Procession and at the time when the Gospell is read and at the celebration of the Sacrament then they all stand up uncovered and shew a particular Reverence Their Singing as I said before is very mean and pitifull without figure and the relishes of art and is at best but a kind of harsh Plain-song They have no Organ or any kind of musicall Instrument in their Churches that they may not give any offence to their cruel Masters the Turks which is the reason also why they have no Bells They have no Holy water at their Church-doors nor do they use to sprinkle themselves though oftentimes they drink very greedily of it after the ceremony of its benediction is over and rub their eyes with it Upon their recovery from any grievous distemper and sickness they offer up thin broad Plates of silver which are hung up in their Churches Oftentimes they represent the figure of the Part affected in imitation of the Romanists from whom the modern Greeks have derived many of their religious Customs and Ceremonies They number their years not onely from the Birth of our B. Saviour but also from the Creation They reckon from the Creation to our Saviour's Birth 5508 years following the account of the Septuagint in their Chronology Thus they write that Constantinople was taken in the year 6961 that is of our Lord 1453. They acknowledge but seven General Councils which I shall here briefly reckon up The first held at Nice in Bithynia under Constantine the Great in the year of our Lord 325. against Arius and his Followers who denied the Divinity of our B. Saviour The second held at Constantinople under the elder Theodosius in the year 381. against Macedonius who denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost The third at Ephesus under Theodosius Junior and Valentinian in the year 431. against Nestorius who asserted Christ born of the Virgin Mary to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or meer Man and so made the Son of God distinct from the Son of the B. Virgin and refused to give her the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mother of God The fourth at Chalcedon a City situate over against Constantinople on the other side of the Propontis under Marcianus in the year 451. against Eutyches and Dioscorus who maintained onely one Nature in Christ The fifth at Constantinople under Justinian in the year 553. against the Disciples of Origen whose corrupt and heretical Doctrine about the Prae-existence and Transmigration of Souls the Temporariness of Hell-torments and the Salvation of Devils and the like was here condemned and anathematized The sixth at Constantinople under Constantine Pogonatus in the year 680. against Sergius Pope Honorius Macarius Bishop of Antioch and their Followers who asserted but one Will in Christ hence called Monothelites The seventh at Nice under Constantine then a minor and his Mother the Empress Irene in the year 787. against such as would not allow the Worship of Images whom they hence nick-named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Decrees of this Council not founded upon Scripture but upon weak and uncertain Tradition and without any ground of sound or judicious reasoning were confuted soon after by a Council of Bishops of the West held by the Authority of Charlemaine at Francford in Germany There was a Council held at Constantinople under Basilius in the year 869. wherein Photius the Patriarch of Constantinople who had appeared very active against the See of Rome and had provoked the Latines especially among other things by imputing to them the guilt of Heresy for adding Filióque to the Constantinopolitan Creed was dethroned and anathematized This the Romanists honour with the title of the Eighth Oecumenical Council But that which the Greeks call so was held ten years after that is in the year 879. in which all the Acts against Photius who was restored to the Patriarchal dignity not long before were rescinded and abrogated and the Creed recited and fixt without that addition But because nothing relating to matter of Doctrine was established anew in this Council which was held chiefly in favour of Photius the Greeks content themselves with the acknowledgment of seven only Some of the Latinizing Greeks call the Council held at Florence in the year 1439. under Pope Eugenius the Fourth in which were present the Emperour Joannes Palaeologus Joseph Patriarch of Constantinople and several Metropolitans and Bishops of the Greek Church the Eighth general Council Here the Greeks out of politick ends that is to please the Emperour who urged them to a Subscription to gain the assistence of the Latines which onely was to be had upon these hard conditions against the Turks then ready to take an entire possession of the Empire were forced to comply But upon their return home there were great stirs and tumults in Constantinople and all over the Empire about this Agreement and the Subscribers were look'd upon as Betrayers of the establisht Doctrine of the Eastern Church In a Letter published by Chytraeus sent from Constantinople to the Bohemians about two years before the taking of that City by the Emperour Mahomet they very zealously renounce the Union of Florence calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Disunion from the Truth This was subscribed among others by Silvester Syropulus who had been present at that Assembly and wrote the History of it publish'd in the year 1660. In their Monasteries they keep up the piety and rigour of the