passed through rings in the floor, where the unfortunate maniac is bound night and day while the process of exorcism is being gone through. In a Greek monastery on the islands, is a chapel famed for the efficacy of its prayers in this way, to which patients are sent from Constantinople, and the floor of the church, at times, was almost covered with those demoniacs chained down to the ground. During the excitement of the Greek insurrection, the priests were the particular objects of Turkish persecution; and the Caloyers of this convent were particularly proscribed. They all escaped but one, and he was anxiously preparing to fly, expecting every moment his executioners; he saw them ascending the hill, on the summit of which the convent is situated, and, as a forlorn hope, he ran into the chapel, thrust his legs and arms into the fetters, and appeared violently possessed, so that no man “could bind him, no, not with chains.” The Turks entertain great respect for maniacs, whom they believe to be, when bereft of reason, in the immediate care of Allah; so they only looked compassionately on the poor man, and left the church. The Caloyer escaped, descended in the dark into a caïque, which was secretly waiting for him, and escaped finally to Russia, the great refuge of the proscribed Greeks.
| T. Allom. | T. A. Friar. |