Greece

Bands of Tchiuganies, or Gipsies, distinguished by the habits and occupations peculiar to them in other countries, wander over Greece. They are subjected, however, to the capitation. tax. Some of them make a profession of Mahometanisin; but they are held in great contempt by the Turks. Some of more wealthy Turks keep negro slaves, who are imported from Barbary and Egypt. § The Greek church appears at the present day co vered with the accumulated abuses of ten or twelve centuries. It was founded in an age of theological casuistry and dogmatism ; it has never felt the be nign influence of general knowledge, or the salu tary control of rival sects ; but the bigotry or crook ed policy of Christian princes, the barbarism of Ma houtetan conquerors, the pious frauds of monks or fanatical priests, the credulity and superstition of an ignorant populace operating uncontrolled, have been continually loading it with new errors, new absurdi ties, and new corruptions. Though its priests are more numerous than in any other church, its rites and forms infinitely complicated, and its fists ab sorb about two-thirds of the year, it is scarcely pos.' Bible to trace one genuine idea of Christianity in the minds either of the clergy or laity, or one trait of its influence in their conduct. The subtlety of standing by which the Greeks are distinguished, and still more their proneness to superstition, have made them hold fast by their national faith amidst all the calamities they have suffered. And their barbarism has never yet been carried so far as to reduce the cumbrous machinery of their religion to any degree of simplicity.

The Greek church agrees so closely with the Ro man in its doctrines, and even in its forms, that it is rather difficult to discriminate them by any intelligi ble distinctions. The Greek church holds the doc• trine of the Trinity, with some unimportant peculi arities. In the number of its sacraments, the invo.. cation of saints, the belief of the real presence, the practice of auricular confession, and in admitting masses and services for the dead, it agrees perfectly with that of Rome. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is administered to infants newly born, and, in the place of confirmation, they substitute the chrism or sacred unction, being a part or appendage of the baptismal ceremony. The sacrament of the Holy Oil, or Euchelaien, is not confined, like the extreme unction of the Roman church, to the sick and dying, but is given to devout persons upon the slightest ma lady, or even in perfect health. On Holy Thursday, the Greek archbishop, like the Pope, washes the feet of twelve priests or monks. It is rather doubtful, whether the Greek church admits a purgatory, at least in the same sense as the Roman Catholics; and they themselves, at the present day, are too igno rant to be able to tell. The most palpable distinc tion between the two churches, in the eyes of the common people, is, that the Greeks abhor the images used by the Catholics, and employ only paintings in their churches. They have four liturgies, and the service, which consists chiefly of prayers, hymns, re citative chaunts, and frequent crossings, without any sermon, often occupies five or six hours. The want of seats in their churches, during the long service, is supplied by staves or crutches, which are used for leaning on, and form part of the church furniture. Their music is without instrumental accompaniments, but is allowed to have considerable beauty. The floor of the church is generally of earth, the altar of stone, the sanctuary separated from the nave by deal boards, and an ieclosure of pales set of at the other end for the women. The church is generally in the form of a Greek cross. The choir is always placed towards the east, and the people turn their faces in that direction when they pray. The books of offices include biographies of saints, and are numerous and bulky. The clergy are distinguished by a great vit• riety of striking vestments, to which many mystical virtues are ascribed. The Panagia, or Holy Virgin, has succeeded to the worship formerly paid to Mi. nerve. There is scarcely a cottage in which her picture, with a lamp burning before it, is not seen in a wooden case, or a niche of the wall. The secular Greeks have four Lents, which are observed with various degrees of strictness, and the caloyers, or monks, have two more. The first of the secular fasts lasts two months, the second forty days, the third, which depends on moveable feasts, varies in its length, the fourth endures from the 1st of August to the festival of the Assumption. Every Wednesday is a fast, because it was on that day Judas received the money for betraying Christ ; and every Friday in remembrance of the crucifixion. A vast number of saints' days are also observed, so that of the whole year there are only about a hundred and thirty days free of fasts or festivals. During these fasts the wo men are employed in gathering snails, and searching for herbs of different kinds. The change of food is enforced, without exception, on infants, old people, and the sick. Some of the festivals are celebrated in the open air during several days, with the firing of guns, songs, dancing, banquetting, and the most ex travagant revelry. As confession generally takes place at these occasions, as a preparation, they are a harvest to the papades, who make a charge for absolu tion proportioned to the magnitude of the sin, and the supposed wealth of the sinner.

