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The ‘Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio’ and the Attempted ‘Calvinisation’ of the Orthodox Church under Patriarch Cyril Loukaris

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2012

VASILEIOS TSAKIRIS
VASILEIOS TSAKIRIS
Affiliation:
Religious Studies (Orthodox Christianity), Faculty of Philosophy, University of Erfurt, Nordhäusser Strasse 63, D-99084 Erfurt, Germany; e-mail: vastsak@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The Calvinistic Confession of Faith written by the patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Loukaris, is considered to be the most important product and at the same time the manifesto of the attempted union of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches. Presenting evidence which has been neglected in previous research, this article aims to revise this communis opinio by demonstrating that the book that was actually meant to become the theological foundation for the envisaged union was in fact the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio, a bilingual (Latin and Greek) publication (1623, 1627, 1648) containing the Βelgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and several canons of the Synod of Dordrecht.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 475 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

In 1629, the year in which the Calvinistic Confession of Faith written by the patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Loukaris (1570/2–1638), was published, the conflict between Catholic and Protestant powers for control over the Eastern Orthodox Church reached its climax. The Protestant world greeted the publication of the Confession with boisterous applause,Footnote 1 while Rome, after initially attempting through its own people to present the book as a forgery,Footnote 2 started to intensify its relentless struggle against the pro-Calvinist patriarch; one of its first initiatives was to commission the scholar John Matthew Caryofylles (c. 1566–1633) to write a refutation of the Confession, which was first printed in 1631 in LatinFootnote 3 and then, one year later, in a bilingual Greek-Latin edition.Footnote 4

The patriarch's Confession was not published in Greek until at least 1633.Footnote 5 It was subsequently condemned by the patriarchal synods of 1638 and 1642,Footnote 6 as well as by a synod of 1672, convoked by the patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheos ii (1641–1707).Footnote 7 What is more, Dositheos published in Bucharest a refutation of the Confession written by Meletios Syrigos (1585–1663).Footnote 8 All this has led modern scholarship to believe that Cyril Loukaris's Calvinistic Confession was intended to serve as the basis for the ‘Calvinisation’ of the Orthodox Church, which was envisaged and pursued during his patriarchate.Footnote 9 However, a closer study of the history of the Eastern Church at the time of Loukaris leads inevitably to the conclusion that the long-envisaged union between the Protestants and the Orthodox – the final goal of long-standing contacts which had begun with correspondence between the theologians of Tübingen and the Patriarch Jeremias ii (1536/39–95) – could not possibly have been founded on Loukaris's remarkably concise Confession. The Confession might well serve the political goals of the patriarch's western Protestant collaborators;Footnote 10 the timing of its publication was ideal, seeing that the Protestant powers were at that time winning important victories in the Thirty Years' War.Footnote 11 But, notwithstanding its political significance as a public statement of allegiance to the aim of a union with the Reformed Protestant Churches, carrying the names of the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Alexandria,Footnote 12 this confession was not intended to be broadly distributed among the Orthodox themselves; the fact that it was not published in Greek until the year 1633 demonstrates that its intended readership was rather Loukaris's western European allies.Footnote 13 A level of consensus on the part of the Orthodox was absolutely indispensable if the plan for union was to succeed: any Reformation needed to find acceptance among the clergy and the populace, as demonstrated by the signal failure of Byzantine imperial policy to force through a union with Rome. The people's acceptance was all the more necessary for Loukaris now that there was no central political power willing or able to impose such reformations; on the contrary, the Ottoman government eyed with suspicion any too close relationships between its Orthodox subjects and western European Churches. In order to win the people's support, Loukaris and his party could build upon the wide-spread anti-Catholic feelings which had been previously roused by the activities of the pro-Catholic Unionists, whom Loukaris was now removing from their positions. Anti-Catholic feelings, though, could not be transformed into pro-Protestantism unless a simplified theological justification for union could be disseminated among the people. This could not possibly have been pursued on the basis of the fifteen concise chapters of the Confession, which provided only a meagre sketch of the fundamental principles of Protestant theology, while dealing in just a few lines with problems as critical for the envisaged union as the veneration of the saints and of icons. Besides being too short, this book left undiscussed many crucial theological problems, the solution of which would be a necessary prerequisite for union. In trying to find a text that could have served to promulgate a theological rationale for the union of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches, a bilingual Greek-Latin publication,Footnote 14 entitled the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio and including the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism together with some canons of the Synod of Dordrecht deserves attention.

