mournings for the dead retain not only Ceremonies by us accounted superstitious but also savouring somewhat of ancient Gentilism If the headache or be ill-affected the Priest binds it with the Vail of the Sacramental Chalice and administers to the sick a draught of consecrated Water in which is Basil or Dittamon or some other odoriferous Herb blessed with the touch of a Crucifix or the Picture of our Lady and administred as a spiritual Medicine as well operative for the benefit of the Soul as conducing to the health of the Body But in case the indisposition increase the holy Oyl or extream Unction is applyed called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mixed with some of that Water which was consecrated at the Sacrament of the Communion and some Prayers proper for that occasion are rehearsed together with such Chapters and Verses out of the new Testament which relate to the resurrection of the dead It is likewise usual amongst them as in the Roman Church to make Vows upon recovery and on the Altar to tender the form of a Leg Arm or Eyes or some other Member ill-affected in Silver or Gold in remembrance and gratitude for the late mercy of Almighty God But when the party dyes the lamentations which they make are most barbarous For after his eyes are shut his Corps are clothed in its best Apparel and being stretched on the Floor with a Taper at the head and another at the feet then begins the Scene of sorrow the Wife the Children and the rest of the Family and Friends entring with their Hair dishevelled their Garments loose and torn pulling their Locks and beating their Breasts and scratching their Faces with their Nails Faedantes unguibus ora make such deep sighs and sad cryes as might justly incur the reprehension of the Apostle who gave them that reasonable Counsel of Mourn not like those without hope 1 Thes. 4. v. 13. The Body thus dressed up with a Crucifix on the Breast attended by the Priests and Deacons is carried to burial and the Prayers solemnized with Incense that God would receive his Soul into the Region of the blessed the Wife follows her departed Husband with such passion to perform the last office of kindness as if she intended with violence of her shreeks to force out her own Soul and to bear company with the Corps of her Husband in his Cave of darkness And where passion is not found so vigorous and violent in its representation of sorrow by reason of the gentle and more even temper of some Wives there want not Women who are perfect Tragedians that are hired to follow the Corps of the dead and to act in behalf of the Relations all the distracted postures and motions of real grief and confused sorrow The Corps being placed in the Church and the Office for the dead being ended the Friends which accompany it first kiss the Crucifix on the Breast and then the Mouth and Forehead of the deceased and afterwards every one eats a piece of Bread and drinks a glass of Wine in the Church wishing rest to the Soul departed and consolation to the afflicted Relations which done they attend them home and so end the Ceremonies of Burial At the end of eight days after the Burial the friends of the deceased make their charitable Visits to condole with and comfort the nearer Relations and accompany them to the Church to joyn with them in the Prayers offered for the quiet and rest of the departed Soul at which time the men eat and drink again in the Church whilst the Women renew their barbarous lamentations with shreeks and cryes and with all other evidences of distraction and sorrow but such as can pay others to act this part of passion force not themselves with that violence but send them to lament and mourn over the Sepulcher for the space of eight days the third day after which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on which Prayers are said for the Soul departed In like manner at the end of nine days of forty days and at the end of six months and at the conclusion of the year Prayers and Masses are said for repose of the Soul which being ended those then present are entertained with boiled Wheat and Rice Wine and dryed fruits and this is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a custom esteemed by the Greeks of great Antiquity which they more devoutly solemnize on the Fryday before their entrance into the Lent of Advent Good-Fryday and the Fryday before the Feast of Pentecost which are special days observed for Commemoration of the dead as well such as dyed of violent as of natural deaths Now as to the Opinion which the Greek Church holds concerning the condition of Souls departed this life there is some diversity being a matter not clearly determined by Councils Howsoever the Anatolian Confession which is generally accepted and approved by the Greek Divines doth clearly and expresly maintain this Doctrine That the Souls so soon as they are cleared and loosed from the Fetters of the Body go either to Heaven or to Hell the first hath the name of Paradise Abraham's Bosom the Kingdom of Heaven where the Saints sit and intercede for those who are on Earth in