Religion and Politics in the Orthodox World

The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Challenges of Modernity

Paschalis Kitromilides

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780815394648
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351185417
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores how the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the leading centre of spiritual authority in the Orthodox Church, based in Istanbul, coped with political developments from Ottoman times until the present. The book outlines how under the Ottomans, despite difficult circumstances, the Patriarchate managed to draw on its huge symbolic and moral power and organization to uphold the unity and catholicity of the Orthodox Church, how it struggled to do this during the subsequent age of nationalism when churches within new nation-states unilaterally claimed their autonomy reflecting local national demands, and how the church coped in the twentieth century with the rise of nationalist Turkey, the decline of Orthodoxy in Asia Minor and with the Cold War. The book concludes by assessing the current position and future prospects of the Patriarchate in the region and the world.

1 The Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment

Testimonies from the correspondence of Ignatius of Ungrowallachia with G. P. Vieusseux¹

The relationship between the Orthodox Church and the movement of intellectual change and cultural secularization denoted by the Enlightenment has been a complex one, extending over a rather long period of several decades from the mid-eighteenth century to the 1820s and exemplifying multiple manifestations. The progress of a revisionist approach to the subject has hopefully laid to rest earlier historiographical stereotypes concerning the historical content of this relationship, which until comparatively recently was seen almost exclusively in terms of irreconcilable conflict and opposition, arguing, on both sides of the ideological divide, about the fundamental incompatibility between the Orthodox spiritual outlook and the secular values and critical temper of the Enlightenment. The ideological divide in question has been that between, on the one hand, historians of a leftist persuasion, whose “progressive” outlook saw in the Church an unconditional and monolithic enemy of “progress” and reason and, on the other, theologians or scholars of a religious inspiration who saw in the Enlightenment not only an enemy of religious conscience but also a dangerous threat to Orthodox beliefs and a conduit of adulteration of the “authenticity” of the traditions and values of Orthodox societies through the adoption and aping of Western ways. This Manichean perspective, which met with the concurrence of so different intellectual approaches to historical interpretation, has been put to serious questioning by a quantitatively rather meagre but qualitatively significant strand of historical writing belonging to the orbit of Orthodox thought but not succumbing unquestioningly to the ideological presuppositions of its mainstream or official intellectual exponents.

This minority strand of historical writing, which could be considered to represent a form of dissent within ecclesiastical learning, was enunciated by Manuel Gedeon in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century and had among its latest and certainly one of its most distinguished exponents, Christos G. Patrinelis. Thanks to the historical thinking associated with this dissenting approach, the binary oppositions perceived and ideologically enshrined by other schools of historical thought between the Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment can now be seriously revised. Basing his researches on an almost inexhaustible array of primary source material drawn from ecclesiastical records, especially from archival and documentary collections of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Gedeon has suggested that serious qualifications should be introduced to prevailing views concerning the attitude of the Church to secular learning in the period of the Enlightenment.² Patrinelis has carried on this argument with subtlety and discriminating judgement.³ According to their reading of the evidence the Church was not unconditionally hostile to secular learning, modern philosophy and science at the time of the Enlightenment. On the contrary, the attitude of several among its important representatives in the period in question is shown by the sources to be quite nuanced. They appeared prepared to draw on the human resources made available by intellectual changes associated with the Enlightenment movement in the Orthodox world, in order to meet the challenges facing the Church’s own pastoral work in the field of education and in sustaining the faith and cohesion of its flock at a time of serious threats emanating from proselytizing activities of other Christian confessions and large-scale conversions to Islam in some parts of the Ottoman Empire.⁴

So the story of the interaction between the Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment appears to be more complex and in need to be approached by new narratives that might capture this greater complexity. It appears quite legitimate and “operational” from a research perspective to talk of an “ecclesiastical Enlightenment” in the Orthodox world.⁵ Among the exponents of the “ecclesiastical Enlightenment” were of course several clergymen who belonged to the mainstream of the movement of cultural change since its earlier stages and became protagonists in the growth of modern learning and secular thought in Greek culture and increasingly in the cultural traditions of other Orthodox nationalities in Southeastern Europe.⁶ Besides these pioneers, however, there were others, high-ranking ecclesiastical leaders of the first order, patriarchs and senior members of the hierarchy, who saw in the Enlightenment possibilities for making the education of the subjugated Orthodox people more effective and therefore more resistant to hostile pressures and threats.