In what follows the major propagandistic role that the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio was intended to play in the union will be considered and it will be demonstrated that this function was well known both to the pro-Calvinist Orthodox bishops and to their pro-Catholic opponents.Footnote 15

Attempts at a rapprochement between Protestant and Orthodox Churches, which substantially began with the dialogue between Patriarch Jeremias ii and the Tübingen theologians,Footnote 16 culminated under the ecumenical patriarch Cyril Loukaris. The very accession of Loukaris to the ecumenical throne of ConstantinopleFootnote 17 took place only thanks to the support of the Protestant powers, primarily of Cornelius Haga, the ambassador of the Netherlands in Constantinople.Footnote 18 Other factors also played their part in the the patriarch's advancement and his rapprochement with the Protestants. In the year 1621 Sir Thomas Roe (c. 1581–1644) arrived in Constantinople as the new English ambassador, after a successful embassy to the court of the great Mogul (1615–19). Roe saw that an alliance with Loukaris could be advantageous for England,Footnote 19 since Loukaris was a major player who could oppose the expansionist policies of the Catholic powers, principally France and Spain, who attempted, not least by means of the Catholic religious orders, to gain control over commerce in the Ottoman East and strengthen their influence there.Footnote 20 The friendship that quickly developed between Loukaris and Roe, who hoped thereby to ΄settle that church in the right way΄,Footnote 21 was welcomed by the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, who was already in correspondence with the patriarch and would henceforth try to establish a more intimate contact between the English court and Loukaris.Footnote 22 After 1627 Loukaris's attempts to operate his own printing house in Constantinople and thus enhance the efficiency of his anti-Catholic propaganda failed, in spite of English and Dutch support. Roe left for England and thus deprived the patriarch of a valuable ally. From that point Cornelius Haga was Loukaris's only support; he became his closest collaborator and remained at his side until his death in 1638. The close relationship between the two men can partially explain why, under Patriarch Loukaris, it was not the Lutherans who were approached, as had happened in the time of Jeremias ii, but rather the Calvinists, who were now represented by the Dutch ambassador.Footnote 23 It was therefore to be expected that efforts to establish church union would now use Reformed texts, such as those contained in the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio. However, this more direct rapprochement with the Dutch did not imply any breach in relations with the other Protestant powers,Footnote 24 since the plans for a church union envisaged a broad consensus of all Protestant powers.Footnote 25

The Belgic Confession had become, subsequent to its official confirmation by the Synod of Dordrecht (1618–19),Footnote 26 one of the major confessional texts of the Reformed Churches, especially in the Netherlands, while the Heidelberg Catechism was the most widespread Reformed confessional text of all.Footnote 27 When, with Haga's support, Loukaris was elevated to the ecumenical throne (1619), he had conceived a plan to reorganise the Orthodox Church with the aim of eventual union with the Protestant Churches.Footnote 28 Four years later, in 1623, while the French ambassador to Constantinople, Philippe de Harlay, later comte de Césy, head of the pro-Catholic faction in the Ottoman capital and the main opponent of Haga and Loukaris, was preparing to publish a book refuting the patriarch's Calvinistic stance,Footnote 29 the Greek translation of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio appeared in a bilingual edition, together with the Latin original.Footnote 30 The Greek translation was made by the poet Jacobus Revius (1586–1658),Footnote 31 while the translation of the Heidelberg Catechism, by Fridericus Silburgius, had been in existence since 1567.

This edition was probably originally intended for the teaching of ancient Greek in the schools of the Netherlands,Footnote 32 although it cannot be ruled out that its dissemination in the Eastern Church could initially have been an additional aim. But even if the 1623 edition was not used in this way, a later edition certainly was. A letter of 13 November 1627 from Cyril Loukaris to the Calvinist theologian Festus Hommius (1576–1641)Footnote 33 demonstrates that a copy of the book had been sent to Loukaris for approval, as his Protestant collaborators were then planning a second edition, which would be used exclusively to disseminate Reformed Protestantism in the East. In this letter, the patriarch expresses his admiration for the book and his hope that the new edition would turn out to be useful.Footnote 34 Some time before, on 20 September 1627, Haga wrote to Hommius that Loukaris had studied the book and was in agreement with its theological contents so the new edition could be finalised.Footnote 35 The Dutch ambassador was apparently the man pulling the strings in contacts between Loukaris and the Protestants.

A few months later the new edition of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio, this time also including certain liturgical texts as well as some canons issued by the Synod of Dordrecht,Footnote 36 was complete. To further the aim of dissseminating Calvinism in the Orthodox East the States General of the Netherlands ordered that 200 copies of the book be sent to Constantinople at its own expense. Furthermore, Revius sent the patriarch a copy of the work with a personal word of dedication.Footnote 37 As soon as copies reached Constantinople, coordinated efforts were undertaken to distribute them. The leading figure in this was Antoine Léger, the envoy of the Vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs et Professeurs de l'Église et École de Genève, who had just arrived in Constantinople at Haga's invitation. Léger did not hesitate to approach proponents of the pro-Catholic party, sending the work to Loukaris's opponent (and, later, pro-Catholic patriarch of Constantinople) Athanasios iii Patellaros (1634),Footnote 38 whom he also asked to proofread the first vernacular Greek translation of the New Testament prepared by Maximus Kallipolites (†1633).Footnote 39 This initiative demonstrates how much political power lay in the hands of the patriarch's Protestant supporters at that time. Upon receipt of the book Patellaros told Léger that ‘I have also read the handbook with the Confession of the GalatiansFootnote 40 [i.e. the Belgic Confession] that you had sent me, though without [much] thought and without more detailed scrutiny; and I formed the opinion that there are [some points] deserving [further investigation through] question-and-answer; I will designate these [points] with another [letter].’Footnote 41