ancient Discipline being very punctual in the performance of their daily Offices They are frequent in the reciting of the Psalms and Hymns of the Old and New Testament as consisting chiefly of Praises and Thanksgivings which they divide into twenty Sections or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 each Section into three parts which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of which they repeat the Gloria Patri standing all the while This Psalmody is one of the principal parts of the Monastick life and institution and they are so continually used to it that there is scarce a Kaloir but has the whole Psalter exactly by heart They observe this order They reade the Psalter twice in each of the first six weeks in Lent and but once in the Holy week ending it on Wednesday from which time to the Saturday in Easter-week according to ancient custome it is wholly intermitted Afterward to the 20. day of September two Sections are read in the morning and one in the evening but from the 20. of September they reade three Sections in the morning and in the evening the Psalms called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are the Psalms of Degrees so called from the 119. the first of them which begins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This method they continue to the Saturday before Sexagesima in which week and the week following it is but once repeated also
bis p. 34. l. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 129. l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 139. l. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 146. l. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 127. l. 26. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 184. l. 30. dictus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 280. l. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Appendice occurrit plusquam semel Psalterium S. Notkeri pro Antiphâ—nario seu libro Hymnorum An Account of the Greek Church as to its Doctrine and Rites of Worship with several Historical Remarques interspersed relating thereunto THE Eastern Church antiently and strictly so called was onely that which being in the most Easterly part of the Roman Empire was under the Jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch and was usually styled the Diocese of the East containing Syria Cilicia Palestine and part of Mesopotamia and Arabia But afterwards upon the Division of the Empire and the Removal of the Imperial Seat from Rome to Constantinople the Churches which held Communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople and acknowledged that the chief See and looked upon him as their Head and were subject to the Greek Emperours had all of them the Title of Eastern by way of distinction and opposition to those of the Latine or West In which comprehensive sense I use the word These Churches are governed by four Patriarchs each of which has full power in his Patriarchate of calling his Metropolitans and Bishops together of receiving Appeals of conferring holy Orders of determining Controversies and of Excommunicating grievous and notorious Offenders a Primacy of Order being onely allowed to the Patriarch of Constantinople upon the account of his being Bishop of the Imperial City and by Ecclesiastical right becoming and made next in dignity to the Bishop of old Rome The four Patriarchs are of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem who according to Socrates Scholasticus had the Limits and Boundaries of their several Districts and Jurisdictions set them by the Fathers of the first general Council held at Constantinople But 't is certain from other Authorities that they had not then the Power of the Patriarchs of the following Ages Nor was the word in common use it being introduced to diminish and overtop the Title of Exarchus till the times of the Council of Chalcedon which advanced Jerusalem to the supereminent dignity of a Patriarchal See and assigned the Asian the Thracian and the Pontic Dioceses to the Patriarch of Constantinople It cannot be supposed otherwise but that these Boundaries and Limits have in the several successions of Ages from that time to this been subject to great alterations and changes The Patriarch of Constantinople as he is the chiefest in Dignity so he has a larger Jurisdiction than any of the other three It takes in all the lesser Asia except two of the most Easterly Provinces which border upon Syria Thrace Macedonia and all the other Provinces of Greece and the Islands that are scatter'd up and down in the Archipelago Dalmatia Albania Walachia and Moldavia His usual Title when he subscribes any Letter or Missive is by the mercy of God Archbishop of new Rome Constantinople and Oecumenical Patriarch But of this I shall have occasion to speak more distinctly in another place The Patriarch of Alexandria exercises his power over the Christians throughout Aegypt Libya and part of Arabia The Title which he still retains is this by the mercy of God Pope and Patriarch of the great City of Alexandria and Oecumenical Judge Sometimes he styles himself Oecumenical Patriarch it having been the chief See before the times of Constantine and founded by S. Mark Hence Alexandria is called frequently the Throne the Seat the Chair of that Apostle Sometimes the Title runs in larger terms Patriarch of Alexandria and all Aegypt Pentapolis Libya and Aethiopia the Abyssines using from the time of their first Conversion till of late years to