When, in 879, the patriarch Photius was restored to his seat by the eighth ecumenical council—consisting of four hundred bishops, three hundred of whom had condemned him in the preceding council—he was acknowledged by Pope John as his brother. Two legates, despatched by him to this council, joined the Greek Church, and declared that whoever asserted the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son was a Judas. But the practice of shaving the chin and eating eggs in Lent being persisted in, the two churches always remained divided.
The schism was completed in 1053 and 1054, when Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, publicly condemned the bishop of Rome, Leo IX., and all the Latins, adding to all the reproaches against them by Photius that, contrary to the practice of the apostles, they dared to make use of unleavened bread in the eucharist; that they wickedly ate blood puddings, and twisted the necks, instead of cutting off the heads, of pigeons intended for the table. All the Latin churches in the Greek empire were shut up, and all intercourse with those who ate blood puddings was forbidden.
Pope Leo IX. entered into serious negotiation on this matter with the Emperor Constantine Monomachus, and obtained some mitigations. It was precisely at this period that those celebrated Norman gentlemen, the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, despising at once the pope and the Greek emperor, plundered everything they could in Apulia and Calabria, and ate blood puddings with the utmost hardihood. The Greek emperor favored the pope as much as he was able; but nothing could reconcile the Greeks with the Latins. The Greeks regarded their adversaries as barbarians, who did not know a single word of Greek. The irruption of the Crusaders, under pretence of delivering the Holy Land, but in reality to gain possession of Constantinople, completed the hatred entertained against the Romans.
But the power of the Latin Church increased every day, and the Greeks were at length gradually vanquished by the Turks. The popes, long since, became powerful and wealthy sovereigns; the whole Greek Church became slaves from the time of Mahomet II., except Russia, which was then a barbarous country, and in which the Church was of no account.
Whoever is but slightly informed of the state of affair in the Levant knows that the sultan confers the patriarchate of the Greeks by a cross and a ring, without any apprehension of being excommunicated, as some of the German emperors were by the popes, for this same ceremony.
It is certainly true that the church of Stamboul has preserved, in appearance, the liberty of choosing its archbishop; but never, in fact, chooses any other than the person pointed out by the Ottoman court. This preferment costs, at present, about eighty thousand francs, which the person chosen contrives to get refunded from the Greeks. If any canon of influence and wealth comes forward, and offers the grand vizier a large sum, the titular possessor is deprived, and the place given to the last bidder; precisely as the see of Rome was disposed of, in the tenth century, by Marozia and Theodora. If the titular patriarch resists, he receives fifty blows on the soles of his feet, and is banished. Sometimes he is beheaded, as was the case with Lucas Cyrille, in 1638.
The Grand Turk disposes of all the other bishoprics, in the same manner, for money; and the price charged for every bishopric under Mahomet II. is always stated in the patent; but the additional sum paid is not mentioned in it. It is not exactly known what a Greek priest gives for his bishopric.
These patents are rather diverting documents: "I grant to N——, a Christian priest, this order, for the perfection of his felicity. I command him to reside in the city herein named, as bishop of the infidel Christians, according to their ancient usage, and their vain and extravagant ceremonies, willing and ordaining that all Christians of that district shall acknowledge him, and that no monk or priest shall marry without his permission." That is to say, without paying for the same.
The slavery of this Church is equal to its ignorance. But the Greeks have only what they deserve. They were wholly absorbed in disputes about the light on Mount Tabor, and the umbilical cord, at the very time of the taking of Constantinople.
While recording these melancholy truths we entertain the hope that the Empress Catherine II. will give the Greeks their liberty. Would she could restore to them that courage and that intellect which they possessed in the days of Miltiades and Themistocles; and that Mount Athos supplied good soldiers and fewer monks.