Even a declared pro-Catholic like Patellaros was thus compelled into extreme caution. Loukaris's circle publicly supported the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio and declared its agreement with the book's theology. Furthermore, copies of the book, together with some other works which had already been printed in England on behalf of Loukaris reached Heraklion (Candia) in Crete (thanks to the support of Sir Thomas Roe),Footnote 42 still under Venetian rule, to be distributed there by the Cretan scholar Marcos Vretos, who was probably working as a teacher there. Although a former student of the Roman Collegium Graecum,Footnote 43 Vretos was now an adherent of the patriarch's anti-Catholic movement and distributed the book to his students as a handbook of theology.Footnote 44 Unsurprisingly, this provoked an immediate reaction from the Venetian government, which confiscated the work.Footnote 45

At this point it should be noted that most of the efforts to promote the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio took place before the patriarch's Confession was published. This further corroborates the argument that the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio was intended to become the major means of promoting the Orthodox-Protestant approach. Loukaris himself was after this same goal, but the publication of his Confession was intended as a political move, openly declaring his alignment with the Protestants. A possible church union presupposed a broad dissemination of Reformed Protestant theology in the Orthodox East, which could certainly not be achieved by means of Loukaris's over-concise Confession. That task would be carried out – at least in the first instance – by means of the texts translated by Revius and Silburgius.

The importance that the pro-Calvinist patriarch and his Reformed collaborators attributed to Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio is clearly indicated in a letter addressed to Antoine Léger by the patriarch in 1634 during his brief exile in Tenedos. Loukaris asks his companion, in the event that he himself should die in exile, openly to declare that ‘I die as an Orthodox Catholic, faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Evangelical doctrine, in agreement with the Belgic Confession, with my own Confession and the other [Confessions] of the Evangelical Church, which are in full agreement with one other.’Footnote 46

It seems that the patriarch and his pro-Calvinist supporters paid no special attention to the differences, doctrinal and otherwise, between the Lutheran and Reformed Protestant Churches. His special mention of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio is probably due to the fact that this work was promoted by his close friend Haga, while, at the same time, it was the only Greek translation of a Protestant Confession which could easily be found in the Orthodox East.

The Greek of Revius and Silburgius's translations is scholarly, but, at the same time, more or less simple and easy to read. The work was reprinted in Leiden in 1635 and in Amsterdam in 1638; further new editions would follow over the next years.Footnote 47 But, of course, Léger and Haga both knew right from the start that the book had to be translated into vernacular Greek if it was to achieve a really wide distribution. The educational standards of the Orthodox clergy were so low that books in scholarly Greek would reach only a small audience, limited to a certain educated milieu. This fact was well known to Rome, which therefore printed only books in vernacular Greek (originally at private printers, but after 1628 at the Greek publishing house of the Propaganda Fide) and distributed them free in the Orthodox East, in an attempt to promote church union.

Some information concerning plans for a translation of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio into vernacular Greek can be found in a letter sent by the patriarch's close collaborator Nathanael KonopiosFootnote 48 to Antoine Léger in 1636:

I shall translate the Catechism of the Belgic Church, as well as the one [written] by the late scholarly and wise Master Calvin, and I shall send them to your Scholarliness for printing, in order that also our [people] shall be able to learn God's truth and how they must believe, because you know how darkened their mind is.Footnote 49

However, Konopios was not able to complete the translation, since after Loukaris's death he was forced by his involvement in fierce political conflicts to take shelter in the Protestant west, in England and in the Netherlands. The vernacular translation was finished no earlier than 1646, many years after Loukaris's death, by the Cefallonian monk Hierotheos Abbatios.Footnote 50 The abbot of the Peges Monastery in Elios on Cefallonia, HierotheosFootnote 51 had met Haga on one of his journeys to Constantinople;Footnote 52 furthermore, he was related to several of Loukaris's close collaborators, such as the metropolitan of Ephesos, Meletios Pantogallos, with whom he was in Leiden in December 1644.Footnote 53 There, he started work on the vernacular Greek translation of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio using the edition of 1627, which additionally included certain canons of the Synod of Dordrecht. Hierotheos finished his translation in May 1646, as testified by a memorandum submitted by the professors of Leiden to the States General.Footnote 54 Approximately 1,000 copies of the book were printed within the first months of 1648.Footnote 55 Besides its radically demotic vernacular Greek, this edition had a further peculiarity. Unlike the Latin editions of both the Βelgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, in which the scriptural references underpinning each theological position are simply indicated by means of the usual abbreviated references, Hierotheos cites the full text of the references, translated into vernacular Greek. The citations are taken from Maximos Kallipolites's vernacular translation of the New Testament, which had been published in 1638.Footnote 56 Both the completion and printing of this translation were also part of Haga and Léger's plans for ‘Calvinising’ the Orthodox Church.Footnote 57 After the translation of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio was published, Hierotheos was given 150 copies in order to promote the book in the Orthodox East. Later he undertook the task of distributing half the copies of both his translation of the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio and of Kallipolites's translation of the New Testament; a number of copies of both books had already been brought to Constantinople.Footnote 58 In fact, a large number of copies of both was successfully distributed during the two short periods in which Parthenios ii, a partisan of Loukaris, was patriarch of Constantinople (1644–6/1648–51). It seems, therefore, that efforts to disseminate Calvinism in the East did not entirely stop when Loukaris died, even though, with his death, the enterprise no longer had any real chance of sucess.Footnote 59