Perhaps the earliest such perception of the possibilities of the Enlightenment for the work of the Church could be associated with Patriarch Cyril V (1748–1751, 1752–1757), who in the 1750s opened the newly founded school of Mount Athos, the monastic beacon of Orthodoxy, to the reformist educational policies of Evgenios Voulgaris, the foremost exponent of the Enlightenment in the Orthodox world at the time.⁷ Other patriarchs among Cyril’s successors followed in his footsteps, including Serafeim II (1757–1761), Gabriel IV (1780–1784) and especially Cyril VI (1813–1818) in the early nineteenth century. A number of senior prelates also followed suit, opening or reforming schools, protecting scholars, supporting the publication of books. They included Archbishop Kyprianos, head of the autocephalous Church of Cyprus,⁸ and senior metropolitans of the Ecumenical Patriarchate such as Meletios and Dionysios of Ephesus and Dorotheos [Proios] of Adrianople. Many others could be added. Adamantios Korais, the greatest exponent of the Greek Enlightenment in the early part of the nineteenth century, who was known for his severe criticism of the Church on many occasions, was quick to acknowledge and praise the contribution of these prelates to the development of Greek education and cultural life, obviously in the hope of encouraging others to imitate them.⁹

Among Orthodox prelates who appeared actively supportive of the Enlightenment in the early nineteenth century, pride of place belongs to Ignatius of Ungrowallachia. A controversial figure throughout his life and a historical personality of great complexity, defying easy categorization and certainly impossible to subject to conventional characterizations, Ignatius, born in Mytilene circa 1765, had a precocious career in the Church, rising to senior ecclesiastical positions extremely young and playing an active role in Greek politics in a period when the shadow of the Napoleonic empire was falling upon the European continent.¹⁰ In 1810 he was appointed by the Synod of the Church of Russia metropolitan of Ungrowallachia, following the annexation of the Danubian principalities by Russia in 1808.¹¹ During the relatively brief time of residence at his archiepiscopal see in Bucharest, Ignatius played a leading role in local cultural life, establishing a Lyceum, that is a higher educational institution, and a “Greco-Dacian” learned society, whose aim was to promote education for both local Greek and for Wallachian youth.¹² An eventual peace treaty between the Russians and the Ottomans led to the evacuation of the principalities by the Russian forces in 1812. Ignatius who had been totally identified with the Russian regime in the principalities had to withdraw with them. For the next three years he wandered in Central Europe and was present in Vienna during the Congress of 1814–1815, attempting through contacts with the Russian and Austrian imperial entourages to influence the negotiations of the powerful in favour of the eventual redemption of the Greeks from Ottoman rule.¹³ From then on this became his overriding objective. In Vienna he worked in concert with Ioannis Capodistrias, the Czar’s Corfiote foreign minister, and they remained in close contact for the rest of their lives. Obviously they saw eye to eye on the issues agitating international affairs and on the politics of Greek liberation.

Eventually in 1815 Ignatius settled in Pisa, in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to the end of his days in 1828.¹⁴ From Pisa he developed an enormous correspondence network extending all over Europe, trying to promote the cause of Greek liberation. Like his contemporary Enlightenment thinker Adamantios Korais, with whom he maintained distant relations of mutual esteem, Ignatius believed that liberation could not be achieved and certainly could not be maintained without an educated leadership and more broadly without an educated society capable to govern itself. He was also quite clear as well about the character of the education desired. That had to be the education of the Enlightenment, modern liberal learning. At a time when Korais’s teaching and arguments for radical reform in Greek education were provoking serious ideological debates in Greek cultural life and violent reactions on the part of many conservative scholars and from ecclesiastical circles, Ignatius appeared convinced that the culture of lights held the key to the revival of Greece. His attitude was known and this put some distance between him in his Italian exile and ecclesiastical authorities in Constantinople and elsewhere.¹⁵

