Although the building of Justinian has never had a patriarch like Gregory or Chrysostom, it has been the scene of many important events. At the altar of St. Sophia the emperor Heracleios was compelled by the citizens to swear to remain in Constantinople when, terrified by the attacks of the Alans in the North and the Persians in the East, he was thinking of transferring the seat of the Roman empire to the city of Carthage. In the ambo, Heracleonas, his younger son by the intriguing Martina, was forced to exhibit the true heir to the throne, his nephew Constans. "Christians, to St. Sophia!" was the order of Leontius, who led the revolt against the cruel Justinian II., and "This is the day of the Lord," the text of the sermon from the ambo to the insurgents. In the same spot, after five years of cruel captivity, the five sons of Constantine Copronymus took refuge. Nicephorus, the eldest, had been deprived of sight: the others had their tongues cut out. The blind spoke for the dumb: "Countrymen and Christians, behold the sons of your emperor, if you can recognize our features! We throw ourselves on your compassion." From A.D. 726 there reigned the iconoclastic emperors, who banished all images from the churches, but the year A.D. 842 saw the sacred icons again restored by Theodora. Her patronage raised to the patriarchate Ignatius, a son of the emperor Michael Rhaagabe. He excommunicated the cæsar Bardes for an incestuous marriage, and in revenge the cæsar forcibly expelled him from his church, and then endeavored to extort a confession of resignation by stripes and cruelty. From the high character of Ignatius it was necessary that his successor should be equal to him in reputation: the cæsar selected for the office a man of great firmness, unblemished integrity and immense erudition, the celebrated Photius, whose invaluable work, the Myriobiblion, is still a treasure-house for the scholar. At the time of his election Photius was a layman, combining the somewhat discordant titles of proto-a-secretis, or chief-justice, and protospathaire, or captain of the guards. The first day witnessed his transformation from a layman to a monk; the second day he was made a reader; the third day, a subdeacon; the fourth, a full deacon; the fifth, a priest, the sixth, Christmas Day, A.D. 858, beheld him placed in the throne of Chrysostom. But this new patriarch was not left undisturbed by the friends of Ignatius. They appealed to the pope, Nicholas I., who excommunicated Photius, his legates depositing on the altar of St. Sophia a solemn anathema enumerating the seven heresies of the Greeks, and devoting teacher and disciple to the eternal society of the devil and his angels. "From this thunder-bolt may be dated the schism of the Eastern Church." Photius in turn excommunicated and deposed Pope Nicholas. It is hard to say how often Photius was banished and restored. He was banished by Basil the Macedonian, and Ignatius restored. He was recalled after the death of Ignatius, and presided in the general council of 869 A.D., and was banished again by the emperor Leo.
The conquest by the combined forces of the Venetians and the French in 1204, A.D., was disastrous to St. Sophia. The veil of the sanctuary was torn asunder for the sake of the golden fringe, the altar broken in pieces, and the wrought silver and gold ornaments torn down. A prostitute was placed on the throne of the patriarchs, and danced and sang in derision of the hymns and processions of the Oriental rite. But this wanton sacrilege and shameless indecency disgusted the Greeks less than the celebration of the Eucharist according to the Latin rite with unleavened bread. The Orthodox patriarch fled, a Venetian prelate was installed on the vacant throne, but after a succession of six Latin patriarchs no trace of the Latin conquest was left in the church except the tomb, in the women's gallery,
Of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe;
and the feelings of the outraged Greeks found expression in the words of the great duke: "I would rather see in St. Sophia the turban of Mohammed than the tiara of pope or cardinal."
This hatred, deep and strong, of the Latins and the Latin rite effectually marred all the attempts at reunion of the two churches undertaken by John Palæologus in the hope of thus alluring to his aid the arms of Western Christendom. When Metrophanes, who had assented to the terms of union with Rome, was consecrated, the spacious church was empty—even the cross-bearers had fled. A final trial to conciliate Rome and the nations who acknowledged the pope as the Vicar of God was made by the ill-fated Constantine. On December 12, A.D. 1452, the two nations joined in communion in St. Sophia: Pope Nicholas and the patriarch Gregory were solemnly commemorated; but the dress and language of the Latin priest were objects of horror, and when he was seen to mix water with the wine and take up the unleavened wafer, the worshippers of either sex and every degree rushed forth from the lofty dome, dispersed themselves in taverns, drank confusion to the slaves of the pope, and emptied their glasses in honor of the Blessed Virgin. The polluted church was deserted by clergy and people, and "a vast and gloomy silence prevailed in that venerable dome which had so often smoked with a cloud of incense, blazed with innumerable lights and resounded with the voice of prayer and thanksgiving." But when Constantine had fallen, with the courage of a Roman, at the gate of St. Romanus, St. Sophia was sought again by the timid crowd. "In the space of an hour the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries, were filled with multitudes of fathers and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks and nuns," expecting the descent of an angel whose celestial sword was to exterminate the hosts of the Turks. But axes began to thunder at the bolted doors; the priest fled from the altar with the consecrated elements, and tradition added to his escape the miraculous feature that the door through which he passed defied all efforts to open it. This door, in the upper gallery, was opened during the repairs a few years ago, and was found to lead to an old disused staircase choked up with rubbish. Although there is pointed out on one of the pillars a red mark said to have been made by the bloody hand of Mohammed as he stood on a heap of slain, truth compels the historian to assert that the church was not defiled with bloodshed: no resistance was made; the conquerors had merely to select their captives. Through the struggling mass of fierce captors and reluctant prisoners Mohammed forced his way to the bema, laid his hand on the altar and exclaimed, "One only is God, One only; and Mohammed is His prophet." The next Friday all the forms of Islam were gone through—the muezzin proclaimed the hours of prayer from the Venetian bell-tower; the imam preached; the sultan in person performed the namaz of prayer. From that hour the church which had seen the Arian controversy, which had been the scene of disputes respecting the twofold nature, the one person, the eternal generation of the Son, and whose last days were engaged in denying the double procession of the Holy Ghost, has been the temple of a faith that teaches that "God begets not, nor is He begotten; and of His mercy there is no end."
Hugh Craig.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MUSIC.
In the obscure period preceding the origin of the great civilizer, Peter I., the Muscovites knew scarcely more than one melody, to which different words were adapted according to the circumstances. "It served alike," says an old author, "the unhappy man for his lamentations; the drunkard for his bacchanalian song; the laborer for his diversion when overcome with weariness; the driver for encouragement to his horses; and the young for regulating their steps in the dance." Among the instruments that were used to accompany this universal melody we notice the goudok, a species of violin having three strings, of which the chanterelle was played pizzicata, while a very short bow was drawn over the other two strings. (These bass strings must have acted like a double pedal accompaniment—i.e. two immovable notes, for the performer had not, so far as we know, a third hand to vary the intonation.) Then there was the balalai-ka, a kind of guitar with two strings; the doutka an exact copy of the double pipes of antiquity; the gousli, or horizontal harp, approaching the zither or psalterion; the valinca, which was a species of bagpipe, etc. All of this was very primitive and a little savage. However, music was noticeably more advanced in the southern province of Ukraine. "Many of the inhabitants of this portion of the country went to Moscow or St. Petersburg, and entered the service of the nobles in the capacity of musicians. They had, and have still, very fine voices. They formed almost the entire choir of the imperial chapel.... The Ukrainians all love music and the dance, and seem to have no occupation more important than that of amusing themselves. They excel particularly on the bandora, with which they accompany their songs of a tender or lively character."