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Anglican intervention in the election of an Orthodox patriarch, 1925–6

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Stuart Mews
Stuart Mews*
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
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Extract

I am very sorry for being the instrument through which some of these unprincipled Greeks, for their own selfish aims, troubled our Archbishop’; in March 1926 Llewellyn H. Gwynne, anglican bishop in Egypt had good reason to feel sorry, though perhaps not quite as much reason as his critics supposed. His apparently maladroit intervention in the name of the archbishop of Canterbury in the election of a new Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria had been maliciously exploited to produce results entirely opposite to his intentions and caused serious embarrassment both to archbishop Davidson and to the British government. But his behaviour, though certainly injudicious, was not so entirely incomprehensible as it originally seemed. An examination of the episode in its context will not only explain Gwynne’s behaviour but more importantly shed light upon the complex set of circumstances, attitudes and assumptions which have conditioned relations between Greek Orthodoxy and the church of England in the twentieth century. Any such relationship involves also the relations of centre and periphery, of personal ambitions, party objectives, strategic processes and the larger international religious systems of anglicanism and orthodoxy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 13: The Orthodox Churches and the West , 1976 , pp. 293 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1976

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References

1 Lambeth [Palace Library]: [J. A.] Douglas MS 34/224 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 19 March 1926.

2 Zernov, [Nicolas], [‘The Eastern Churches and the Ecumenical Movement in the Twentieth Century’], in [A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1117-10.48, ed Rouse, Ruth] and [Neill, Stephen C] (London 1954) p 645 Google Scholar. For a useful history of the relations between the church of England and the orthodox church: Istavridis, V.T., Orthodoxy and Anglicanism (London 1966)Google Scholar.

3 T. B. Strong—Edward Lyttelton 16 January 1919, Anson, Harold, T. B. Strong (London 1949) pp 104-6Google Scholar.

4 [Lambeth: archbishop] Davidson MS: memorandum by Athelstan Riley 1 January 1919 p 8.

5 Smith, [Michael Llewellyn], [Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922](London 1973) PP 54 Google Scholar seq.

6 Davidson MS (copy): Claud Russell—lord Curzon 22 August 1919.

7 Jasper, Ronald, Arthur Cayley Headlam. Life and letters of a Bishop (London 1960) pp 156 Google Scholar seq.; Bell, [G.K.A.], [Randall Davidson], 2 (London 1935) pp 941 Google Scholar, 1088; Kitsikis, Dimitri, Propagande et pressions en politique internationale. La Grèce et ses revendications à la Conférence de la Paix (1919-1920) (Paris 1963) pp 436-52Google Scholar.

8 Bell pp 1106 seq.

9 Venizelos MS 316: Meletios—E. Venizelos 25 April 1922, Smith p 269.

10 Psomiades, Harry J., ‘The Ecumenical Patriarchate under the Turkish Republic’, Balkan Studies 2 (Thessalonika 1961) pp 47–70 Google Scholar.

11 C[hurch] T[imes] 2 November 1923. J. A. Douglas, vicar of St. Luke, Camberwell, had been an enthusiast for anglican-orthodox understanding ever since his brief stay as acting anglican chaplain at Constantinople 1904-5. He was regarded by Matthews, W.R. as ‘eccentric’: Memories and Meanings (London 1969) p 311 Google Scholar.

12 Douglas MS 14/8 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 12 November 1923; 14/10 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 2 November 1923.

13 CT 15 December 1921.

14 Douglas MS 14/8 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 12 November 1923; 14/10 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 2 November 1923.

15 Douglas MS 34/92 R. Mclnnes—Mervyn Haigh 25 May 1925.

16 Ibid.

17 Zernov p 652; CT 11 September 1925; Constance Padwick, E., Temple Gairdner of Cairo (London 1929) pp 266-9Google Scholar.

18 Jackson, H.C., Pastor on the Nile; The Life and Letters of Llewellyn H. Gwynne (London 1960) p 252 Google Scholar.

19 Gwynne, L.H., ‘Preface’, The Church in the Furnace, ed MacNutt, F.B. (London 1917) p xx Google Scholar.

20 Douglas MS 14/13 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 3 October 1922.

21 Ibid 14/14 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 15 March 1924.

22 Ibid 14/1 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 22 January 1921; 14/3 L. H. Gwynne— J. A. Douglas 2 March 1922.

23 Bell pp 1112-14; Nils Ehrenström, ‘Movements for International Friendship and Life and Work, 1925-1948’, Rouse and Neill pp 546 seq.

