158 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. from the kharadsli, and were themselves al- lowed to levy a tax upon every Christian family, in order to meet the expenses incidental to the discharge of their public functions. The clerics thus placed at the head of the Hellenic people showed themselves endowed with such an amount of intelligence and of patriotism that they upheld the standard of Hellenism under the shelter of the Phanar. The Greek Church never lost the consciousness of her duty toward the Greek nation. The Greek people owe to j ^idy- their church the preservation of their faith, of ^ their language, and of their unity; yes, we may say, of their race. The Greeks will never be found lacking in gratitude toward their Church. Some errors from which the higher clergy had ■ not always been free were more than atoned for by the death of the Patriarch, Gregor V., hanged at the Phanar in 1 82 1 ; by the patriotic devotion of Germanus of Patras ; and by the deeds of so j many other prelates who have died as the martyrs / or lived as the confessors of the cause of Greek national independence. J Happily amid the degradation which the na- tional character suffered under the influence of the dangers and the evils of slavery, the Hellenic . people never lost the sense of their own dignity. 0^
