GREEK RELIGION

The religion of the ancient Greeks was polytheism, there being a great number of divinities, many of whom must be regarded as personifications of natural powers, or of phenomena of the external world, personified sentiments, &c.. Thus there were gods corresponding to Earth and Heaven, the Ocean, Night, &c. The Romans, when they became acquainted with the literature and religion of the Greeks, identified the Greek deities with those of their own pantheon. In this way the Greek and Roman deities came to he confounded together, and the names of the latter even came to supersede those of the former. The supreme ruler among the gods was Zeus (Reman Jupiter or Juppiter), the son of Kronos (Roman Saturn), who after the subjugation of the Titans and Giants ruled in Olympus, while his brother Pluto reigned over the lower world (Hades, Tartarus), and Poseidon (Neptune) ruled in the sea. Like reverence was paid to Hera. (Juno), the sister and wife of Zeus, and the queen of Heaven; to the virgin Pallas Athene (Minerva); to the two children of Leto (Latona), namely, Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and his sister the huntress Artemis (Diana), the goddess of the moon; to the beautiful daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love; to Ares (Mars), the god of war, Hermes (Mercury), the herald of the gods, and others besides. In addition to these there was an innumerable host of inferior deities (Nymphs, Nereids, Tritons, Sirens, Dryads and Hamadryads, &c.) who presided over woods and mountains, fields and meadows, rivers and lakes, the seasons, &c. There was also a race of heroes or demigods (such as Hercules or Hercules, Perseus, &c.) tracing their origin from Zeus, and forming a connecting link between gods and men, while on the other hand the Satyrs formed a connecting link between the race of men and the lower animals.

With regard to the inculcation of religious beliefs the Greeks had no separate class appointed to perform these functions. The prints were in no sense preachers of doctrines, but merely hierophants, or exhibitors of sacred things, of rites, symbols, and images. They showed how a god was to be worshipped; but it was not their office to teach theological doctrine, or even as a rule to exhort to religious duty. The true teachers of the Greek religion wore the poets and other writers, and it is to the hymns, epics, dramas, and histories of the Greeks that we must turn in order to learn how they regarded the gods. No degree of consistency is to he found in them, however, the personality and local origin of the writers largely moulding their views, A belief in the justice of the gods as manifested in the punishment of all offences against them was cardinal. The man himself might escape, but his children would suffer, or he might be punished in a future state - the latter view being less commonly held than the former of an entailed curse. The gods are also represented by the Greeks as holy and truthful, although they are in innumerable other passages described as themselves guilty of the grossest vices, and likewise as prompting men to sin, and deceiving them to their own destruction. In their general attitude towards men the gods appear as inspired by a feeling of envy or jealousy. Hence they had constantly to be appeased, and their favour won by sacrifices and offerings. Certain classes were, however, under the peculiar protection and favour of the gods, especially strangers and suppliants. The Greeks believed that the gods communicated their will to men in various ways, but above all, by means of oracles, the chief of which were that of Apollo at Delphi, and that of Zeus at Dodona. Dreams ranked next in importance to oracles, and divination by birds, remarkable natural phenomena, sneezing, &c., was practiced. The Greeks appear to have had at all times some belief in a future existence, but in the earliest times this belief was far from being clearly defined.

GREEK CHURCH

Greek Church, or Holy Oriental Orthodox Apostolic Church, that section of the Christian church dominant in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, especially in Turkey, Greece, Russia, and sonic parts of Austria In the first ages of Christianity numerous churches were founded by the apostles and their successors in Greek-speaking countries; in Greece itself, in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotatamia, Asia Minor, Thrace, and Macedonia. These were subsequently called Greek, in contradiction to the churches, in which the Latin tongue prevailed. The removal of the seat of empire by Constantine to Constantinople, and the subsequent separation of the eastern and western empires afforded the opportunity for diversities of language, modes of thinking, and customs to manifest themselves, and added political causes to the grounds of separation. During the earliest period the chief seats of influence in the Eastern Church were Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, the seat of that mystical philosophy, by which the oriental church was distinguished. In 341, soon after the synod of Antioch, the rivalry between the Bishop of Home and the Bishop of Constantinople began to assume importance, and before 400 differences of doctrine with respect to the procession of the Holy Spirit appeared. The council of Chalcedon in 451 accorded to the eastern bishop the same honours and privileges in his own diocese as those of the Bishop of Rome, and in 484 each bishop excommunicated the other. The title of Œcumenical Patriarch was assumed by John, Bishop of Constantinople, in 538, and in the following year the phrase 'Filioque' ('and the Son') was added by the Latins to the Nicene creed (which now read 'proceeding from the father and the son'), an addition to which the Greek Church was opposed. In 648 Pope Theodore deposed Patriarch Paul II.; but a reconciliation of the churches was effected at the Council of Rome (680). The doctrines of the Greek Church were denied by John Damascenus in 780. The disruption was hastened by the banishment of Ignatius by Michael the Drunken and the consecration of Photius (858). The Pope Nicholas I. and Photius excommunicated each other in 867. The schism was temporarily healed after the death of Photius, but Michael Cerularius reopened it by charging the Latins with heterodoxy. He was excommunicated by Leo IX. in 1054, and in turn excommunicated the pope in the same year, since which the Greeks have been severed from the Roman communion, though the Russo - Greek Church was not separated until the 12th century. The presence of the Crusaders in the East aggravated the quarrel; Latin patriarchates were established in Antioch and Jerusalem. and, though on the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders a Latin patriarchate was set up there (1204), the schism was revived there as soon as the Latin empire fell (1262). Reunion was proposed in 1273 by Patriarch Joseph, and effected, with the acknowledgment of the pope as primate, at the council of Lyons (1274). The union, however, was annulled in 1282 by Emperor Andronicus II, and in 1283 and 1285 by synods of Constantinople. It was again effected under John Palæologus at Florence in 1439, but was repudiated in 1443 by the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. In 1453, when the patriarch fled from the Turks, a schismatic Gregory Scholarius was chosen in his place. In 1575 unsuccessful negotiations were commenced with a view to union with the Lutherans, and in 1723 the English bishops even proposed that the Greek and Anglican churches should unite, a proposal revived by the Archbishop of Moscow in 1866. The claims of the czar in 1853 to the protectorate of the Greek churches in Turkey was one of the causes of the Crimean war.