The continued efforts, covering a period of more than twenty years, to complete a translation (initially into scholarly, later into vernacular Greek) of the Βelgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the canons of the Synod of Dordrecht, the multiple editions of the three texts in one book, the strenuous efforts to distribute this book as widely as possible and the way in which important persons of both the pro-Calvinist and the pro-Catholic parties refer to it, clearly demonstrate that the texts contained in this book were meant to become the theological foundation for the envisaged union between Calvinists and Orthodox followers of Cyril Loukaris. In his day, the intended role of this book was neither hidden nor unknown; however, modern scholarship has concentrated its attention on his Confession. To be sure, the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio was the symbol, so to speak, of the Protestant-Orthodox union. For, right after Loukaris's death, his pro-Catholic adversary, Cyril ii Kontares, who replaced him on the ecumenical throne, sent to Rome, which had always supported him in his struggle against Loukaris, a Roman Catholic confession of faith. In addition he published the following decision of the (patriarchal) synod:

Those who read the Book of the Βelgic Confession, which begins (as follows): ‘We believe … all with [our] heart’; and the chapters bearing the name of Cyril, of which the first is: ‘We believe in the one true God’, they are anathematised; and, in general, those not obeying all holy and ecumenical councils are anathematised.Footnote 60

The fact that the Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio is mentioned first in this official condemnation, even before Loukaris's Confession, is further evidence for the crucial role intended for this book in the ambitious plans of Cyril Loukaris and his collaborators.

After the patriarch was executed, however, the game was over for the pro-Calvinist party. What actually resulted from almost a century of violent competition between Catholic and Protestant powers for control over the Orthodox Church is most accurately described by the imperial ambassador to Constantinople Johann Rudolf Schmid (1629–43), who wrote:

The late monsignor of Veria [i.e. Patriarch Cyril Kontaris] deserves the palm, for he pulled down what the false believers had built up in twenty years. If the Greek patriarchs do not become Catholics in the future, it will, none the less, be a gain that they will no longer be Calvinists; and they will not be able to reconstruct the Calvinistic (structure) that the aforementioned monsignor of Veria demolished.Footnote 61

References

1 Hering, Gunnar, Ökumenisches Patriarchat und europäische Politik, 1620–1638, Wiesbaden 1968, 204Google Scholar n. 118.

2 This was affirmed, for example, by the Capuchin monk Joseph (1577–1638), in a text published under the pseudonym van Tilen: ibid. 25 n. 25, 227 n. 69.

3 Thomas Papadopoulos, Ἑλληνικὴ Βιβλιογραϕία (1466ci–1800) [Greek bibliography (1466ci–1800)], Athens 1984, 225, no. 3042; cf. Legrand, Émile, Bibliographie hellénique … au dix-septième siècle … publiée par Louis Petit et Hubert Pernot, i, Paris 1894Google Scholar, 288f., no. 209.

4 Papadopoulos, Ἑλληνικὴ Βιβλιογραϕία, nos 3045–7; cf. Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, i. 305f., no. 247.

5 Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 71.

6 On this issue see John Karmiris, Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας [The dogmatic and symbolic monuments of the Orthodox Catholic Church], 2nd edn, Graz 1968, ii. 562f., 575f.

7 Ibid. 664ff. See also Georgi, Curt, Die Confessio Dosithei, Munich 1940Google Scholar, 31f.

8 See Meletios Syrigos, Κατὰ τῶν καλβινικῶν κεϕαλαίων, καὶ ἐρωτήσεων Κυρίλλου τοῦ Λουκάρεως, Ἀντίῤῥησις [A refutation of the Calvinist chapters and questions of Cyril Loukaris], [Bucharest] 1690.