The Greek clergy are of two classes, the caloyers, or monks, and the papades, or priests. Monasteries, which are very numerous throughout Greece, are generally built in rocky and inaccessible situations for the sake of defence. They are supported partly by farms cultivated by lay brothers, partly by dona tions and perquisites received from the pious, partly by; the exercise of mechanical trades, and the fa brication and sale of crosses, pictures of saints, &c. Their cells and prisons are universal. ly dirty, as their minds are overrun with ignorance and superstition. In the vast establishment of Mount Athos, however, where five or six thousand monks are assembled, and in the monastery of the Apoca. lypse, in Patmos, there are seminaries where some slight theological studies are pursued. The patri arch of Constantinople, and all the superior Greek clergy, are generally taken from these places. No vices are admitted into monasteries so early as at ten or twelve years of age. The noviciate lasts two years, in the most regular monasteries ; after which the novice changes his habit, and becomes one of the professed. The monks who distinguish themselves by superior sanctity may be advanced to a still high er class, called Megaleschemoi, who are thought worthy of being compared to angels. Their general diet is fish, pulse, roots, olives, and wine ; during their fasts, which occupy nearly the whole year, pulse, roots, and water only. But, notwithstanding this mortified style of living, they are the sleekest and best fed people among the Greeks. Convents for women are rare. There are some anchorets who live three or four together, in houses depending on convents : and a few ascetics, who live solitarily in caves in the mountains. Convents of all kinds are under the superintendence of the bishop of the dio cese. The expectations, long indulged, of finding some of the lost classics in the libraries of these establishments, have been at last entirely dissipated. Professor Carlyle examined the libraries of the whole twenty-two monasteries on Mount Athos, con taining altogether 13,000 manuscripts, a greater number, certainly, than exists in all the other mo nasteries in Greece, and found not a single unedit ed fragment of any classical author. (Walpole, p. 196, 220.) The officiating clergy consist of two classes, the. Patriarch, Archbishops, and Bishops, and Papa.' des, or parish priests. All those of the first class are taken from the monasteries, and are not al lowed to marry. The papades are allowed to marry once only previous to their consecration, but not afterwards. Hence, before entering into orders, they are generally careful to chuse healthy partners, who are likely to live many years. The superior clergy have some little learning, are generally decent in their characters, and attentive to the duties of their stations, which are numerous and difficult ; as, be sides having to control the licentious and fanatical priests, they are umpires in all disputes among those of their communion, and exercise an extensive civil authority under the Turks. They enjoy the title of ihororsc, or Lord, and are treated with extraordi nary reverence. They are, in fact, the princes of the Greeks at the present day; and hence the first families send their children to the monasteries of Athos or Patmos, on purpose to qualify them for these dignities. The Turks having reserved to them. selves the investiture of the prelates, openly put the offices to sale, and hence the most indecent broils arise among the candidates. The patriarch of Con stantinople, who rules the whole Greek church in European Turkey, and nominates all its inferior dig nitaries, is said to pay sixty thousand crowns for his office. His income does not exceed L. 3000 per an num, and that of bishops, in general, L.300. Dr Holland, however, was informed that the archbishop of Larissa had a revenue of L. 9000, but he doubts whether the amount was not exaggerated. The pa triarch draws his revenue from contributions upon the archbishops and bishops, who are supported by a tax on each house within the dioceses inhabited by Greeks. • The inferior clergy are appointed Papades, or pa rish priests, by a species of parochial election, and before arriving at this office, they pass successively through the subordinate stations of reader, chanter, subdeacon, and deacon. No farther promotion, however, awaits them. Their means of living de pend as much on their knavery as on their diligence in pastoral duty. They are supported chiefly by perquisites derived from absolutions, benedictions, exorcisms, sanctifying water, administering sacra ments, selling amulets, sprinkling the streets and tombs, blessing the sea, granting divorces,—for most of which a certain price is fixed. The profits of excommunications, which are large in proportion to the terror they inspire among all classes, belong to the superior clergy, who alone have the power to issue them. By a shocking abuse of religious func tions, the priests, when well paid, grant divorces at the instance of one party on the slightest pretence, and break the most sacred ties for a paltry bribe. Nearly all authors, who have alluded to the Greek priests, agree in describing them as the most de praved part of the population. They are coarse in their manners, and dirty in their persons, ignorant, greedy, and corrupt, and instead of cherishing vir tuous habits in the people, they enervate and debase them, by practising on their credulity, and filling their minds with wretched superstitions, and pervert ed ideas of duty. It is not uncommon for them to lay aside the sacerdotal character, and become me nial servants or public dancers, or to join bands of pirates or robbers. They are besides excessively numerous, and the people, who are extremely cre dulous and superstitious, are entirely under their in fluence. Athens, with 7000 or 8000 Christian in habitants, has 200 churches, of which about 50 are used every Sunday, and the rest occasionally. (Wheler, p. 550.) In.Albania the priests are much less numerous, and much less respected. In a word, the swarm of worthless priests is the moral pest of the country, and contributes more, perhaps, to keep the people in a state of ignorance and degradation than all the other evils in their condition.•

