334 



GREECE. 



GREEK CHURCH. 



mitted in the kingdom against Ottoman subjects, 

 and that suet crimes were left unpunished. 



We repudiate with all our strength such an accusa- 

 tion. If you mean an Albanian soldier who was 

 killed in a dispute by another Albanian, while pass- 

 ing through Syra last year, I think this is not a cause 

 that will justify that clause of the ultimatum. 



You know perfectly well that the authorities of 

 Syra then took, without loss of time, the necessary 

 steps to arrest the culprit, but that he escaped to 

 Crete immediately after committing the crime. We 

 gave you then every information regarding both this 

 affair and the conduct of the authorities, and there is 

 nothing to indicate, in the documents that we then 

 exchanged, that the authorities neglected their duty. 



Excepting this crime, which was committed by_ 

 one Turkish subject against another, the subjects of 

 the Sublime Porte enjoy on the Hellenic soil, as well 

 as all other foreigners, the most perfect security. 

 This pretext is as surprising as the other namely, 

 certain words that I spoke in the Chamber respect- 

 ing the steamer Crete. 



I am ignorant of what the former ministers said, 

 and what opinion must be given on their spoken 

 words. All I know is, that the present Government, 

 desiring to preserve amicable relations with the Sub- 

 lime Porte, nas given proof of its good disposition. 

 You remember how firmly we opposed the proposi- 

 tion to receive Cretan deputies in the Chamber. You 

 remember particularly what explanations I gave you 

 of the speech I made in the House. I explained to 

 you in conversation that I had not the slightest hos- 

 tile feeling against the Sublime Porte; that they 

 were the expressions of our opinions on the proba- 

 ble solution of the question, and that the Hellenic 

 Government did not intend to detach Crete by force 

 from the Ottoman empire, as his Excellency Servet- 

 Pacha complained in one of his dispatches which 

 you read to me. 



Lastly, respecting your fifth demand, viz., the en- 

 gagement which the King's Government must give 

 to follow in future a conduct in accordance with the 

 treaties and the right of nations, I confess, Mon- 

 sieur le Ministre, that I do not understand the mean- 

 ing of those words. 



I wish to know what treaty Greece has violated ? 

 I do not speak any longer of the obligations of inter- 

 national rights, because I have already sufficiently 

 proved to you that the Eoyal Government has not 

 violated any of them. Greece, on the contrary, 

 above all others, has to complain of the non-perform- 

 ance of the treaties. 



If we except the various difficulties which our 

 subjects ordinarily meet in the conduct of their 

 affairs in the Ottoman empire, if we except the vio- 

 lence which many of them are found to submit to, 

 there were made during the lastjten years between 

 us two treaties for the suppression of the brigandage 

 which desolates our provinces near our common 

 frontier, which cost us extraordinary expense, and, 

 notwithstanding, the Sublime Porte has not yet de- 

 cided on executing either of the two treaties, in spite 

 of all the strong remonstrances of the King's Gov- 

 ernment. The greatest part of the correspondence 

 of the foreign office with the imperial legation 

 treats of nothing else but the assistance given by 

 the irregulars of the Ottoman army, who keep the 

 frontiers, to the brigands, of the crimes committed 

 in our provinces by bands crossing the common 

 frontier, and of the prevention of such a state of 

 affairs by the application of the treaties which im- 

 posed on the Ottoman empire the duty of employ- 

 ing only regular troops, instead of the irregular 

 Albanians. 



The King's representative at Constantinople sev- 

 eral times invited the attention of the Sublime Porte 

 to this, but his observations had no better success. 



From this simple example it is clear that, if we 

 wished to accumulate pretexts against the Govern- 

 ment of the Sublime Porte to justify a rupture, we 



should have such in reality. But we always reflected 

 that the various interests of both countries imposed 

 on us the duty of preserving amicable and har- 

 monious relations with our neighbor. 



Some of your demands, as the return of the ref- 

 ugees, and the protection of the Ottoman subjects in 

 Greece, and the preservation of the neutrality of the 

 King's Government in the struggle of the Cretans, 

 were never the subjects of discussion or hesitation 

 for the Eoyal Government. 



The rest are based only on indefinite and erroneous 

 suppositions, which become by themselves unac- 

 ceptable. 



GREEK CHURCH,* the largest of the East- 

 ern Churches. Of the population of 81,500,000 

 which is supposed to be connected with the 

 Eastern Churches, fully 74,000,000 belong to the 

 Greek Church (see EASTERN CHURCHES). 



The invitation from the Pope to the Oriental 

 bishops to take part in the coming (Ecumenical 

 Council, met with a decided refusal on the part 

 of the representative of the Greek Church. 

 The Patriarch of Constantinople received the 

 Pope's missive, engrossed on a sheet of gilt 

 paper, from an embassy consisting of four 

 priests. The Patriarch met the messengers 

 with friendly cordiality, and was addressed by 

 one of them in the following terms : 



In the absence of Monsignor Brunoni (the Eoman 

 Catholic Archbishop of Constantinople), we come to 

 invite your Holiness to the (Ecumenical Council ap- 

 pointed to be held in Eome, on the 8th of December 

 of next year, and with reference to this object we 

 have to request you will be pleased to accept this 

 written invitation of which we are the bearers. 



The Patriarch, beckoning to them to be 

 seated and to deposit the letters on the table, 

 addressed them as follows : 



If the Diario of Eome, and other journals which 

 draw their intelligence from it, had not already pub- 

 lished the Encyclical Invitation of His Holiness to 

 the Oecumenical Council in Eome, to which you refer, 

 and were we, in consequence, unacquainted with the 

 scope and the contents of the document, and the prin- 

 ciples set forth by His Holiness, with the greatest 

 pleasure would we have received a communication 

 addressed to us by the Patriarch of Old Eome, in the 

 expectation of hearing something new. Since, how- 

 ever, the Encyclical published by the journals has 

 explained His Holiness' s tenets tenets wholly at 

 variance with those of the Orthodox Eastern Church 

 on this ground, with sorrow, but in all sincerity, 

 we are compelled to declare to your Eeverence that 

 we neither can accept any such invitation, nor this 

 missive of His Holiness, in which are reiterated the 

 same unvarying principles principles directly hos- 

 tile to the spirit of the Gospel, as also to the doctrine 

 of the GEcumenical Synods and of the holy fathers. 



His Holiness, by a similar proceeding in the year 

 1848, provoked a reply from the Orthodox Eastern 

 Church in the form of an Encyclical, which distinctly 

 pointed out the antagonism which exists between the 

 tenets of Eome and those handed down from the 

 ancient Fathers and the Apostles, and which was not 

 only not satisfactory, but a cause of pain to- His Holi- 

 ness. And how greatly His Holiness was thereby 

 grieved manifestly appears from his rejoinder. 



And since His Holiness does not appear to have 

 receded from the principles then put forward nei- 

 ther have we, through God's grace, receded from ours. 

 Wherefore we neither find pleasure in becoming the 



* See ANNUAL AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA, for 1867, for the 

 names of the groups into which the Greek Church is di- 

 vided, and for detailed statistics. 