send their chief Bishop or Metropolitan to be Consecrated and Confirmed by him This Patriarch for his own better ease and accommodation and for the greater benefit of the Christians of his Communion makes his usual residence at Grand Cairo where they are very numerous and where in case of any grievous oppression they may have recourse to the Bassa who keeps his Court in that City The Patriarch of Antioch governs the Churches of Syria Mesopotamia and of the two Provinces of Isauria and Cilicia which are in the lesser Asia He writes himself thus by the mercy of God Patriarch of the great City of Antioch called Theopolis and of all the East alluding to the ancient and restrain'd sense of the Eastern Diocese His usual residence is at Damascus The Patriarch of Jerusalem has Palestine and part of Arabia within his District His Title is by the mercy of God Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and of all Palestine and sometimes he is saluted by the name and Title of Patriarch of Jerusalem the Holy Mount of Sion Syria Arabia beyond Jordan Cana of Galilee and of all Palestine For these Four Patriarchs they pray in their Publick Liturgies without any mention of the Bishop of Rome Which omission being look'd upon as an argument of disrespect and ill will among other heads and articles of Agreement and Union between the Churches of old and new Rome it was required by Alexander the Fourth the then Pope of the Emperour Michael Palaeologus that in their Publick Offices and Hymns the Pope should be named at the same time with the Four Patriarchs as Nicephorus Gregoras relates And since this upon a disuse the same was agreed to at Florence at least the Instrument of Vnion in the close where the Five Patriarchs are reckon'd up in their Order may seem to suppose it But the Proceedings of that Council and the Vnion which followed being generally disliked upon the return of the Greeks to Constantinople they have not since pray'd for him publickly by name but adhere to the old number and form The other Sects of Religion have their distinct Patriarchs as the Armenians Maronites Jacobites c. And there is usually a Titular Patriarch of Constantinople the Pope pretending a power of constituting such a one not onely upon the account of his usurped Oecumenical Pastorship but because the Latines were once in possession of that City which they held between fifty and sixty years that is from the year 1203. to 1260 at which time it was recovered out of their hands by Michael Palaeologus And for the most part there resides at Constantinople a Bishop sent from Rome who has the power of a Legate In my time a Franciscan Fryer resided there for this purpose with the title of the Bishop of Calurmina a City in India upon the Coasts of Coromandel where S. Thomas was martyred The Greek Church consider'd in it self and with reference to the vast extent
of those Countries where the doctrine and rites of it are profest and maintain'd is a very considerable part of the Catholick Church All the Christians of the vast dominions of the Emperour of Moscovy the Cossacks the Inhabitants of Podolia and of the black Russia who are Subjects of Poland the people of Aethiopia in the inner part of Africk lying South of Aegypt of Circassia of Georgia formerly Iberia and of Mengrelia the Colchis of the Ancients and of the Islands of the Mediterranean under the Venetians being of its Communion In all which places it may be justly said to flourish being the establisht Religion and where the Christians are either absolute Lords and Masters or else onely make some acknowledgment to the Grand Signior or Sophy of Persia for their peace and quiet as do those Asiatick Princes who live beyond the Euxine Sea and whose Country reaches towards Mount Caucasus and so are as it were miserably harassed and ground between the two mighty Empires of the East But I am to consider the Greek Church chiefly as it is contain'd in the dominions of the Turks where it is most sadly afflicted For though the Greeks have the free use and exercise of the Christian Religion and are allowed their Churches for the publick Worship of Christ and in Moldavia and Walachia especially which the Turks leave wholly to be inhabited by them under the Government of the respective Princes who indeed are in effect but their Tax-gatherers and who swear Allegeance to the Port and whom they prefer and degrade as their interest or covetousness incline them yet in all other respects they are no other than as Slaves 'T is meerly out of interest and a sense they have of the benefit of their service and not any regard to the last Testament of Mahomet which commands all his followers to shew kindness to the Christians for to That they are strangers it being most probably the invention of some good meaning persons of our Religion who hoped by this pious kind of fraud to take off the Conquerours from that fury and barbarity wherewith their own â—ough temper and the Chapter of the Sword in the Alcoran might inspire them that they admit the Greeks to the favour of enjoying their lives and their Religion together Which they dearly pay for being subject to innumerable arbitrary taxes upon all occasions besides their head mony which is severely exacted every year even of boys if above 14 years of age not to mention either the extortions of the Cadies who suck their very bloud upon every slight miscarriage when they fall into their clutches and oftentimes upon unjust and frivolous avanias or pretensions