Constantinople old and new

by H. G. Dwight

VI.—THE PONTIFF OF THE EAST

The incidents of the Balkan War monopolised so much interest that another incident of those days in Constantinople attracted less attention. It is, perhaps, natural that those not on the ground should have small understanding of the part the Ecumenical Patriarchate has played in the politics of Turkey. In the Levant, however, the death of His All-Holiness Joachim III, Patriarch of Constantinople and ranking prelate of the Greek Orthodox Church, was an event no less important than in the West would be the death of the Pope. And for those of his spiritual flock, as for many outside it, the disappearance, at such a moment, of that remarkable personality, together with the circumstances of his funeral, were a part of the larger aspects of the war.

The organisation of the Eastern church is far less centralised than that of the Western, and the political relations of the countries in which it holds sway have tended to keep it so. There are three other Patriarchs within the Turkish empire—in Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—while the churches of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Roumania, Russia, and Servia, as well as of the Orthodox populations of Austria-Hungary, are independent of Constantinople. One of these churches, the Bulgarian, has been excommunicated by the Patriarchate. Over two others only, those of Greece and Servia, does the Phanar maintain so much authority as to provide them with the oils for the sacrament of the Holy Chrism. But the Patriarch of Constantinople enjoys dignities accorded to no other primate of his faith, and as spiritual chief of the Greeks of Turkey he exercises much of the temporal power claimed by the Pope. The autocephalous sister churches, moreover, acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, and have usually been careful to avoid the name of patriarch in their own hierarchies. And to his throne attaches all the prestige of its ancient history. That history, reaching back without a break to the time of Constantine, has not yet found its Von Ranke. The schism of East and West and the political as well as the religious relation of Western Christianity to Rome has caused Constantinople to be neglected by Western scholars. But if the Patriarchate can boast no such brilliant period as that of the papacy during the Renaissance, its closer association with the establishment and early development of the church, and with the lands where Christianity originated, gives it an interest which the papacy can never claim.

Joachim III, Patriarch of Constantinople

Photograph by Andriomenos, Constantinople

When the Roman Empire came to an end and every Greek Orthodox country except Russia was overrun by the Turks, the Patriarchate did not cease to play a great rôle. As a matter of fact, it began to play a greater one than for many centuries before. It would be a study worth undertaking to determine the part the Patriarchs have acted in the gradual release from Islam of Orthodox Christendom. The weapon for this release was given them by the Conqueror himself. On the 1st of June, 1453, three days after Mehmed II stormed the city, he ordered the clergy left in Constantinople to elect a successor to the late Patriarch and to consecrate him according to the historic procedure. The candidate chosen was the learned monk Gennadius, otherwise known as George Scholarius, of the monastery of the Pantocrator. This was where the Venetians had their headquarters during the Latin occupation, and the palace of the Balio which the Genoese pulled down in 1261 seems to have been a part of the monastery. Its great triple church, now known as Zeïrek Kil’seh Jami, was where the Venetians put the icon of the Shower of the Way when they stole it from St. Sophia. Other relics of the church are now in the treasury of St. Mark’s. I do not know whether the portrait of Gennadius is to be seen in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence, where Benozzo Gozzoli painted his delightful fresco of the Three Kings and put so many faces of noted men of his time. One of the Three Kings is none other than John VII Palæologus, whom Gennadius accompanied in 1438 to the Council of Ferrara in an attempt to bring about the reunion of the churches. In 1452, however, Gennadius defeated the last effort to reconcile the two rites, and he became the first Patriarch under the régime which, as the catchword of the day had it, preferred the turban of the Turk to the tiara of the Pope. In the ceremony of his investiture the Sultan played the part formerly enacted by the Greek emperor, with the sole exception of receiving the communion from the hands of the new pontiff. The Conqueror then invited Gennadius to a private audience, at which he received him with every distinction. When the Patriarch took leave the young Sultan presented him with a jewelled staff of office, and said: “Be Patriarch, and may Heaven guide you. Do not hesitate to rely on my friendship. Enjoy all the rights and privileges which your predecessors have enjoyed.” He then accompanied his guest to the outer gate, ordering the highest dignitaries of his own suite to accompany His All-Holiness to the Patriarchate. Which was done, the Patriarch riding one of the Sultan’s finest horses. The Conqueror afterward confirmed his words in writing, making inviolable the person of the Patriarch, and confirming the Greeks in the possession of their churches and their cult. Thus the Greek Patriarch is one of the greater dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire. He ranks immediately after the members of the cabinet, taking precedence of every Mohammedan cleric except a Sheï’h ül Islam in office.

The south pulpit of the Pantocrator