9 On the efforts to Calvinise the Orthodox Church see Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 176f.

10 The political goals of the patriarch's Confession are testified by Sir Thomas Roe, who says in a report that the reason why the French ambassador in Constantinople hindered the printing of the Confession in the first place was Loukaris's dedicatory letter to the king of England (this letter was not included in later editions): The negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, in his embassy to the Ottoman Porte, from the year 1621–1628, London 1740, 760Google Scholar.

11 Namely, the battles of Wesel (19 August 1629) and of s'Hertogenbosch (14 September 1629). According to Hering, Loukaris interpreted these events as divine signs encouraging him to publish his Confession: Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 190.

12 To what extent the two patriarchs really supported the Confession is not known. They certainly had full trust in the person of Loukaris as regards his anti-Catholic struggle and his church leadership, but it is doubtful whether they really endorsed the plans of the patriarch's Reformed Protestant friends, even though they had very good relations with them. After the publication of Loukaris's Confessio, the patriarch of Alexandria, Gerasimos Spartaliotes, would reject in a letter to Antoine Léger the latter's request that he should take part in the planned reformation of the Orthodox Church: Allatius, Leon, De Ecclesiae occidentalis atque orientalis perpetua consensione, Coloniae 1648Google Scholar, repr. 1970, cols 1013–17.

13 Indeed even before Loukaris's Confession was first published in Latin, his Greek opponents were looking for a copy of the Greek original in order to demonstrate his ‘heresies’ to the Greek public: Karalevskij, C. ‘La missione greco-cattolica della Cimara nell’ Epiro nei secoli xvi–xviii’, Bess ix (1912), 181–99Google Scholar at pp. 181f.; Bârlea, O., De confessione orthodoxa Petri Mohilae, Frankfurt-am-Main 1948, 39Google Scholarn. 16.

14 In the second half of the sixteenth century dozens of Protestant catechisms and confessions in Greek translation were already circulating in western Europe; but these were intended for the teaching of Classical Greek.

15 Another work which comes into this category is the Confession book of Metrophanes Kritopoulos (1589–1639), Loukaris's collaborator and later patriarch of Alexandria. That book remained unpublished however. Some of the arguments of the present article are included in an attempt to reconstruct the genesis of this Confession book: Tsakiris, Vasileios, Die gedruckten griechischen Beichtbücher zur Zeit der Türkenherrschaft: ihr kirchenpolitischer Entstehungszusammenhang und ihre Quellen, Berlin–New York 2009Google Scholar, 71ff.

16 On this dialogue see Wendebourg's, DorotheaReformation und Orthodoxie: der ökumenische Briefwechsel zwischen der Leitung der württembergischen Kirche und Patriarch Jeremias II. von Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1573–1581, Göttingen 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Allatius, De perpetua consensione, col. 1074; Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 25 n. 25. See also Periklis Zerlendis, Ἡ πρώτη πατριαρχία τοῦ Κυρίλλου Λουκάρεως, ὁ θάνατος τοῦ πατριάρχου Τιμοθέου καὶ Ἰωάννου Θαλασσηνοῦ ἀναγραϕὴ τῶν πατριαρχευσάντων ἔτεσι 1612–1707 [The first tenure of the patriarch Cyril Loukaris, the death of the patriarch Timotheos, and the list of the patriarchs for the years 1612–1707 by John Thalassinos] Athens 1921, 16–21.

18 Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 38 n. 27.

19 In fact, Loukaris had had contacts with the English embassy since the beginning of his ecclesiastical career. These he had inherited from his mentor and relative Meletios Pegas, patriarch of Alexandria, who had been a very close collaborator and friend of the English ambassador to Constantinople Richard Barton: The travels of John Sanderson in the Levant, 1584–1602, ed. Sir William Foster, London 1931, 26.

20 The fact that the activities of the Jesuits, who served the interests of France and Rome in the eastern Mediterranean, were working against those of all other European powers in the same region, is clearly demonstrated by the Venetian edict forbidding Jesuit activities in Venetian territories: Chapin Frederic Lane, Storia di Venezia, Turin 1978, 456–9. For the same reason Venice supported the anti-Catholic actions of Loukaris on Ottoman territory.

21 The negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 36.

22 Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 78. The patriarch's protégé Metrophanes Kritopoulos had been sent to study in England, while another close collaborator, Nikodemos Metaxas, learned the printer's art in London and printed, with English financial support, a certain number of mostly anti-Catholic books by Orthodox authors. On relations between Loukaris and the Anglican Church see W. B. Patterson, ‘Cyril Loukaris, George Abbot, James vi and i, and the beginning of Orthodox-Anglican relations’, in Peter M. Doll (ed.) Anglicanism and Orthodoxy 300 years after the ‘Greek College’ in Oxford, Oxford 2006, 39–55. On Metrophanes Kritopoulos and his work see Davey, Colin, Pioneer for unity: Metrophanes Kritopoulos (1589–639) and relations between the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches, Warrington 1987Google Scholar.

