The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

The meeting called to discuss the queen’s translations of the gospels was a very large one, many people attending purely out of curiosity. It was managed by the students of the university, who, to emphasize their objections, secured several copies of the book and burned them over a slow fire in a dramatic manner. The police attempted to disperse the crowd; stones were thrown, shots were fired, and an infuriated populace showed its resentment against the authorities by driving the policemen off the ground and using some of them very roughly. A general alarm was given, soldiers were called out and for two days it was a question whether the military or the mob would rule the city. The number of killed and wounded was quite large. At least seven students died in the streets or were fatally wounded, and their funerals were made occasions for political demonstrations. The result has been to strengthen the support of the classic language and to make the good queen very unpopular. Before this incident she was beloved and admired by everybody, and since no one except the demagogues has ever accused her of more than indiscretion. She was evidently unaware of the philological controversy, and the professors who made her translation should have advised her of it. Her translation, however, was never offered to the public; no copy was ever sold, and it was used simply for the purpose intended. Her Majesty’s critics, however, made the most of the fact that she is a foreigner and a Russian.

Queen Olga’s nobility of character, her pure life, her charitable works and her spotless dignity as a queen, wife and mother will outlive the criticisms upon her indiscretion, which would be soon forgotten if the demagogues would drop the subject. She is a member of the Greek Church, sincere and earnest in the performance of her religious duties, and a strong believer in the miraculous power of an image of the Holy Virgin which attracts many pilgrims to a little town in the southern part of Greece. She is actively interested in charitable work also and rarely fails to visit some hospital or asylum or other benevolent institution. She walks upon the streets like the wife of any ordinary citizen, is unassuming in her manners and democratic in her habits, and if a stranger should meet her upon an errand of mercy or when she is taking her constitutional he would never suspect her to be a queen. The court of Greece is said to be the purest in all Europe, for Queen Olga is even more critical than Queen Victoria used to be concerning the character and reputation of those who are presented to her. There are no adventurers, either men or women, about the palace at Athens. She has brought up her boys under her own eye and according to her own religion, and everybody agrees that they are young men of exemplary character and habits, very different from the ordinary prince.

The king is a Protestant. He is a son of old King Christian of Denmark, “the father-in-law of Europe;” a brother of Queen Alexandra of England, and of Dagmar, the empress mother of Russia. When he accepted the throne of Greece he agreed that his children should be brought up in the religion of the country, but declined to change his own faith. He does not try to proselyte the Greeks, however, but his Lutheran chaplain holds services on Sunday very quietly in a little chapel connected with the palace. Protestants connected with the court have an opportunity to attend, but outsiders are never admitted.

The wife of the crown prince and the future queen of Greece, is the Princess Sophia, a sister of the Kaiser of Germany. When the latter consented to her marriage it was with the understanding that she should not be required to renounce Protestantism, although it was stipulated that her children were to be educated in the Greek faith. Two years ago, however, she voluntarily left the Lutheran Church and was baptized in the Greek communion. Her august brother was furious and did not hesitate to censure his sister openly for renouncing the religion of her fathers. Nor has he forgiven her. She has not been in Germany since, and it is the general understanding that she has not been invited. No Protestant missionary work is now done in Greece, although there are several Protestant churches in different parts of the country, and two in Athens.

Everyone who knows the facts testifies that the priests of the Greek Church are useful, morally and spiritually, but there are altogether too many of them. According to the census of 1889 there were over eight thousand priests for a population of 2,187,208, and the number has rapidly increased since that date, so that the ratio is even larger. There are probably ten thousand priests and monks in Greece to-day, while the membership of the Greek church is 2,138,609. A slight calculation will show you that this is an average of about one priest to every two hundred souls, so that the clerical profession, like all others, is suffering from an oversupply, and the people are required to support it. There are one hundred and seventy monasteries with over nineteen hundred monks, and nine nunneries with two hundred and twenty nuns. The head of the church is called the Metropolitan, who is elected by the Holy Synod, composed of twenty-one archbishops and twenty-nine bishops; and all these have to be supported by the taxpayers. Nominally the church is under the care of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but while his jurisdiction is never questioned in theory, he does not attempt to exercise more than formal ecclesiastical authority. The compensation of the clergy is insignificant. The Metropolitan receives only $120 a month and the bishops only $50. In Athens the most prominent of the parish clergy do not receive more than $500 a year, while country parsons are obliged to subsist upon a mere pittance, many of them being paid only in the produce of the farms of their parishes. The monks belong to orders which own property, and are, therefore, much better off. For these reasons the regular clergy in the country are compelled to earn a living like their parishioners.