honour of whom are daily sung Hymns of praise and glory Such as go to Hell called the Grave the eternal Fire the Bottomless Pit and the like are of two sorts The first are such who dye in the state of Divine anger on whom are immediately imposed Chains and Fetters which can never be taken off nor loosed to all Eternity The second are such who enter or are introduced into the Mansions of Hell without those Bonds Fetters Pains and Torments which for ever enslave and afflict the damned but departing this life with dispositions to Justice Repentance and a new life with the advantagious assistances of Confession and Absolution of the Priest though the work of Grace be not thoroughly perfected in them nor their resolution of godliness proceeded to action have yet their resolutions dispositions beginnings of Pietymade acceptable and brought to maturity esteem in the sight of God not by any works performed in the next World according to that of the Psalmist who shall praise thee in the Grave or shall the dead give thanks unto thee in the Pit but by the Offertories Oblations and Almes and Prayers of the Church made in behalf of the dead by the living on Earth and this is the meaning of those Prayers Tu autem Domine repone animam ejus in loco lucenti in loco quietis consolationis ex quo longe est omnis maestitia dolor suspirium condonans ei omne peccatum Do thou Lord repose his Soul in the Mansions of light of quietness and consolation from whence are banished all sadness grief and sighs But this place it seems they account no different Limbo from Hell and is no Purgatory whose flames purge and cleanse or whose
out sooner or later The fourth begins the first of August and continues until the 15th being a Preparatory to the Grand Festival which they keep in honour to the Assumption of our Lady who they say was bodily transported into Heaven which Fast is so strictly observed that even Oyl is forbidden to Kaloires and few others especially of Women there be but who observe this prohibition unless on the 6th of August which being a Festival in memory of our Saviours Transfiguration they have a permission to eat Oyl and Fish but on other days they return again to their slender Diet. Besides which Grand Fasts there are some other Fasts as the 28th of August in commemoration of the decollation or beheading of St. John Baptist. Likewise there is another Fast beginning the first of September which continues until the fourteenth being the Feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross in which time of fourteen days the History of the Passion is preached and represented But this last is only observed by Kaloirs and such as are entered into Vows and a Monastical life whose profession is Mortification and their business Religion In all which times they do not only abstain from Flesh or Lacticinia such as Butter Cheese and the like but also from Fish which have Scales or Finnes or Blood only Shell-Fish as Lobsters Crabs Oysters c. are lawful though it is probable that in them there may be more of heat and nourishment excepting only in that Lent which begins on the 15th of November it is lawful for them to eat all sorts of Fish as also other ordinary and Weekly Fasts of Wednesday and Friday oblige them only to an abstinence from Flesh and what comes from thence but all sorts of Fish are freely indulged And though Wednesdays and Frydays are for the most part Fasts through the whole year yet we must except from hence Wednesday and Friday of the eleventh Week before Easter which they call Arzeiburst the reason whereof as Christophorus Angelo reports was from the dog of certain Hereticks so called whom they used to send with Letters At lengh the Dog dying his Heretical Masters used to fast that 11th Week before Easter for sorrow in opposition to whom and to have no conformity with them the Orthodox appointed that Wednesday and Fryday of that Week should be exempted from any Obligation of abstinence On Whitson-Monday they abstain from Flesh and Fast by reason that the people meeting that morning in the Church ask of God the Communication of his Holy Spirit as he gave unto his Holy Apostles in commemoration of which they eat Flesh on Wednesday and Friday of that Week The 25th of March being the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin though it happen in Lent yet they have a priviledge to eat all sorts of Fish as they have to eat Flesh from Christmas to Epiphany Wednesdays and Frydays not being exempted and the first Week after Pentecost In like manner they are permitted to eat Flesh all the first Week of three before the great Lent which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sunday of which answers to our septuagesima The next Week following which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are commanded abstinence from Flesh Wednesdays and Frydays but the Week immediately before Lent is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies fresh Cheese it being a time when they may eat all sorts of Milk and what is made thereof likewise Eggs and Fish of all kinds being