The parish papas enter into priest's orders by a kind of public election. Being proposed to the congregation or church, the officiating priest asks the audience if he is worthy, and upon their acclamation in the affirmative, he is considered as authorised to enter upon his func tions. The chapels, which are very numerous, and some of them little better than a cavern with a door and stone altar, must have each their own priest, who cannot officiate in other places of worship, and who, though more serviceable than the monks, are not so well provided for.
The Caloyers never say mass, and if they take the priesthood, they are called " holy monks," and officiate only on high festivals.* Admission to the brotherhood is obtained by paying to one of these holy monks a sum of 60 or 70 piastres, without any probation or examina tion, so that young children are allowed to take the ha bit, as they thus secure, in their miserable country, the certainty of being fed. Their monasteries are frequent objects in the valleys, forests,.and hill-sides ; and they have farms tenanted by one of their order, in most parts of the country. They subsist partly by the lands attached to the monasteries, and partly by the voluntary contribu tions of the people. On particular days, they go about with little pictures of their saints, which they give their votaries to kiss, and a jar of holy water with a brush, by which they mark the cross on the foreheads of each per son, receiving a pars or two from every individual for this service. They abstain wholly from flesh, and ob serve a very austere mode of living. Most of their time is occupied in a set of superstitious devotional exercises, reciting parts of the Psalter, or bowing and kissing the ground for a certain number of times. Three hundred of these bowings must be performed by each individual in every 24 hours. Their ignorance and simplicity is extreme, and in few of their monasteries have they any books, not even any part of the Scriptures. The most sacred of the Caloyers are those who have received their education in the seminaries of Mount Athos, where there are six thousand of the; order, who occupy themselves in studying and in all kinds of mechanical trades. There is no ground for the charge of these monasteries being the abodes of vice. The head of the church is the Pa triarch of Constantinople, whom they style the thirteenth apostle, but to whom they attach no personal sanctity or official infallibility. The person admittted to the office is invested in a triumphal mannner by a minister of the Porte ; and possesses a kind of absolute authority over the whole native Greeks. His influence with the Sultan is very great, and his applications are generally effectual in every thing relating to his own nation. He can bring any Greek to be punished by fine, deposition from office, imprisonment for life, banishment, or death. This dig nity is now regularly exposed to sale, and costs about 60,000 croons. The Patriarch indemnifies himself by selling the other patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, besides all the archbishopricks, and every lucrative place within his jurisdiction; a practice which the Greeks themselves introduced, by offering to fill these offices for smaller salaries, or by giving for them greater sums, when vacant. The whole of the Patri arch's usual revenue does not exceed X3,000 ; (except what fines and extortions may yield,) and the richest bishops do not possess more than X300 a year, which is raised by a direct tax upon every Greek house within their districts. Contributions are made by devout indi
viduals to assist those who make pilgrimages to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, and who are afterwards distin guished by the name of " hadje," as among the Turks. The clergy in general have great influence over the people; and receive, on certain days, gifts of loaves, sweet meats, wax tapers, Etc.
The rites of the Greek church are in themselves very absurd, and are performed with very little solemnity. There are prayers and portions of scripture, histories of the saints, hymns, and forms for different festivals ; but the service consists principally in singing, without musi cal instruments. In the celebration of the mass, the chief part of the worship consists in crossing and re a thousand times, in a combined song, the words, " Lord have mercy upon me." Pictures are admitted. into the churches; and great attention paid to the form and colour of the clerical vestments. Their festivals are very numerous, which the people are strictly enjoined to observe : and as most of them are celebrated by dancing and music, they are the great de light of the frivolous natives, under their present op pressions. The sacrament of the eucharist is administer ed to new born infants, and that of extreme unction is not confined to the dying, but is given to devout persons upon the slightest malady, and even to those who arc in full health, by way of anticipation. The laity are de voutly attached to all the ceremonies and ordinances of their church, which are numerous and severe. Wednesdays and Fridays are days of fasting through out the whole year ; and some of the principal fasts, such as Easter and Christmas, continue forty days ; so that there are not above 139 days of the year free front all fasts. They are devoted to superstitions, which oc cupy their minds infinitely more than the great points of their faith. The priests are frequently employed to exorcise persons supposed to be possessed by evil spirits. They all believe in the power of magic, and often fancy themselves to be suffering from the incan tations of some malevolent being. Ghosts or fairies, called Arabins, are imagined to haunt houses and other places. They believe in the occasional appearances of angels to make particular revelations. They are all devoted to the worship of the holy virgin ; and in al most every cottage, her picture or image is to be seen, with a lamp burning before it. Almost all diseases are considered as the effects of demoniacal influence ; and the plague particularly is thought to appear in the form of a lame and withered hag, The churches in Greece have great simplicity; and are generally very small. The floor is of mud, the altar of stone, the sanctuary separated from the nave by deal boards, and an enclosure of pales at the other end made for the women. They are seldom furnished with seats ; here there are several crotches in one cor ner, upon which the aged worshippers support them selves. In the greater towns, and in some of the mo nasteries, they are fitted up in a better style, but in a bad taste, ornamented with gildings and pictures of saints.