23 Thus the tradition, initiated by Stephan Gerlach, of Lutheran pastors serving in Constantinople was now to be continued by Calvinist pastors. Gerlach was the first Lutheran pastor to be sent to Constantinople, as a member of the escort of the imperial ambassador, David Ungnad, Freiherr von Sterneck-Preuburg. He remained there until 1578 when he was succeeded by Salomon Schweiger, also a member of the entourage of the imperial ambassador, Graf Joachim de Sinzendorff: Mordtmann, A., Eine Deutsche Botschaft in Konstantinopel anno 1573–1578, Bern 1895Google Scholar, 4f. See also Benz, Ernst, Die Ostkirche im Lichte der Protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung von den Reformation bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 1952Google Scholar, 24f., 29f., and (for Gerlach) Hans Eideneier, ‘Ἕνας Γεϱμανὸς εὐαγγελικὸς παπὰς στὴν Πόλη τὸ 1573–1578’ [‘A German Protestant pastor in Constantinople, 1573–1578’], in Encarnación Motos Guirao and Moschos Morfakidis Filactós (eds), Constantinopla: 550 años de caída, Granada 2006, 313–17. In 1622 Haga invited the Dutch pastor Antonius Piscator to serve in Constantinople and he was replaced in 1628 by Antoine Léger, the envoy of the Vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs et Professeurs de l' Église et École de Genève: Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 181; Baud-Bovy, Samuel, ‘Antoine Léger, pasteur aux vaudoises du Piémont et son séjour à Constantinople: d'après une correspondance inédite, 1622–1631’, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Geschichte xxiv [1944], 191–219Google Scholar. Léger was replaced in turn by a pastor Sartorius, who died in Constantinople in 1637: Wätjen, Hermann, Die Niederländer im Mittelmeergebiet zur Zeit Ihrer höchsten Machtstellung, Berlin 1909Google Scholar, 80 n. 1.

24 Haga wrote to Nicolas van Wassenaer about Loukaris's open self-identification with the Dutch Reformed Church: ‘Den Heere Patriarch verklaerde, dat hy door dese seghenighe Codes, aen onse Republycke ende de Chereformeerde Christelycke kercken geschieht, niet minder verblyt was als yemandt anders, van de ingesetene der landen. Daerenboven van my versoechende, da tick sulks aen de Nederlandsche kercke, en de Chemeente soude laten weten, dat hy als een lidmaet van deselve versoekt gehouden te worden, en bereyt is, tot voortplantinge ende opbouwinge van deselve, alles te doen wat in syn vermoghen is’: K. J. H.Harderwijk, ‘Levenschets van Mr. Cornelis Haga’, Jaerboekje voor de stad en het kanton Schiedam (1848), 5–38 at p. 14f; Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 190 n. 67.

25 This is demonstrated most clearly by the answer that the Consistorium of Geneva gave to Metrophanes Kritopoulos after their negotiations on church union: their own Church ‘estant seule et séparée elle ne peut rien faire, mais faut qu'il y ait consentement universel tant des Églises de Suisse, Allemagne, Pays-Bas, Angleterre, que autres’: Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, v, Paris 1903. 208.

26 On this synod see Paterson, William Brown, King James VI and I and the reunion of Christendom, Cambridge 1997Google Scholar, 260ff.

27 Heussi, Karl, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte, 16th edn, Tübingen 1981, 381Google Scholar.

28 Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 176f.

29 Ibid. 88 n. 130. See also Documente privitóre la istoria Românilor, culese de Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki, ed. Gr. G. Tocilescu and A. I. Obebescu, supplement i, I: (1518–1780), Bucharest 1886, 220f.

30 ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΩΝ / τῆς / ΒΕΛΓΙΚΗΣ / ΕΞΟΜΟΛΟΓΗΣΙΣ / καὶ / ΚΑΤΗΧΗΣΙΣ / Hoc est: / ECCLESIARUM / BELGICARUM / CONFESSIO / interprete JACOBO REVIO / ET / CATECHESIS / Qua in Ecclesiis et Scholis Belgicarum / provinciarum traditur; / Interprete FR. SYLBURGIO / LUGD. BATAVORUM, / Ex Officinâ ELZEVIRIANA, 1623. The book was printed twice in the same year.

31 Rozemond, Keetje, Archimandrite Hierotheos Abbatios, Leiden 1966, 28Google Scholar.

32 On the Greek translations of Protestant Calvinist catechisms, which were used as handbooks for learning Greek in the European schools, and, more generally, on the history of Greek catechetical literature during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see the comprehensive table of first editions and reprints in Reinhard Flogaus, Die griechische katechetische Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, forthcoming.

33 For Festus Hommius see Paquot, N. J. (ed.), Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire littéraire des dix-sept provinces des Pays-bas, de la principauté de Liege & de quelques contrées voisines, Louvain 1766, vii. 233–41Google Scholar.