perhaps a time to prepare their Stomacks to a leaner and morerigorous Dyet This Lent begins on Monday as ours doth on Wednesday These Fasts are strictly observed and undergone by them with no less patience and sobriety than superstition supposing it a sin not less hainous willingly to break this Fast or transgress the rules of this Abstinence and with that the Institution and Rites of the Church than to commit Adultery or invade the possessions of his Neighbour Education and Custom hath brought them to that Opinion of Fasting that they believe Christianity can hardly be professed and subsist without it It is very pleasant to be observed what Cyrillus the Patriarch of Constantinople reports of the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem who being desirous to prove the sanctity of his Church and Religion to be greater than that of the Greeks or any others brings it for an Argument that they did not only abstain from flesh and fish in Lent but even also from Beans and Pease which the Greeks allowed of consulting the inclination of their Appetite more than true Religion On these grounds they can by no means be induced to believe the English and others of the reformed Churches to be Orthodox Christians because they neither use Fasting nor reverence the sign of the Cross two matters of great scandal amongst them though in point of observation of the Feasts according to the old style with them and by their opposition to the Church of Rome they are on the other side more unsatisfied and doubtful what to judge The severity of their Lents is more easily supported by the expected enjoyment of the following Festival at which time they run into such excesses of mirth and riot agreeable to the light and vain humour of that people that they seem to be revenged of their late sobriety and to make compensation to the Devil for their late temperance and mortification towards God and this extravagancy of Mirth and loose Debauchery they practise with so much liberty that their Priests reprove them not for it but rather maintain Drunkenness not to be a Sin on a Festival being a hearty memorial of the Holiness of the Saint or a Testimony of joy in commemoration of the works of mans Redemption but this is spoken rather as a corruption of manners than as a Tenent or Profession of that Church In the observation of these Fasts they are so rigid and superstitiously strict that they hold no case of necessity may or can claim a Dispensation and that the Patriarch hath not power and authority sufficient to give a License to eat flesh where the Church hath commanded Abstinence For suppose a person sick to death who with Broth made of Flesh or with an Egg may be recovered to life they say it were better he should dye than eat and sin Howsoever perhaps the Ghostly Father will be so far concern'd in the others health as to advise the sick Penitent in such cases to eat flesh and afterwards confessing the sin he promises to grant Absolution and this I have known to have sometimes been practised which perhaps amongst the ignorant Priests may be esteemed an excellent and an ingenious accommodation between humane Necessities and the Institutions of the Church But such of the wiser sort who have studied in Italy and there been seasoned with the Doctrine of the Latines believe their own Church endued with as much authority in Ecclesiasticks as the Roman and that the difficulty of granting
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin 26. The Arch-Angel Gabriel APRIL 23. Saint George 25. Saint Mark the Evangelist MAY. 8. S. John the Evangelist which we keep the 26. of December 20. Constantine and S. Helena JUNE 19. S. Jude Alpheus with us observed the 28. of October 24. The Nativity of S. John Baptist. 29. The Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul JULY 20. Elias the Prophet 25. S. Anne 26. S. Parascheve and Panteleemon who were Martyrs in the time of Dioclesian AUGUST 6. The Transfiguration of Christ. 15. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin 29. The Martyrdom of S. John Baptist. But because that the observation of so many Holy-days would be grievous to the poor who live by their day-labour many of them are retrenched and are made obligatory only to the Religious such as Priests and others in holy Orders the which I have marked thus * for the better distinction of them from those which are kept by all sorts of people but hereof I have set down very few the foregoing being almost all to be observed and every day in the year hath some relation to a Saint which the Kaloires who have nothing else to do keep with a particular devotion The Rule for canonizing Saints is still observed in the Patriarchal See at Constantinople for though as we have said their Menology is already so filled that one day is assigned to two or three Saints yet not to suffer good men and Saints now so rare in the world to lose their esteem amongst men who have their reward with God they sometimes even unto our days enter such into the Canon whose Miracles and sanctity of life have raised into the seraphical Order