The Greek Church is the only church which holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only; the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches deriving the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Like he Roman Catholic Church it has seven sacraments - baptism; chrism; penance, preceded by confession; the eucharist; ordination; marriage; and unction.

But it is peculiar

1, in believing in baptism by threefold immersion, the chrism (confirmation) following immediately after it;

2, in adopting, as to the eucharist, the doctrine of the real presence and transubstantiation; but in ordering the bread to be leavened, the wine to be mixed with water, and both elements be distributed to every one, even to children;

3, the parochial clergy are required to be married, but only once and to a virgin, and marriage must take place before ordination;

widowed clergy are not permitted to retain their livings, but go into a cloister, where they are called hieromonachi. Rarely is a widowed bishop allowed to preserve his diocese. The Greek Church grants divorce in case of proved adultery, but it does not allow even the laity a fourth marriage.

It differs also from the Roman Catholic Church in anointing with the holy oil, not the dying but the sick, for the restoration of health, forgiveness, and sanctification. It rejects the doctrine of purgatory, works of supererogation, indulgence; and dispensations, but admits prayers for the dead, whose condition appears to be considered undetermined until the final judgment. It recognizes no visible vicar of Christ on earth, but the spiritual authority of patriarch is little inferior to that of the pope. It allows no carved, sculptured, or molten image of holy persons or subjects; but the representations of Christ (except in the crucifix), of Mary, and the saints, must be merely painted, and at most inlaid with precious stones. In the Russian churches, however, works of sculpture are found. In the invocation of the saints, and especially of the Virgin, the Greeks resemble the Latin's. They also hold relies, graves, and crosses sacred; and crossing in the name of Jesus they consider as having a wonderful and blessed influence. Among the means of penance, fasts are particularly numerous with them. They fast Wednesday and Friday of every week, and besides observe four great annual fasts, namely, forty days before Easter; from Whitsuntide to the days of St. Peter and Paul; the fast of the virgin Mary, from the 1st to the 15th of August; and the apostle Philips fast, from the 15th to the 26th of November; besides the day of the beheading of John the Baptist, and of the elevation of the cross. The calendar of the Greek Church is in the old style, their new year's falling on Jan. l3th .

The service, of the Greek Chinch consist most entirely in outward forms. Preaching and catechizing constitute the least part of it. Instrumental music is excluded altogether. The mass is considered of the first importance. The convents conform, for the most part, to the strict rule of St. Basil. The Greek abbot is termed higumenos, the abbess higumene. The abbot of a Greek convent which has several others under its inspection is termed archimandrite, and ranks next a bishop. The lower clergy in the Greek Church consist of readers, singers, deacons, &c., and of priests or popes and protopopes or archpriests, who are the first clergy in the cathedrals and metropolitan churches. The members of the lower clergy can rise no higher than protopopes, for the bishops are chosen from among the monks, and from the bishops are selected the archbishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs. In Russia there are twenty-four dioceses. With which of them the archiepiscopal dignity shall be united depends on the will of the emperor. The seats of the four metropolitans of the Russian Empire are St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kasan, and Tobolsk. In the Turkish dominion. the dignities of Patriarch of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem still subsist The Patriarch of Constantinople still possesses the ancient authority of his see; the other three patriarchs exercise a very limited jurisdiction, and live for the most part on the aid afforded them by the Patriarch of Constantinople.