. The antiquities of Greece open so wide a field, that, in an article of this, kind, we can do nothing more than allude to the various classes of objects comprised under the title. Among these we may, without much impropriety, rank many of the cities themselves, which not only exist on the very spots they anciently occupied, and bear the same names, but deriving their most striking characters from na tural objects, which remain unchanged, they still present to the eye, at a distance, the same general aspect and outlines. With regard to the interior of the cities, also, though the august tewles of the gods have disappeared, and filth and meanness meet the eye everywhere, little doubt will remain with those who have read what the ancients have left us on the subject of their private houses, and what modern tra vellers have told us respecting the disinterred build ings of Pompeii, that the houses at the present day with their square enclosed courts, their projecting roofs, and dead walls, and all that is most peculiar in their plan and interior arrangements, are copies, though miserable copies, of those of the ancient Greeks ; and it is probable that some of the modern dark and narrow streets of Athens come much near er in appearance to what they were in the age of Pericles than the admirers of antiquity are willing to allow. Among the cities which occupy their ancient sites, and bear their ancient names with little altera tion, may be mentioned, Athens, Thebes, Livadia, Larissa, Pharsalia, Salonica, Corinth, Argos, Naup ha, Parte ; and a great number of others of less note, might be added. The ancient buildings of which re mains now exist belong to three different eras : 1. The very ancient structures to which the name of Cyclopian has been given, consisting of vast masses of unhewn atone, put together without cement. They are not numerous. The ruins of the citadels of Ty rins and Mycente, which are of this description, have remained in their present state for 3000 years, and present the most perfect specimen in existence of the military architecture of the heroic ages.t 2. The works of the classical ages, consisting of temples, baths, porticos, theatres, columns, stadia, fountains, which are extremely numerous, and executed in a great variety of styles, exemplifying the infancy, progress, perfection, and decline of the arts. Of the two or three hundred temples enumerated by Pausanias, many of which were models of the most exquisite beauty and symmetry, that of Theseus at Athens is the only one which is tolerably entire. Others are found in various stages of dilapidation ; and the far great er part have vanished from their sites, and only left traces of their existence in their innumerable frag ments of inscribed and sculptured marbles scattered over the fields, or stuck into the walls of forts, churches, and clay-built cottages. S. A number of square towers, of a rude construction, built on the tops of hills for military purposes, are the only me morials left by the Latin princes who ruled Greece for two or three centuries before the Mahometan conquest. 4. Next in importance to the remains of ancient edifices we may rank the statues, bass-re liefs, and inscribed marbles; a great number of which, generally somewhat mutilated, have been brought from Greece to enrich the museums of western Europe; and a much greater number, no doubt, lie buried under the soil. 5. Vessels of Ter ra Cotta, or ancient pottery, consisting of vases, amphorae, lamps, &c. of exquisite workmanship, adorned with coloured designs illustrative of the arts, habits, and mythology of the ancients, and often in high preservation. The quantity of these found among the ruins of ancient cities is incredibly great. 6. Coins of gold, silver, and copper, which are great in number and variety, every considerable town having its separate coinage. 7. Among the most in teresting remains are the Tumuli, erected to com memorate great victories. These simple but ex pressive monuments, formed of conical mounds of earth, but long since divested of their sculptured or naments, still mark the fields of Marathon, Leuctra, Plateea, Cheronma, Thermopylte, Pharsalia, and Pyd na. 8. We ought also to class among the antiqui ties of Greece a vast number of fountains, caves, rocks, and other natural objects, which owe their interest, not to any beauty or importance they pos sess in themselves, but to the legends associated with them in the history and mythology of the ancient Greeks. With regard to the antiquities' of Greece, in general, it may be observed that the finest, the best preserved, and the most numerous specimens of ancient art are found at Athens. Salonica, it is said, ranks next to it in this respect ; but its monuments are deficient in the interest derived from classical associations. In general the southern and eastern parts of Greece, and the islands, abound most in an tiquities. Albania and 2Etolia contain but few, and 'these not of much interest.• There are five languages spoken in Greece at the present day ; 1. The Turkish, which is in use among a few of the Turks, but the great majority speak Romaic. 2. The Bulgarian, a dialect of ,Sdavonic, spoken by the tribes of Bulgarians who inhabit the northern parts of Macedonia. S. The Wallachian, in use among the Vlaki, who occupy the branches of Pindus and Olympus, a language of uncertain root, but containing a large mixture of Latin and some' Italian. 4. The Albanian or Shkipetaric, spoken by the natives of Albania, and by some of the colonies of this people in the south of Greece. It is an unwritten tongue, and abounds in nasal sounds. Its basis is supposed to be the ancient Il lyrian, with which is intermixed a large proportion of Latin, and smaller proportions of Romaic, Scla vonic, Italian, and Turkish. 