Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/231

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GREEK CHUECH 217 ambe Bacc serve rnish the wine lands, and every available piece of soil is under cultivation. The wines produced are white and red. The best red growth, known as Santorin, partakes of the nature of both port and claret, and is highly esteemed. Among the white varieties are the Thera, and a wine called the "wine of the night," of which two qualities are known to commerce, the Caliste and St. Elie, both rich and full-bodied. There is also a fragrant mus- cadine wine, known as the vino santo, and an J 1 sr-colored variety called the " wine of hus." All of these wines doubtless pre- i many of the qualities which made them acceptable to the civilized nations of antiquity. In ordinary seasons the island produces from 10,000 to 11,000 pipes, most of which goes to Russia. Next in importance are the yields of " a (Ceos), Scio (Chios), Tenedos, and Samos, but the first of which belong to Tur- y. The Samian wine, notwithstanding the ogistic allusion to it in Byron's verses, was isidered by the ancients scarcely equal to e produce of some of the other islands. At the present day Tenedos is wholly devoted to " .e culture of the grape ; its annual production about 1,400,000 gallons, which is exported Constantinople, Smyrna, and Russia, and is e common table wine of the Orient. The ian islands produce a considerable amount dry and sweet wines. Those of Corfu are ht and delicate, and those of Ithaca rich luscious. All the wines of this group are plastered. The growths of Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, although Turkish dependencies, also come under the head of Greek wines. Crete, famous in ancient times for the abun- dance and excellence of her wines, is still a large producer, and for centuries her specialty has been Malvasia, the white sweet wine once uni- versally drunk in western Europe under the ame of malmsey. During the Venetian su- acy Crete and Cyprus supplied Europe ith their choicest dessert wines, and the ex- of the former is said to have amounted to i,000 casks annually. The principal vine- rds are near Canea, Kisamos, Sphakia, and .dia. The wines of Cyprus are of three ses. The first consists of the wines of the commandery of the knights templars, made in the neighborhood of ancient Paphos, and which " ave a bouquet resembling the flavor of bitter Imonds, said to be communicated to them by spices ; the second is a sweet muscat, and the third a common wine, at first pale red, but which becomes colorless with time. These wines are fermented and matured in earthen vessels which preserve the shape of the ancient amphorae. The vintage of the island has de- clined to less than a fifth of its production two centuries ago. Rhodes produces sweet and lus- cious wines from grapes of the size of plums. GREEK CHURCH (also called the Greek Cath- olic, the Orthodox Greek, the Orthodox, or the Eastern church), that part of the Christian church which adheres only to the doctrinal de- crees of the first seven oecumenical councils (of Nice, 325 ; Constantinople, 381 ; Ephesus, 431 ; Chalcedon, 451 ; Constantinople, 553 and 680 ; and Nice, 787), of the so-called Quinisex- tum of Constantinople, held in 692, and of the council held at Constantinople under Photius in 879 and 880, while it rejects the authority of all the succeeding councils recognized by the Roman Catholic church as oecumenical. A dog- matical difference between the Greek church and the church of Rome arose as early as 482, when the emperor Zeno endeavored to recon- cile the Monophysites with the Catholic church by publishing a creed called the Henoticon, in which the disputed articles were entirely avoid- ed. Felix II., the bishop of Rome, excommu- nicated the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria for having been instrumental in issuing the Henoticon, and thus actually severed the communion between the churches of the East and of the West. The altered disposition of the court of Constantinople enabled Pope Hormisdas in 519 to restore the union, which however never became very firm again, and was repeatedly interrupted by decisions of the emperors in matters of faith, against which the bishops of Rome protested. The adoption in the western church of an article which declared that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as the Father (Filioque), and its incorpo- ration in the confession of faith at the synod of Toledo (589), constituted another point of dog- matic difference, although it did not awaken opposition in the Greek church until some time in the 8th century. Still more than these dogmatic differences, political and hierarchical reasons prepared a dissolution of the union. The patriarchs of Constantinople, to whom the councils of Constantinople (381) and Chalce- don (451) had assigned the second place among the patriarchs of the Catholic church, strove to obtain the first. The emperors claimed in the settlement of the numerous dogmatical con- troversies of the East a power which the bish- ops of Rome denied to them. The more Rome and Italy became politically estranged from the East, the more intolerable became the exercise of the supreme authority on the part of the bishop of Rome. A temporary dissolution of the union again took place in 732, when the pope condemned iconoclasm, which was ap- proved of by several emperors, and by a synod of Constantinople in 754. More seri- ous than ever before became the conflict be- tween the two churches when the patriarch Photius, whose accession in 858 was due to the influence of the court, was rejected by Pope Nicholas I. as an intruder. A circular was then sent forth by Photius, censuring the ob- servance of Saturday as a fast, the use of eggs and cheese during the first week in Lent, the administration of confirmation exclusively by bishops, the prohibition of the marriage of priests, and the use of the words Filioque in the Nicene creed. At a synod convened by Photius at Constantinople in 867 the pope was