The priests in the Greek Church are allowed to marry. Most of them have large families, and according to the customs of the country it is the rule for the sons to follow in the profession of their father. As they cannot marry a second wife under the canon law, they imitate Dr. Primrose, and take good care of their first. It is the uniform testimony of people familiar with the facts that the country parsons of Greece as a rule are honorable, sincere and well-meaning men, living lives of self-sacrifice and comforting those who are worse off than themselves. The Greek priests wear their hair and beards long in imitation of the Saviour. The ecclesiastical dress is a frock similar to that of the Roman Catholic priests, which reaches to the heels, and a black chimney-pot hat without a brim. Sometimes a veil is worn, falling over the shoulders. They are generally men of fine appearance and excellent manners. There are even more chapels than priests, because every village must have a church or a chapel, and sometimes villages are deserted. The inhabitants, for some reason or another, remove to another location, but the chapel must stand. The peasants naturally have a deep religious sentiment, mingled with superstition, and, as in the days of St. Paul, worship unknown gods. They are strong believers in the miraculous also, and consequently there are several miracle-working images of the Holy Virgin and certain saints.

The patriotism of the Greeks is proverbial, and evidences of the munificence of the prosperous children of this classic country are on every side. I do not know of any other city or any other land of similar population which shows so many public buildings and benevolent institutions founded by private individuals. Most of the fortunes have been made abroad. Greece is not a money-making country. The opportunities for gaining wealth are limited. Agriculture is still in a primitive condition; there is comparatively little manufacturing; the mining resources are insignificant, and the commerce and mercantile trade can never amount to much because of the meager population. Therefore, Greeks who are ambitious for wealth go elsewhere. They are a migrating race. There are Greek communities in every important city of the world, and they use the same methods, practice the same economy and show the same skill in trade as the Jews. It is a proverb that one Greek is as good as two Jews in a bargain. They often begin in a small way, peddling fruit, knickknacks and other trifles, but gradually extend their commercial horizons until many of them become mercantile princes. You find them in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and especially in Constantinople, where nearly one-third of the population is Greek, and the richest residents belong to that race. Throughout Syria, Egypt and along the coast of Africa the larger share of the mercantile business is in the hands of Greeks. In the Black Sea country they monopolize the grain trade, and throughout the East, from Italy to Egypt and as far north as Budapest and Odessa they practically control commercial affairs.

Greece has no naturalization treaties. Like Russia, the government never releases its subjects from their obligations—once a Greek, always a Greek. Any naturalized Greek citizen of the United States who returns to his native country may be impressed into the army without ceremony if he did not serve his term before he left the country. The same rule applies to the Greek residents of England, France and all other countries. Hence the chief business of the United States minister at Athens is to help our naturalized Greeks out of trouble.

Many Greeks are found in South America also, and in the Transvaal and other parts of South Africa. During the Boer War several Greeks had important contracts for furnishing supplies to the British government and made more money during the troubles than they did while the country was at peace. In the Argentine Republic are several important Greek families. In fact wherever they go they make money, and it is the ambition of every Greek to return to Athens and live among his own people. The long streets of fine mansions and other evidences of wealth and luxury demonstrate that many have been able to do so.

There are many reasons for the working classes as well as the tradesmen to emigrate. Wages are low, although laborers are scarce, and particularly mechanics. The earnings of those who remain in the country have not improved since the war with Turkey, but are lower than before because wages are paid in a depreciated paper currency worth not more than sixty per cent of its former value. The wages of ordinary laborers run from twenty to fifty cents a day, and those of skilled mechanics from fifty to eighty cents a day. The law which requires military service of every citizen drives a good many young men from the country, for it compels them to waste the best years of their life. There is no reason why Greece should have an army. If she had none she would be much better off. Her military history is not at all flattering, and during the late war with Turkey it was clearly demonstrated that the people had neither military skill nor courage. If the parliament would abolish the army and navy, leaving just enough soldiers to preserve the peace, and rest entirely upon the protection of the great Powers of Europe, it would be a blessing to the people and relieve them from an enormous burden of taxation. Many thousand able-bodied young men would be released from a military servitude which not only keeps them from the fields and factories, but unfits them for labor after their term of duty has expired. It would also remove from the sons of the upper classes a temptation which often proves fatal to success in life. Opportunities are so few in Greece that educated young men must seek employment under the government or obtain commissions in the army. Under the present system of politics the former can only look forward to an uncertain and an unprofitable career, while there is even less to encourage the ambitious in the army. The number of officers is so much in excess of the requirements that there is nothing for them to do but to spend their time in the coffee-houses and in worse forms of dissipation. The streets of Athens and other cities of Greece are crowded with men in uniform, and if you will enter any café or stop at one of the many groups of idlers in public places you may notice that at least one-third and sometimes more than half of all those present wear the uniform of officers of high rank. I have been told that there is an officer for every three privates in the Greek army, and certainly that proportion exists in Athens, although it may not be so large in other parts of the country.