The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

The East Stirs

The History of the Church 212 The East Stirs During the many centuries they lived under Ottoman domination, the Greeks remained true to their Orthodox faith. In the nineteenth century , the decline of the Turkish Empire along with the rise of nationalism in Europe incited a revolt for an independent Greece. Beginning in 1820, the struggle was backed by a true religious mobilization. The Ottomans responded to the insurrection of 1821 by unleashing terror. In Constantinople, the patriarch Gregory V was hung at the door of the patriarchate. In the island of Chio alone, the massacres annihilated 70,000 Greeks. In the West, the public was aghast. Eugene Delacroix created his work The Massacres at Chio in 1824, and Victor Hugo lamented, “Les Turcs ont passé là. Tout n’est que ruine et deuil. / Chio, l’île des vins, n’est plus qu’un sombre écueil” [The Turks have come by. Ruin and pain on every side. / Chio, the isle of wines, is but a somber abandoned reef]. That same year, Lord Byron died within the walls of Messolonghi in Greece. Europe could not but intervene, and in 1827, the TurcoEgyptian fleet was destroyed in Navarino. The Sublime Door was forced to accept the independence of Greece. As the state religion of Greece, Orthodoxy has held a strong ascendancy over the country, still evident today. Faithful to tradition, Orthodox Christians of the East continue to acknowledge the symbolic supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople, even though the Greek Orthodox have all but vanished from the city. Hugues Fourau (1803–1873) The Martyrdom of the Patriarch Gregory V Hôtel de Ville, Auray ...