1843 made one of the important decisions which still affect this difficult question. We shall come back to the laws[1]; here it will be enough to say that, as always, this decision was scrupulously respectful of the rights of the Uniate Church. Now comes a great and famous quarrel, which to the Western reader may seem slightly ridiculous, though it caused much heart-burning at the time. It is the question of the hats of the Melkite clergy.
In 1837 the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory VI,[2] alarmed at the progress of the Melkite Church, obtained a firman from the Sultan which forbade the Melkites to make any converts from the Orthodox and commanded their clergy to change their dress, so that no one should mistake them for Orthodox. Naturally, since the division under Cyril VI, the clergy of both sides kept the same dress as before. It was a black cassock without buttons (ἀντερίον, Arabic ḳumbāz), with a cloth belt, a cloak with wide sleeves (ῥάσον, ǵubbah), and the kalymauchion (καλυμαύχιον, ḳallūsah).[3] This is the cylindrical hat without a brim worn by all the Byzantine clergy.[4] Now the Orthodox wanted to make the Melkites change their dress. This was a humiliation for them. It would make them look like some new strange sect. Why should they not go on wearing the same dress, respected by their people, as had been worn for centuries by their predecessors? Indeed, since the Melkites represent the old Patriarchate of Antioch, they could urge with reason that, if there is to be any change, it should be made by the followers of the new schismatical line of Silvester the Cypriote. First the Orthodox insisted that, as the Melkites were practically Europeans, they should be made to dress like French priests, wearing the French hat. The malice of this is obvious. It would have stamped them as foreigners at the first glance, would have confused them with the Latin clergy, and would
- ↑ The chapter on the Canon Law of the Uniates was never written. For the decision referred to see Charon, "Hist. Melk.," ii, p. 148. [Editor's Note.]
- ↑ Gregory VI of Constantinople, 1835-1840 (deposed); after eleven other Patriarchates in between, restored 1867-1871. Then he was deposed again.
- ↑ Kalymauchion, kalymmaukion, also kamalaukion (and other spellings); supposed to be from κάμηλος, hat, and αὐχήν, neck. Arabic ḳalansuwah, then ḳallūsah (the usual word now).
- ↑ It is worn both out of doors and in choir; so it corresponds to both hat and biretta. Dignitaries wear a black veil over it, ἐπανωκαλυμαύχιον. You can distinguish all the Eastern clergy by the shape of their hats.