Nowhere did Ignatius express his views more openly and affirmatively than in his correspondence with G. P. Vieusseux, the Italian-born scholar of Genevan origin, who through his cultural activities in Florence became a leading intellectual figure in the early stages of the Italian Risorgimento.¹⁶ From his Pisan exile Ignatius had developed ties with intellectual circles in Florence and it seems that he enjoyed considerable respect on their part. Shortly after his permanent establishment in Pisa, Ignatius visited Florence and among other places he went to admire the precious Greek manuscript codices on display in Michael Angelo’s vestibule at the Laurenziana Library. His signature appears in the Visitor Book of the library on 19 August 1816.¹⁷ Subsequently, after Vieusseux’s own settlement in Florence in 1819 and the establishment of his reading club and his literary journal, Antologia, Ignatius developed ties of friendship with him. The familiarity between them transpires in the correspondence published below. Ignatius’s letters of December 1827 and March 1828 to Vieusseux belong to the very last period of his life and express with clarity and precision his political thought.

The occasion for the correspondence was provided by a communication Ignatius had received from another great friend of Greece, the Genevan-based banker Jean-Gabriel Eynard,¹⁸ who wrote to him, on 24 December 1827, in order to announce the initiative of Swiss Philhellenes to contribute to the development of liberated Greece by bringing over to Switzerland a group of Greek youths in order to educate them.¹⁹ In his letter Eynard notes:

In Switzerland we continue not only to send our support but we are in particular occupied with the education of young Greeks and I could not really praise enough those benevolent souls who are dedicated to this beautiful task.

He notes that the initiative and main thrust in this philhellenic effort came from the Canton of Basel and adds:

I have recently sent to Count Capodistrias a very interesting and very detailed note on what is being taught to the children […] I have the satisfaction to inform you that the entire instruction has been most satisfying and that the Young Greeks responded perfectly to the care we took of them.

Eynard goes on to inform Ignatius of the names of the children. They included:

– Demetrius Botzari 12 and a half years old from Souli in Epiros.

– four children from Chios, survivors whose parents had perished in the massacre of 1822, aged 7, 8, 10 and 10½ years old; they demonstrated, Eynard remarks, “great ease like all Greeks”.

– Alexandre Rizos from Constantinople 18 years old he comes from the highest social class, according to Eynard and was making great strides in his studies.

– Finally Andreas Muzzou, 8 years old from Psara.

Among the names of Greek youths recorded by Eynard we can recognize prominent future personalities of free Greece, including General Dimitrios Noti Botsaris and the distinguished military commander Alexander Rizos.²⁰

Eynard concludes his letter to Ignatius thus:

It is of the highest importance for the destiny of Greece for Count John Capodistrias to arrive there the soonest possible; I hope that the boat which will transfer him will finally arrive. Please accept, Your Eminence, the assurance of the highest esteem and sincere friendship of Your devoted.

JG.

As an afterthought the Genevan correspondent adds a postscript to his letter:

I would see with pleasure the copy of my letter to M. Vieusseux in Florence in order to publish a few words in the Anthology.

It is interesting that Eynard approaches Vieusseux through Ignatius, indicating that the three of them belonged to a broader ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Fm
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by the Metropolitan of Pergamum
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment: testimonies from the correspondence of Ignatius of Ungrowallachia with G. P. Vieusseux
• 2 The Orthodox Church in modern state formation in Southeastern Europe
• 3 The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the challenge of nationalism in the nineteenth century: an age of ideological encounters
• 4 The end of empire, Greece’s Asia Minor catastrophe and the Ecumenical Patriarchate
• 5 The Ecumenical Patriarchate during the Cold War (1946–1991)
• 6 A religious international in Southeastern Europe?
• 7 Orthodoxy, nationalism and ethnic conflict
• Ecumenical Patriarchs since 1800
• Bibliography
• Index