most unorthodox reforms, namely, the Gregorian Calendar, baptism by infusion, the abolition of the kalemaukion (the universal Orthodox hat for clerks), leave for second marriage of priests, and the burial service for suicides.[1] However, the Roumanian Holy Synod denied these accusations. On the other hand, in 1882, the Roumans took the very serious step of preparing their own chrism, instead of sending to Constantinople for it. This was an openly unfriendly act towards the Phanar. Theoretically, their Church is just as autocephalous as that of Russia, and has just as much right to make its own chrism as its big sister across the Pruth. But the Phanar has always been very tenacious of this right even in the case of independent Churches, and the fact that it has long had to submit to Russian arrogance in this matter did not make it in any way more willing to receive a similar rebuff from Roumania. The Patriarch Joachim III, on July 10, 1882, sent an angry letter to the Roumanian Holy Synod reproaching it for so dangerous an innovation. The synod answered, claiming the same right as the Church of Russia, and the Patriarch, fearing such another schism as that of the Bulgars, was once more obliged to swallow the affront and pass over in silence what he would not openly approve. Roumania is the only Balkan State that now prepares its own chrism.[2]
But it is in Macedonia that the enmity between Greeks and Roumans is strongest. In this seething cauldron of races there are five hundred thousand Vlachs who are now awakening to the
- ↑ The Vlachs are becoming more and more conscious that their language joins them to the Western and Romance world, and they are very much inclined to model their institutions after those of the Western States, especially of France. These rumours, at any rate as far as the Calendar, infusion, and dropping the kalemaukion are concerned, were connected with the reports of their Western tendencies that go about among their neighbours.
- ↑ Both Belgrade and Athens have already shown signs of an inclination to follow the example of Bucharest. The Roumanian Parliament voted 10,000 francs for the expenses of the vessels and materials needed for the Holy Chrism. The king attended the ceremony, and all Roumania was triumphant at what they considered so great an assertion of complete independence. The Greeks at first denied the fact, and, when that was no longer possible, began a series of bitter attacks against the Roumanian Church, that lasted for three years.