when they are wholly innocent or the insolencies of the Souldiers who enter their houses in the Country especially and rob and spoil and tyrannize over the poor people these injustices though too much connived at being besides the intent of the Government They are forced sometimes into the wars to doe all the drudgery of the Camp or to serve as Pioneers in working their Mines or to look to their Carriages and the like exposed daily to horrid indignities and injuries against which they have no remedy every rascally Turk making use of his Privilege to triumph over them oftentimes out of zeal to his false Religion but oftener out of wantonness and a proud insolent humour This wretched state and condition of life though it cannot but strike a horrour into the minds of all who enjoy the happiness of freedom and a mild government might be digested well enough and born with some kind of patience if they suffer'd onely in their bodies or in their purses if they were not upbraided with their being Christians if they could be free from either their menaces or invitations of renouncing their Faith and their Saviour if their Children were not ravaged and torn from their arms and bred up in the false and bruitish Religion of Mahomet to be afterwards their plagues and tormentors For to supply their Seminaries formerly as often as the necessity of affairs required though of late years they have forborn to practise it they send forth Officers into the several Provinces of Europe they yielding generally the most hardy and best Souldiers who coming to any Town command the poor Christians to bring their male-children from seven or eight years old and upwards before them If any should dare to conceal them at home or send them away into the woods or upon the mountains they are punished But of these they chuse the best complexion'd and strongest and the most likely to answer the ends of their Collection Some of their Parents indeed out of natural pity and out of a true sense of Religion that they may not be thus robbed of their children who hereby ly under a necessity of renouncing their Christianity compound for them at the rate of fifty or a hundred Dollars as they are able or as they can work upon the covetousness of the Turks more or less Though others to the great shame and dishonour of their Religion Christians onely in name part with them freely and readily enough not onely because they are rid of the trouble and charge of them but in hopes they may when they are grown up get some considerable command in the government After some trial some of the most hardy are taught the use of arms in order to their being Janizaries others that are of a softer but more docile temper are bred up in the studies of the Persian language and fitted for civil affairs and advanced to some place and office about the Emperour's Person the more stupid are sent into the Seraglio to be Cooks Bakers Gardiners Confectioners and such like inferiour servants or else are cut that they may be the better qualified to attend at the women's apartments What a Glorious design would it be and how much for the honour of our Religion if the Christian Princes would unite and enter upon a Holy War and redeem the Oriental Christians from the burthen of this intolerable tyranny and slavery But alas there is little hope of such an Union in this great declension of Christianity when the life and spirit of it seem to be lost and swallowed up in those horrid feuds and factions that disturb the peace of Christendom and expose it to the assaults of the common enemy whenever he shall be at leisure to attaque it and when interest seems wholly to govern and influence all Publick Councils However the Bishops of Rome who then exercised an entire and absolute dominion over the consciences of all of their Communion might have private designs of their own in Publishing their Crusades and putting the several Princes of the West upon the recovering the Holy Sepulchre out of the hands of the Sarazens yet this ought not to diminish from the glory of their piety and generous Courage who undertook those long painfull and hazardous Voyages This we may
and Blasphemies of the Turks who being stupid and dull are guided wholly in their judgments of things by a gross fancy and reject with a brutish kind of pride and scorn whatever is raised though never so little above the reach of Sense it is no slight argument of the truth of the great Articles of the Christian Religion against the subtle contrivances of a party of men in Christendome who under a pretence of sober reason undermine the foundations of it that the Christians of the East do still retain with all imaginable constancy and firmness of assent the entire profession of the Mysteries of Faith as they were believed and acknowledged in the first Ages They retain exactly the Catholick Doctrine concerning the most Holy and undivided Trinity and the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God according to the Constantinopolitan Creed which they onely retain in their Liturgies and Catechisms this being but an Exposition of the Apostles Creed more at large which is the true reason why the Apostolicall form came anciently to be omitted among them As to that of S. Athanasius they are wholly strangers to it They are content with the profession of Faith as it is laid down there without troubling themselves with curious and nice distinctions which oftentimes in stead of explaining confound and obscure the Mystery Yet