1829.] The Greek Church. 641 



self on the distinction however, and curses the Roman worshipper of 

 wood and stone, while he offers his tapers, burns his incense, and 

 prostrates his body before paint and canvas. 



His reasoning on this point is a curious specimen of barbarian 

 sophistry. He declares the idol to be criminal, as being a figure of 

 human invention ; but the picture innocent, as being the painted de- 

 scription of a real transaction. He has the additional subterfuge, that 

 he receives into his temples no pictures but such as have the lowest 

 resemblance to reality, and looks upon nothing but disfigurements 

 of the human face divine. To this extraordinary specific, he adds 

 another, that he does not worship the picture, but uses it as a stimulant 

 to memory. The Romanist uses the same subterfuge, and with the 

 same sincerity : while both practically perform the part of the old pagan, 

 with almost the same forms and instruments of worship, and both are 

 as undeniably idolators. 



The sign of the cross is as much in use among the Greeks as in the 

 Romish church. The cross itself is the object of frequent prayer, and 

 is often addressed as a divinity. 



Vows and processions in honour of saints are common. The Virgin 

 Mary in every instance carrying away the chief homage. 



The services of the Greek church are many and oppressive by their 

 length. The oldest is that of St. Basil, about A. D. 370. This is now 

 used only on the Sundays in Lent. The prevalent service is that of 

 St. Chrysostom ; yet considerably altered by innovations. The Com- 

 munion service, however, alone constitutes " The Liturgy :" and the rest 

 of the worship varies every day; the whole actually filling twenty 

 folio volumes, besides a volume of index or directions for the use of the 

 others — a most oncKous task on the priest and people alike, and is 

 itself deeply detrimental to all piety. The service has the additional 

 evil that, like the Romish, it is in an almost unknown language. The 

 Russ service being in Slavonic, and the Greek in Hellenic, and both 

 nearly equally unintelligible to the jieople. 



There is but little, if any, religious instruction given to the people, 

 l)ut in the churches, ti-ivial as that is ; the fabulous lives of the saints 

 are the only books touching on religion. Charms, incantations, and a 

 belief in the evil eye, and the power of witchcraft, are common. And 

 pious frauds, called by the absurd name of miracles, have long added 

 to the scorn of their Turkish masters for the doctrines and the professors 

 of this degraded form of Christianity. 



The monks form a large and influential portion of the clergy, 

 IMonachism, founded on the persuasion not merely of the peculiar 

 security of the monk himself from the temptations of the world, but of 

 his being able, by his personal mortifications, to make some balance for 

 mankind against the weight of their sins, was ]f)opular in Greece from 

 an early period. In times of anarchy the monasteries too were the 

 popular places of refuge to the lonely and the feeble. They were 

 generally spared by the Turks, and thus became the depositories of 

 wealth, that on the plains must have been swept away by the invasion. 

 The cliief offices of the church too being open to them and shut upon 

 tJie parish clergy, gave them an additional importance ; and the little 

 learning of INIodern Greece, and, perha})s, the remnant of her liberty, was 

 to be found within her conventual walls. The monks also liad in general 

 the good taste by which their western brethren chose the finest situations 



JM.M. Netv .Scrics.~Voh. VIH. No. 48. 4 N 



