The Byzantine emperors’ first tendencies to
unify with Papal error fortunately were cut off by the attitude of the
people and the subjugation of Byzantium to the
Turks. But as soon as the
Greek nation found its liberty, the old temptation knocked at its door
again. In the beginning, the true Greeks, men of the people and of the
traditions, resisted the current of Europeanization. But they were
unlettered, and even though they had shed their blood for the freedom of
their land, they were quickly pushed aside by the newly learning creates,
had the power of King Otto’s court.
«Those degraded the fatherland and the
religion which is now shaken by the irreligious. In the time of Turkish
occupation, not one stone from the old churches was disturbed. Phanariotes
and the like who were contaminated in Europe, and they spoiled our
monasteries and churches, befouling some and turning others into stables. We
suffered these things from many such priests, and from laymen, military men,
and politicians. Even though we shed our blood, we are in danger of losing
our fatherland and our religion» (Makriyiannis, Memoirs, p. 398).
These half-educated intellectuals scorned the
Greek people with the passion of fifth columnists. They disdained their
language, their customs and manners, and their mentality. They used all
possible means at their disposal to adulterate the truth of their Faith and
to graft secularism and rationalism onto the holy tree of Orthodoxy, which
for so many centuries remained undefiled under the barbarian conqueror. To
strike the Church at her heart, they struck at her monasteries. They closed
some, confiscated the property of others, and to others they sent
«progressive» abbots who dissolved them more easily than any double-edged
sword of the state. …