24 Douglas MS 34/116 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 25 September 1925.

25 Ibid 34/207 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 11 February 1926.

26 Ibid 34/116 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 25 September 1925.

27 Ibid; PRO FO 371/10911 J. Murray—chaplain of archbishop of Canterbury 15 October 1925.

28 Douglas MS 34/118 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 2 December 1925.

29 Ibid 34/118 Takouos—J. A. Douglas 12 September 1925; 34/105 Takouos—J. A. Douglas 14 December 1925.

30 Ibid 34/122 Meletios—Germanos 7 December 1925; 34/125 Meletios—J. A. Douglas 16 December 1925.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid 34/128 memorandum for the archbishop of Canterbury by J. A. Douglas 29 December 1925.

33 Le Messager d’Athènes (Athens) 12 January 1926.

34 Baer, [Gabriel, ‘Social Change in Egypt: 1800-1914’, Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt, ed Holt, P.M.] (London 1968) pp 158, 160Google Scholar; Owen, E.R.J., Cotton and the Egyptian Economy 1820-1114 (Oxford 1969) p 113 Google Scholar; [Earl of] Cromer, [Modern Egypt], 2 (London 1908) pp 250-2; Runciman, Steven, The Orthodox Church and the Secular State (Auckland/Oxford 1971) p 77 Google Scholar. For a detailed treatment: Politis, A.G., L’Hellénisme et l’Egypte moderne, 2 vols (Paris 1928-30)Google Scholar.

35 Tom Little, Egypt (London 1958) p 143.

36 Ahmed Abdel-Rahim Mustafa, ‘The breakdown of the monopoly system in Egypt after 1840’, Holt p 303; Cromer p 256.

37 FO 371/10911 A. Delmouzos—A. Wiggin 3 November 1925.

38 Douglas MS 34/131 Memorandum.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid 34/122 Meletios—Germanos 9 December 1925.

42 Ibid 18/318 R. T. Davidson—J. A. Douglas 23 December 1925.

43 Ibid 34/165 W. A. Wigram—J. A. Douglas 1 January 1926. Wigram was a high churchman who had previously worked with the non-proselytising archbishops’ mission to the assyrian Christians.

44 Ibid 18/319, 320 R. T. Davidson—J. A. Douglas 29, 31 December 1925; 34/156 J. A. Douglas—R. T. Davidson 31 December 1925.

45 Ibid 34/160 J. A. Douglas—Meletios 3 January 1926.

46 FO 371/11595/102 N. Henderson—J. Murray 24 January 1926; FO 371/11595/99 S. Gaselee—N. Henderson 4 February 1926.

47 FO 371/10911/126 J. Murray—chaplain of the archbishop of Canterbury 15 October 1925; FO 371/10911/129 R. T. Davidson—J. Murray 20 October 1925.

48 FO 371/10911 cypher telegram—Sir George Lloyd 23 October 1925.

49 FO 371/11595/102 N. Henderson—J. Murray 24 January 1926.

50 FO J486/140/16 telegram Sir George Lloyd—foreign office 26 February 1926.

51 Times 12 February 1926.

52 FO J486/140/16 lord Lloyd—foreign office 26 February 1926.

53 Douglas MS 34/210 J. A. Douglas—lord Hugh Cecil 18 February 1926; 34/224 L. H. Gwyrme—J. A. Douglas 19 March 1926.

54 FO J486/140/16 lord Lloyd—foreign office 25 February 1926; Douglas MS 34/210 J. A. Douglas—lord Hugh Cecil 18 February 1926.

55 FO J486/140/16 lord Lloyd—foreign office 25 February 1926.

56 Ibid. Note by Austen Chamberlain 1 March 1926. Chamberlain’s opinion was based on an earlier note by the foreign office’s resident pundit on orthodoxy, Stephen Gaselee, who thought that the Egyptians had valid grounds for opposing Meletios: ‘He is something of a fire-brand, and a terrific pan-Hellene; his attitude as Patriarch of Constantinople during the Greek invasion of Asia Minor and their subsequent repulse so incensed the Turks that he very nearly brought the Oecumenical Patriarchate entirely to an end, at any rate as resident in Constantinople’.

57 Douglas MS 34/229 memorandum by J. A. Doughs nd; FO 371/11596/142 lord Lloyd —foreign office 12 March 1926.

58 Messager d’Athènes 12 March 1926.

59 FO 371/11596 memorandum by A. Wiggin 14 May 1926.

60 FO J1191/140/16 note by S. Gaselee.

61 CT 16 January 1931, 11 February 1936.

62 Mews, Stuart, ‘The Churches’, The General Strike, ed Morris, Margaret (London 1976)pp 318-37Google Scholar.

63 Douglas MS 34/224 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 19 March 1926.

64 Ibid 34/207 L. H. Gwynne—J. A. Douglas 11 February 1926.