34 Hofmann, Georg, Griechische Patriarchen und Römische Päpste: Untersuchungen und Texte, II/1: Patriarch Kyrillos Lukaris und die Römische Kirche, Rome 1929, 53–5Google Scholar.

35 Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 28; Hoffman, Kyrillos Lukaris, 53–5.

36 Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 29.

37 Ibid.

38 On his opportunistic designs on the patriarch's throne see Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 289, 295; Hofmann, Georg, Griechische Patriarchen und Römische Päpste: Untersuchungen und Texte, II/2: Patriarch Athanasios Patellaros, Rome 1930Google Scholar, 12f., and Ammann, M. A., ‘Athanase iii Patelaros patriarche de Constantinople, ex-catholique et Saint Russe’, Revue des études slaves xviii (1951), 7–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Patelaros finally ended up in Russia, where he was received with honours by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovitch.

39 For this job Patellaros suggested his nephew Neophytos, who would many years later become bishop in Crete and, moreover, leader of the Orthodox bishops who were appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople at the very moment that the Ottoman army began its efforts to conquer the island (1645). On the military operations see Apostolos Vakalopoulos, Ἱστορία τοῦ νέου Ἐλληνισμοῦ [History of the modern Greek people], Thessaloniki 1973, iii. 498. Neophytos accepted the proposal and took part in the translation project, as testified by some verses about him that were added to the edition of the modern Greek New Testament printed in 1638 in Geneva.

40 It is impossible to say exactly what the patriarch meant by ‘Galatians’. He must have had in mind the Dutch and the francophone Reformed Protestants, and was thus trying to translate some Latin adjective such as ‘Gallici’.

41 ‘Ἀνέγνον τε καὶ ὅ μοι ἐγχειϱίδιον τῆς ἐξομολογήσεως τῶν Γαλατῶν ἐπεπόμϕεις ἀσκεπτὶ μέντοι καὶ τῆς ἀκϱιβεστέϱας ἐπιμελείας ἄνευ, καὶ ἔγνον καὶ εἰσί τινα ἀποϱίας τε καὶ ἀποκϱίσεως ἄξια· ἅτινα δι’ ἄλλης σημειώσῳ’: Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, iv. Paris 1896, 407.

42 Layton, Evro, ‘Nikodemos Metaxas, the first Greek printer in the eastern world’, Harvard Library Bulletin xxv (1967), 140–68Google Scholar at p. 152.

43 See Zacharias Tsirpanlis, Τὸ Ἑλληνικὸ Κολλέγιο τῆς Ρώμης καὶ οἱ μαθητές του 1576–1700 [The Greek College at Rome and its students, 1576–1700], Thessaloniki 1980, 439.

44 On Marc Vretos see Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, v. 256ff., and Tomadakis, N., ‘Ἐπισκοπὴ καὶ ἐπίσκοποι Κυδωνίας’ [‘Bishopric and bishops of Kydonia’], ΚρητικὰΧρονικὰ xi (1957), 1–42 at p. 29Google Scholar.

45 Augliera, Letterio, Libri politica, religione nel Levante del Seicento: la tipografia di Nicodemo Metaxas, primo editore di testi greci nell'oriente ortodosso, Venice 1996Google Scholar, 89f.

46 ‘come moro catholico othodoxo nella fede del N.S. J. Chr. nella dottrina Evangelica, conforme la confessione Belgica, la confessione mia, ele altre delle chiese Evangeliche, che sono tutte conformi’: Schlier, Richard, Der Patriarch Kyrill Lukaris von Konstantinopel, Marburg 1927Google Scholar, 44 n. 155.

47 Three more editions followed, one published in Utrecht in 1660, one in Amsterdam in 1661, and a further one in Utrecht, in 1666.

48 On Konopios see Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, v. 294ff.; Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 32; Patterson, King James VI and I, 206–10 ; Pinnington, Judith, Anglicans and Orthodox: unity and subversion, 1559–1725, Leominster 2003, 15Google Scholar; and Kemke, Johannes, Patricius Junius: Bibliothekar der Könige Jacob I. und Carl I. von England, Leipzig 1896, 136–8Google Scholar.

49 ‘μεταϕϱάσω τὴν Κατήχησιν τῆς Βελγικῆς Ἐκκλησίας καὶ τοῦ ἐλλογίμου καὶ σοϕοῦ ἀοιδίμου ἀνδϱὸς τοῦ κῦϱ Καλλουΐνου καὶ πέμψω τῇ σῇ λογιότητι εἰς τὸ παϱαδοῦναι τοῖς χαλκότυποις ὅπως ἔξειν (sic) καὶ οἱ ἡμέτεϱοι γνῶναι τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ὅπως χϱὴ πιστεύειν· ἔγνωκας γὰϱ εἰς ὅσην σκότωσιν τοῦ νοὸς εὑϱίσκονται’: Chysostomos Papadopoulos, ‘Ἀπολογία τοῦ Λουκάϱεως, Πατϱιάϱχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως’ [‘Apology of Loukaris, patriarch of Constantinople’], Νέα Σιὼν ii (1905), 17–35 at p. 19.