of holy men which after their death are to be testified by a 1000 Witnesses◠who have either seen them or heard their actions recounted by the undoubted Testimonies of credible persons of which a diligent Examination being made by the Patriarch and Archbishops in a full Synod they admit him or them into the Kalendar and say his Mass on the day appointed for his Festival adjoining thereunto Hymns in honour of that Saint reading a Relation of his Miracles and Good Works entering the History of his life into their Synaxarion or Book of Saints but this Canonization is now seldom practised because it cannot be purchased without much Money and the Greeks being wicked and poor in these days few or none are either so good or have Friends so piously rich as to procure their Enrolment into the Golden List of Saints and Martyrs After the Commands of the Church we are next in order to treat of the Mysteries which are seven and answer to those which the Roman Church calls Sacramenta First Baptism second Chrism third the Holy Eucharist fourth Priesthood fifth Matrimony sixth Repentance seventh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Oyl of Prayer CHAP. VII Of Baptism and the sealing of Infants called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IN imitation of Christ's Presentation in the Temple and the blessing of old Simeon when he sang his Nunc dimittis the Greek Church hath from long Antiquity practised on the eighth day to present their Children at the Church-Porch to receive the blessing of the Priest who signs them on the Forehead Mouth and Breast with the sign of the Cross as a Seal of the Divine Grace and a disposition to receive the Holy Baptism which they call The sealing of infants and afterwards says this Prayer O our God we beseech thee to infuse the light of thy person on this thy Servant and seal the Cross of thy only begotten Son in his heart and in his thoughts that he may fly the vanities of this World and the snares of the Enemy and follow thy Commands Confirm him O Lord in thy name unite him in thy good time to thy Holy Church and perfect him by thy stupendious mysteries that so living according to thy commands he may obtain the Kingdom of Beatitude with thine Elect through the Grace and Mercy of thy only Son to whom with the Life-giving Spirit be Glory now and for ever Amen Afterwards the Priest taking the Child into his Arms before the Gate of the Church elevates it and waves it in the form of a Cross and so ends this Ceremony which is the introduction and preparation to Baptism Baptism as the Greek Church defines it is a cleansing or taking away of Original Sin by thrice dipping or plunging into the Water the Priest saying at every dipping In the name of the Father Amen and of the Son Amen and of the Holy Ghost Amen This thrice dipping or plunging into the Water this Church holds to be as necessary to the form of Baptism as Water to the matter for proof whereof is brought the 50th Canon called Apostolical which says Si quis Episcopus aut Presbyter non trinam dimersionem unius mysterii celebret sed semel mergat in Baptismate quod dari videtur in domini morte damnetur Non enim dixit vobis Dominus In morte mea baptizate sed Euntes docete omnes gentes in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus sancti In like manner they produce the 42 Chapter of the Apostles Constitutions wherein they have these words Ter mergite vos Episcopi in unum Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum If any Bishop or Presbyter shall not use a three-fold dipping in this one mystery but only dips once in Baptism let him be condemned c. In farther favour hereof are quoted the Homilies of St. Chrysostom who rhetorically discoursing of the Vertues and Efficacy of Baptism he symbolizeth it with the Life Death and Resurrection of a Christian for the first plunging into Water as he saith buries the old man of sin the second regenerates and revives him to a new Creature and the third raises him to the perfection of life Eternal according to that of S. Paul We are buried with Christ through Baptism that we might rise with him so that the Greek Church which receives the whole number of the 85 Canons which for their Antiquity are called Apostolical as made by the Apostles themselves or the next succeeding Apostolical men doth believe them to carry very great force with them and therefore the Ter mergite is as constantly practised as if it had been the interpretation of Ite Baptizate The which Canon being very ancient was first ordained against certain Hereticks who denyed the Holy Trinity Baptizing only in the name of Jesus on those words of the Apostle before quoted We are buried with Christ by Baptism c. in opposition to whom these three Immersions were used for they cannot deny the Trinity who in Baptism distinguish three persons in the Divine Nature Wherefore though nothing is essential to Baptism nor other Precept than to be dipped or sprinkled in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost yet to make a more exact Test to say who were Hereticks and who were not