have been frightened by the excommunication of 1872; and, on the other hand, the Exarchists—that is, nearly all the Bulgars and some Roumans. These two Churches hold exactly the same faith, and use the same rites, the Patriarchists in Greek and the Exarchists in Bulgarian, but their mutual hatred is the salient feature of Church politics in Turkey. The Bulgars are always trying to spread their Church among their countrymen everywhere,[1] and the cause of the revolutionary committees in Macedonia is practically identified with that of the Exarchate. The Greeks, who always dream of their "great idea"—that is, of a Hellas that shall cover the Balkans, and have its capital at Constantinople—hate the Bulgarian movement more than anything in the world; they hate the Exarchist schismatic and the revolutionary committees so much that, pending the realization of the great idea, they always side with the Turkish soldiers in hunting down the insurgents.[2] The schism has caused immense annoyance to the Phanar. Five Patriarchs have already resigned explicitly because of this trouble.[3] In 1890, when the Sultan gave his firman for the erection of two more Exarchist sees (Ochrida and Skopia), the Phanar declared the Orthodox Church to be in a state of persecution, and proclaimed an interdict from October 4th till December 25th. As the people then foresaw that they would have no liturgy even on Christmas
- ↑ In Bulgaria are about three and a half million Exarchists, in Macedonia about eighty-eight thousand families as against twenty-one thousand Patriarchist families. E. d'Or. vii. p. 110; Gelzer, Geistl. u. Weltl., p. 125, and Brancoff, La Macédoine, for tables of statistics and maps.
- ↑ In Brailsford, Macedonia, p. 193, is a photograph of the Patriarchist Bishop of Kastoria gracing a review of Turkish soldiers. His Beatitude stands blandly and quite shamelessly side by side with the Kaimakam and the ruffians who are going to hunt down, shoot, and torture the Christian patriots.
- ↑ Anthimos VI in 1873, Joachim II in 1883, Dionysios V in 1891, Neophytes VIII in 1894, and Anthimos VII in 1897. See Kyriakos, iii. pp. 46–47.
ciscan missionaries and Sisters of Charity. And they all unite in reverencing their two great national heroes, the Catholic George Alexander Castriot (Scanderbeg, i.e., Alexander = Iskandir Bey), and the Moslem Ali Pasha of Janina. Cf. Gelzer, Vom Heiligen Berg, u.s.w., "Im Lande der Toska," pp. 182–225, and Brailsford, Macedonia, chap, viii., "The Albanians," pp. 221–289, where he has much to say about the civilizing influence of the friars and nuns. Both Austria and Italy have designs on Albania; but of all Balkan races they most deserve independence and autonomy.
22