with a becoming zeal they condemn the madness and impiety of Arius Nestorius Paulus Samosatenus and the other Haeresiarchs whose Opinions if any one be known to favour in the least they presently excommunicate him and do not restore him to the Communion of the Church till he has renounced his Heresy with tears and given other ample satisfaction Indeed as to the manner of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit the Greeks vary from the Latines and from the Churches of the Reformation and by what we may judge from the reluctancy and unwillingness of the Bishops after all attempts of Reconciliation the difference herein is like to be perpetual They object with a great deal of bitter passion that the Bishops of the Roman Church have not dealt honestly in this matter for that without consulting them and without regard to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus which forbad such Additions under the penalty of an Anathema they have inserted the words Filióque into the Constantinopolitan Creed For the justification and proof of this Charge they appeal to the Writings of the ancient Fathers to Acts of Councils to Ecclesiasticall History to the faith of the best and most authentick Manuscript Copies nay to Rome it self where that Creed was engraven on two silver Tables hung up in S. Peter's Church by the command of Pope Leo the Third where this Addition is wanting This was hotly disputed by the Greeks in the Council held at Florence and no one argument or point of controversy have they maintained or do still maintain with greater variety of learning or subtilty At present I shall content my self with one or two irrefragable testimonies Cyrillus Lucaris who afterwards fell a sacrifice to the malice and revenge of the Jesuits in the Epistle he wrote to Vytenbogaert out of Walachia when he was Patriarch of Alexandria saith Ipsa i.e. Ecclesia Graeca Spiritum Sanctum à Filio essentialiter internè quoad esse procedere negat The Greek Church denies that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son essentially and internally and as to his subsistence And so afterward when he was advanced to the Patriarchall throne of Constantinople in his Confession of Faith which brought upon him all that envy and mischief which afterwards befell him chap. 1. The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father by the Son Which form of words he very wisely and warily thought fit to use in compliance with the ancient Writers of his Church as it was proved in the Council of Florence by Isidorus Bishop of Russia and Bessarion of Nice and Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus from the authorities of S. Maximus and S. John Damascen and several others This being so expresly asserted by Cyrillus I cannot sufficiently wonder at the rashness and disingenuity of the Assessors of the second Synod held against this good man at Constantinople under Parthenius who most unjustly censure and condemn him for maintaining against the Sentiments of the Catholick Church the eternal and substantial procession of the Holy Spirit as well from the Son as the Father Lastly they declare in their Confession that the Holy Spirit proceedeth eternally from the Father as the fountain and principle of the Deity according to what our Saviour teaches us saying When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testify of me S. John 15. 26. The great argument made use of by Phatius and other Writers both ancient and modern is briefly summ'd up by Cyrillus The Greek Church does therefore deny the procession of the Spirit from the Son quòd veretur nè dicendo à Filio ut à Patre duo asserat in Divinis principia existentiae Spiritûs Sancti quod esset impiissimum fearing lest they should assert and introduce two distinct Principles of the existence of the Spirit of God in the Deity which they look upon as an horrid impiety But to prevent all unjust suspicions as if they entertain'd any evil or heterodox Opinions about the Third Person of the glorious Trinity they declare fully against the Heresy of Macedonius and the rest of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and most readily acknowledge the Holy Spirit to be of the same substance with the Father and the Son to be God from eternity proceeding from the essence and nature of the Father without beginning and to be equally adored Likewise they acknowledge that He is the Spirit of the Son and that He is sent poured out and given by the Son But this they refer to the temporary mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and upon all the Faithfull So that they neither confound the Persons of the Holy Trinity nor take away the Personal Relations and Proprieties of the Son and Spirit forasmuch as the manner of Generation whereby the Son subsists is distinct from the manner of the Procession of the Holy Spirit From these premisses it will fully appear that the Greeks are most unjustly accused by some of the Roman Church in the height of their intemperate zeal as deserters of the Catholick Faith and as guilty of Heresy in a necessary Article of Faith for that the difference herein is rather verbal then real and lies not so much in the substance of the Article as in the way and manner of expressing themselves To justify this their imputation they with an equal rashness are not afraid to assert and that as boldly as if they had been admitted into the Secrets of God that the Holy Spirit has sufficiently shewed his anger from Heaven