other, they do not take their turn to sit in the Holy Synod at Constantinople, as do all bishops of the patriarchate, nor do they pay any taxes to the Phanar. To make up for this the Austrian Government pays the Patriarch 58,000 piastres a year. There are now four sees in these provinces; that of Sarajevo in Bosnia holds the primacy, and the present Metropolitan (Nicholas Mandich) proposes to express that fact by changing his title of Metropolitan to that of Archbishop[1] or even Exarch. He receives from the Government an income of 8,300 florins; the other three metropolitans have from 4,500 to 6,000 florins.[2] These bishops meet in a consistory with an archimandrite and one or two other ecclesiastical persons under the presidency of my Lord of Sarajevo to discuss the affairs of their Church; owing to the exceptional position of their country, however, they do not sit in the upper chamber at Vienna, just as the people have no votes. They are all supposed to be still subjects of the Sultan, whose land is only administered by Austria. There are three Orthodox monasteries in Bosnia, and eleven in Hercegovina. In 1895 there were 673,000 Orthodox Christians; there does not seem to have been any complete religious census since.[3] They are all Serbs, and so have no regrets whatever for their former dependence on the Phanar.
When the inevitable happens and the present form of administration is changed for open annexation the obvious thing would seem to be to join these Orthodox Serbs to the Church of Carlovitz. On the other hand Orthodoxy always breaks up and never unites, so probably Bosnia and Hercegovina will remain what they are now really—one more autocephalous Church.[4] The unparalleled change in these two provinces since they have enjoyed peace, tolerance, and security under a
- ↑ There seems to be an idea among the Orthodox that the rare title Archbishop means something more than the almost universal one of Metropolitan.
- ↑ The sees are: in Bosnia, Sarajevo and Zvornik; in Hercegovina, Hersek (residence at Mostar) and Banjaluka.
- ↑ All authorities, however, agree that the Orthodox population, as all the population of the land, has increased enormously. The Government is now preparing complete statistics and maps.
- ↑ For the Church of Bosnia and Hercegovina see Silbernagl, pp. 63–65; E. d'Or. ii. pp. 243–244; viii. pp. 35–40.