50 ΤΩΝ ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΩΝ / ΤΗΣ / ΒΕΛΓΙΚΗΣ / Χϱιστιανικὴ κ(αὶ) Ὀϱθόδοξος Διδασκαλία / καὶ τάξις: Ἤγουν, / ΕΞΟΜΟΛΟΓΗΣΙΣ, / ΚΑΤΗΧΗΣΙΣ, / ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΙΑ, / καὶ / ΚΑΝΟΝΕΣ Ἐκκλησιαστικοί. / Εἰς τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων κοινὴν γλῶτταν μεταϕϱασμένη. / Ἐτυπώθη ἐν Λουγδούνῃ τῶν Βατάβων, παϱὰ Βοναβεντούϱα καὶ / Ἀβϱαάμῳ τοῖς Ἐλζεβιϱίοις, τῷ ᾳχμή ἔτει / τῆς Χϱιστοῦ γεννήσεως. For detailed information on Hierotheos Abbatios as well as on the translation and printing see Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 17f.

51 Legrand, Émile, Bibliothèque grecque vulgaire, Paris 1880, v. 333Google Scholar. Some information on the monastery can be found in Elias Tsitselis, Κεϕαλληνιακὰ Σύμμικτα [Cephalonian mélanges], Athens 1960. ii. 302.

52 Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 20.

53 On 23 December they matriculated at the University of Leiden: ibid. 23, 53.

54 Ibid. 33.

55 Ibid. 35.

56 On this translation see Papoulidis, Kiriakos, Problemes de traduction et d'interpretation du Nouveau Testament en grec moderne: le cas de Maxime de Gallipoli (1638), Thessaloniki 2004Google Scholar, with a full list of the relevant publications at pp. 271–95. A new edition of this work appeared in 1703, by then in a totally different context: Vasilios Makrides, ‘Greek Orthodox compensatory strategies towards Anglicans and the west at the beginning of the eighteenth century’, in Doll, Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, 249–87 at p. 269ff.

57 On these plans see Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat, 184f.

58 Rozemond, Hierotheos Abbatios, 46f., 92f. A few years earlier Hierotheos had also undertaken, together with Meletios Pantogallos, to distribute in the Orthodox East copies of this translation of the New Testament that had been sent to Constantinople by the Dutch: Correspondance intégrale d' André Rivet et de Claude Sarrau, ed. Hans Bots-Pierre Leroy, Amsterdam 1982, iii. 105.

59 What is more, the patriarch's close collaborator, Meletios Pantogallos, metropolitan of Ephesus, who had refused to sign the official condemnation of Loukaris and had himself composed a pro-Calvinist confession of faith, could still have had some serious expectation of becoming patriarch of Constantinople as late as 1644: Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique, iv. 520).

60 ‘Τοῖς ἀναγινώσκουσι τὸ βιβλίον τῆς Βελγικῆς Ἐξομολογήσεως, οὗ ἡ ἀϱχή: Πιστεύομεν … πάντες τῇ καϱδίᾳ· καὶ τὰ κεϕάλαια τὰ ἐπιγϱαϕόμενα τοῦ Κυϱίλλου τὸ ὄνομα, ὧν ἐστὶ τὸ πϱῶτον κεϕάλαιον πιστεύομεν ἕνα θεὸν ἀληθῆ, ἀνάθεμα· καὶ ἁπλῶς τοῖς μὴ πειθομένοις ταῖς ἁγίαις καὶ οἰκουμενικαὶς ἁπάσαις συνόδοις ἀνάθεμα’, ms no. 535 of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople (today in the Greek National Library), fo. 20v.

61 ‘Der tote Msgr. von Veria verdient den Kranz dafür, dass er in diesen Gebieten alles, was die Irrgläubigen in zwanzig Jahren gebaut, zu Boden warf. Wenn die griechischen Patriarchen in Zukunft nicht katholisch werden, wird es immerhin ein Gewinn sein, dass sie nicht mehr kalvinisch sind, und sie werden nicht aufrichten können, was der gennante Msgr. von Veria vom Kalvinismus niederriss’: Georg Hofmann, Griechische Patriarchen und Römische Päpste: Untersuchungen und Texte, II/3: Patriarch Kyrillos Kontaris von Berröa, Rome 1930, 17Google Scholar. Remarkably enough, Parthenios i, patriarch of Constantinople from 1639 to 1644, ascribes these very same merits to the ambassador Schmid himself in a letter to the Emperor Ferdinand iii: Iorga, N., ‘Nichifor Dascălul Exarch Patriarchal şi legáturile lui co Ţarile noastre (1580–1599)’, Analele Academiei Romane 2nd ser. xxviii (1904–5), 183–200Google Scholar at p. 194.