Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/361

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LATER GREEK CHURCH UNDER THE TURKS
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the military leaders were not at all inclined to hand the powers of government over to them, so that they actually possessed less power under their fellow-Greeks than they had exercised under the Turks. The spirit of revolution is never sympathetic with officialism, whether lay or cleric.

It does not fall within the limits of this chapter to sketch the course of the final establishment of Greek independence. If there is much that is disappointing in the issue, let it be remembered that history cannot repeat itself. The modern Greeks could assume the names of Pericles and Demosthenes; they could not conjure into life again the genius and glory of ancient Hellas. Greece was now inhabited by a mixed population. Very early, shoals of Sclavs had poured over the Balkans into the south; subsequently Albanians had come in great numbers; in some places the actual Greeks were quite outnumbered by the alien immigrants. The resultant population is only Hellenic in geography, language, and religion, not at all in purity of race. The Greeks of to-day are not the Greeks of Solon, and Pericles, and Plato. They are a mixed race; which, however, is bravely striving to revive the ancient Hellenic traditions. We may well congratulate them on the liberties they have won and the progress they are still making, without burdening them with the absurd expectation that they will emulate in the twentieth century a.d. the deeds of their predecessors of the fourth century b.c.

After Greece had established her freedom, the connection of the Church in Greece with the patriarch of Constantinople was difficult to define. At first all mutual relations were broken off. This was inevitable, since the patriarch was an accredited official under the Ottoman government. The clergy ceased to mention the patriarch's name in their prayers, and in this respect followed the example of the prayers used in those parts of the Greek Church which were outside his recognised rule. The independence of the Church in Greece was not effected without opposition. Bishops from provinces of the Turkish