FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155  
156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   >>   >|  
m. The husband returned, asked for his wife and succeeded in obtaining her, but after two months he was assassinated, and the widow thought she might as well allow the bishop to console her. The outcry was enormous; no one doubted that it was Meletios who had given orders for the crime. A deputation of thirty went to lay this case and numerous other transgressions before the Patriarch at Constantinople. He would only receive five delegates, who read their document in a plenary sitting of the Holy Synod. After they had recited the afore-mentioned episode, one of the bishops who was present lost patience and, "Is it really worth our while to listen to such tales?" he asked. "If Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman, why should not a simple bishop hold converse with a woman also?" "At last the moment has come!" said the delegates. They departed, and at the door they shook the dust from their feet. The Patriarch himself ran after them. "Come back, my children!" he cried. But they were deaf to his voice. About forty years after the reign of Meletios there was still a Greek bishop at Ochrida, but--this was in 1912, after the first Balkan War--the town had also a Bulgarian and also a Serbian bishop. The Greek ecclesiastic did not profess to administer a very large flock--it consisted of about twelve families--but he explained that his presence was made necessary by the ancient Greek culture. He was there to watch over it. The local church of St. Clement and the monasteries of SS. Zaim and Naoum are dedicated to disciples of Cyril and Methodus, the two brothers who introduced Christianity to these parts. They may well have recruited their disciples among the Slavs, whose language they had learned before they set out. But whether the old stones which the Greek bishop was guarding in 1912 are Greek or Slav, he was better employed than most of his predecessors. THE AFFAIR OF KUKU[vS] One of the first Macedonian villages to take an independent attitude had been Kuku[vs]. When it heard that some French priests were operating at Salonica, and that if it were converted to Catholicism it would be given a national clergy and the protection of France, the temptation was so great that it succumbed. One of the Bulgarian democrats at Constantinople, Dragan Tzankoff, identified himself with this idea, not through religious motives but in order that the Porte should no longer fear that the independence of the Catholic Bulgarian nation
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155  
156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
bishop
 

Bulgarian

 

Patriarch

 

disciples

 

Constantinople

 
delegates
 
Meletios
 

recruited

 
employed
 

Christianity


language

 

guarding

 
introduced
 

stones

 
learned
 

husband

 
culture
 
ancient
 

families

 

explained


presence

 

church

 

dedicated

 

Methodus

 

returned

 

Clement

 

monasteries

 

brothers

 

succumbed

 

democrats


Dragan

 
temptation
 

France

 

national

 

clergy

 
protection
 

Tzankoff

 
identified
 

longer

 
independence

Catholic
 

nation

 
religious
 
motives
 

Catholicism

 

converted

 
Macedonian
 

villages

 
predecessors
 

twelve