5. The Romaic (Papuan) or modern Greek, spoken by all the Greeks, by moat of the Turks, and by a part of the Albanians. This is the name given to the language by the Greeks, who call themselves Pal,uvos, or Romans, a denomination derived from the establishment of the Roman empire for so many ages at Constantinople, which they consider as the capital of Greece. The ancient Greek they denominate (Daman) Hellenic, and their ancestors Wanyrc. The Romaic bears a much closer resemblance to the Hellenic than the Italian to the Latin ; it adopts a great proportion of the Hellenic words unaltered, follows its inflexions and syntax to a considerable extent, and has, in truth, so strong an affinity to it, that Villoison, with some reason, considers it merely as a dialect of that language. The peculiarities which distinguish the Romaic from the ancient Greek cannot be fully ex plained without many details ; we shall, therefore, only notice some of the most prominent. These are, 1. The disuse of the aspirates in speaking, though they are retained in writing. 2. The adoption of the first numeral svaG pia On, for an indefinite article, as in the French. 3. In substantives it discards the dual number, and the dative case, makes some alte rations in the oblique cases, marks cases sometimes by prepositions, and often changes the Hellenic mas • culine and feminine into neuter. 4. The degrees of comparison are formed as of old, by adding rico; and raro;, but sometimes by I.A.sov,plus, as in the French. 6. Diminutives are much used as in the Italian. 6. Considerable changes and substitutions have been made in the tenses of the verbs, the infinitive and the middle voice have been suppressed, and two auxiliary verbs introduced, ihX0), / will, and exc.), I have. 7. The Hellenic pronouns are retained, but with many modi fications. 8. Some new words have been adopted from the Turkish, Latin, and Italian ; others have been formed from Hellenic roots ; and many old Hellenic words have changed their meaning ; attributes being put for objects, and vice versa. The pronunciation of the Romaic deviates widely from that of the an cient Greek as taught in our schools. The B is sounded like our V, while the place of B is supplied by pr. Theo is sounded like th in that, and B like our Os in think. The vowels n. s. u. and the diph thongs a. or. w. are all pronounced like the Italian i. Great liberties are also taken with the orthography of the Romaic. Vowels are substituted for one an other, and letters or syllables suppressed or added, according to the fancy of the writer, at the begin ning or end of words. In addition to all this, there is a perplexing diversity in the style and construc tion. Those who write in Romaic, having no good models before them, readily fall into provincial vul garisms; and as they often derive their ideas of com position from works in Hellenic, Italian, or French, they adopt, to a less or greater extent, the idioms of these languages. It is said, however, that the dia lects of the spoken Romaic in Greece have not so marked a difference as those of the distant provinces of France or England. The purest dialects, or those which approach nearest to the Hellenic, are found in some of the least frequented islands of the Archi. pelago, in the mountainous parts of Greece, at Ja nina, and among the well-educated Greeks of Con stantinople. The Romaic of Athens is full of cor ruptions, derived from the Italian and French ; and the Athenians of modern times, though still distin guished for quickness and subtlety of understanding, are reproached by their countrymen with an indif ference or want of capacity for literary But in spite of the benumbing influence of Turkish despotism, a new impulse has been given to the minds of the Greeks ; the Romaic is now in a state of progressive improvement, and both writers and rend ers are increasing. A great number of books, chief ly translations, have been printed in Romaic within the last fifty years ; and at present there is not a Greek community, in a moderate state of opulence, which does not support a school for instructing their children in the ancient Greek, and often in other branches of polite education. fi There is a national likeness. observable in all the Greeks, though, on the whole, the islanders are darker and of a stronger make than those on the mainland. They have a larger facial angle than the other nations in the south of Europe, to whom they are manifestly superior both in countenance and form. Their faces are just such as served for mo deli to the ancient sculptors, and their young men, in particular, are of that perfect beauty, which we should perhaps consider too soft and effeminate in those of the same age in our northern climate. Their eyes are large and dark ; their eye-brows arched ; their complexions are rather brown, but quite dear; and their cheeks and lips are tinged with a bright vermillion. The oval of their faces is regular, and all their features in perfect proportion.' Their hair, which is dark and long, is shaven off on the fore part of the crown and side of the face, and they wear a thin long mustachio on the upper lip. Beards are worn by the clergy, the Codja-bashees, and other men in authority. Their necks are long, but broad and firmly set, their chests wide and expand ed, their waists rather slender. Their legs are strong and well made ; their stature above the mid dling size ; and they are muscular, but not brawny, nor Inclined to corpulency. Both the face and form of the women are very inferior to those of the men. Though they have the same kind of features, their eyes are too languid, and their complexions too pale, and, even from the age of twelve, they have a flaccidity and looseness of person which is far from agreeable. They are generally rather below the middle size, and when between twenty-five and thir ty, are commonly rather fat and unwieldy.