View PDF version of this page

given the Greeks a certain air of boldness and even independence. The Dragoman was still at Constantinople, bnt though I could not make his personal acquaintance I saw from his works that he was a man of taet and intelligence. In spiritual matters the Arehbishop of Cyprus is an independent Patriarch, and has no relations whatever with the Patriarch of Constantinople. He is in correspondence with the Patriarch of Jerusalem through respect to the Holy Places; the clergy attached to these have property in the island. The Archbishop appoints to bishoprics and other ecclesiastical dignities and offices on the presentation of the people : he grants licenses for marriages within the prohibited degrees. The Archbishop, bishops and other high dignitaries cannot many. A mero secular priest may have a "wife if he was married to her before his ordination as a priest : but were she to die, he could not take another. The present Arehbishop is a widower and has a son. Monks are vowed to perpetual celibacy. Priests are distinguished by a hat or cap of black felt, angular for those who are married: round like an inverted cone for celibates and monks. Bishops wear a little violet riband round the head, and often dross in cloth of the same colour. Other priests generally wear black, The Greeks are extremely submissive and respectful towards their bishops: in saluting them they bow low, take off their cap, and hold it before them upside down. They scarcely dare speak in their presence. It is true that for this community of slaves the bishops are rallying points. It is through them that it preserves some kind of existence, so that it suits the people to give their prelates political importance, such as even the Turks allow them, judging by the deferential and respectful manner which they observe towards the bishops. These, on their part, parade in their houses and followers a princely luxury; they never go out withont a crowd of attendants, and to ascend a flight of stairs they must needs be carried by their servants. Πιο Greeks pay their bishops tithe and first-fruits, fees on dispensations and others, and large voluntary offerings. These princes of the chnrch receive the imposts assessed on the community so as to pay to the Turkish government its annual claim, and to share with it a kind of monopoly. The government has never succeeded iu learning how many Greeks there are in the island. They own to a total of thirty-two thousand souls: but well informed persons raise this number to a hundred thousand. Last year a commissioner was sent to make an exact enumeration of the Greek families, but he was " got at," loaded with gold, and went away—his task unfulfilled. This handling the taxes brings enormous gains to the spiritual heads of the people, who suffer in silence lest a worse evil befall thein. The Greeks pay the government a yearly tribute of 500,000 piastres for the pay of a garrison of fonr thousand Turkish soldiers, but this number is very far from being complete. The Sultan raises besides two or three hundred thousand piastres from taxes on cotton and other products. These sums, added to those exacted by the Governor General and the local governors, probably bring up the total amount paid by the Greeks of Cyprus to the Turks to a million piastres. But the bishops and other leading men get as much again, and more. The Greeks are quite as jealous as the Turks, and keep their womenkind in such out of the way places that it is impossible to see them, Hiose whom I met in the street were covered and hidden by a white sheet, just like Turkish women. Those who go about with their faces uncovered are generally old or ugly. Their costume is not ungraceful, but a kind of conical cap which they wear on the head displeases me immensely. The men have often good figures, and generally good complexions. Persons of any position always wear long coats, 39C EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

View PDF version of this page