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Educating the Greeks: Anglican Scholarships for Greek Orthodox Students in the Early Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

W. B. Patterson
W. B. Patterson*
Affiliation:
College of Arts and Sciences University of the South
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Extract

In about the year 1615, Cyril Lukaris, the Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria, then on official business in Constantinople, wrote a long letter in Greek to George Abbot, the archbishop of Canterbury. The letter was in reply to one from Abbot, sent with the encouragement of king James I, whose evident interest in the eastern churches Lukaris found deeply encouraging.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 17: Religion and Humanism , 1981 , pp. 227 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1981

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References

1 Oxford Bodleian MS Smith 36, fols 39, 41. The letter is undated. For Lukaris’s turbul ent career, see Smith, Thomas, Collectanea de Cyritlo Lucario, Patriarcha Constantinopolit- ana (London 1707), pp 3–70 Google Scholar; Legrand, [Emile], ed, Bibliographie Hellénique, [ou description raisonée des ouvrages publiés par des Grecs au dix-septième siècle], 5 vols (Paris 1894-1903), vol 4, pp ix-xi, 161-75Google Scholar; Hadjiantoniou, George A., Protestant Patriarch: The Life of Cyril Lucaris (1572-1638), Patriarch of Constantinople (Richmond, Virginia 1961)Google Scholar; Rozemond, Keetje, ed, Cyrille Lucar: Sermons, 1572-1638 (Leiden 1974), pp 1–17 Google Scholar; and Hering, Gunnar, Ökumenisches Patriarchat und Europäische Politik, 1620-1638 (Wiesbaden 1968)Google Scholar— with extensive bibliographies. I am indebted to Archimandrite Kallistos Ware and Dr Andreas Tillyrides for their assistance during the course of my research.

2 Oxford Bodleian MS Smith 36, fob 39, 41.

3 Oxford Bodleian MS Smith 36, fols 39, 41v.

4 Oxford Bodleian MS Smith 36, fob 39, 41v-42.

5 Colomesius, [Paulus], ed, S. Clementis Epistolae [Dime ad Corinthios] (London 1694), P329 Google Scholar.

6 Colomesius, ed, S. Clementis Epistolae, p 335.

7 Compare Runciman, Steven, ‘The Church of England and the Orthodox Churches in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Anglican Initiatives in Christian Unity, ed Bill, E.G.W. (London 1967), p 5 Google Scholar; Fouyas, [Methodios], Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism (London 1972), p 35 Google Scholar.

8 See Runciman, [Steven], The Great Church [in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence] (Cambridge 1968), pp 208-37Google Scholar; Ware, Timothy, The Orthodox Church (Harmondsworth 1964), pp 100–106 Google Scholar.

9 Lukaris had already enjoyed such an opportunity, having studied for some six years at the university of Padua, beginning in 1589. By the time he began his correspondence with archbishop Abbot, it is evident that, largely through reading, he had developed a sympathetic attitude towards reformed theology. See his letters to the Dutch theologian Johann Uytenbogart, in 1612 and 1613, and his answer to the letter of Marco Antonio De Dominis, the archbishop of Spalato, then living in England, in 1618. Hartsoeker, Christiaan, ed, Praestantium ac Eruditorum Virorum Epistolae Ecclesiasticae et Theologicae (Amsterdam 1704), pp 314-15, 357-65Google Scholar; Legrand, ed, Bibliographie Hellénique, vol 4, pp 329-40.

10 Kemke, [Johannes], [Patricius Június {Patrick Young), Bibliothekar der Konige Jacob I. und Carl L von England] (Leipzig 1898), pp 118-21Google Scholar. See also [Andreas] Tillyridcs, [‘АчекБото$ ‘Αλληλογρσφΐα έκ τών êv ΆγγλΙςι Έπιδημησάντων ‘Ελλήνων τινων τοθ Ι70ν AlSvos] (reprinted from δεολογΐα) (Athens 1974). PP 37-39.

11 Kemke, p 121.

12 Kemke, p 133; Tillyrides, pp 15-19.

13 Kemke, p 133.

14 Kemke, pp 134-35. For Cyril Lukaris’s letter to Charles I in 1632, asking that the monk be given such royal assistance, see Oxford Bodleian MS Smith 36, fols 37-38.

15 Kemke, pp 134-36; Tillyrides, pp 24-26, 40.

16 Kemke, p 122.

17 Kemke, p 123.

18 Kemke, p 123. See also Tillyrides, pp 8, 22, and the article on Christopher Angelus in DNB, vol 1, pp 415-16.

19 Kemke, p 124.

20 Kemke, p 124.

21 On Metrophanes Kritopoulos’s career, see [Markos] Rhenieres, [Μητροψάνηξ КрпготтоиЛоѕ καΐ ot êw ΆγγλΙη καΐ Γερμανΐα (Νλοι αύτου (1617-1628)] (Athens 1893); Kemke, pp 124-30; Legrand, ed. Bibliographie Hellénique, vol 5, pp 192-218; and Tillyrides, pp 5-6, 35.

22 Marshall, F. H., ‘An Eastern Patriarch’s Education in England’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 46 (London 1926), pp 187-89Google Scholar. For excerpts from the album, see Rhenieres, pp 13-23. The album, which was first discovered by Rhenieres in Egypt, seems to date from 1622-23, near the end of Kritopoulos’s stay in England.

23 Tillyrides, p 10.

24 Rhenieres, pp 14-15. See also Tillyrides, pp 10, 34-35.

25 Tillyrides, pp 8, 23.

26 Tillyrides, pp 9, 28; Kemke, p 133.

27 Tillyrides, p 30.

28 The difficulties of Lukaris’s position after the publication of his Confession of Faith in 1629—showing a decidedly Calvinist orientation—are suggested by the letter of the Dutch ambassador to Constantinople in January 1632. Oxford Bodleian MS Tanner 461, pp 81-84. The grim circumstances of his death in 1638 are described in John Greaves’s letter from Constantinople. Oxford Bodleian MS Saville 47, fol 45.

29 For Laud’s attitude towards the Greek church, see Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘The Church of England and the Greek Church in the Time of Charles I’, SCH 15 (1978), pp 213-40Google Scholar.

30 Kemke, pp 136-37; Tillyrides, pp 7, 20-21.

31 Kemke, pp 137-38.

32 Kemke, p 138. As the context suggests, Konopios was apparently ready to help make reformed ideas better known in the east. See Runciman, The Great Church, p 295.

33 Kemke, p 138; Tillyrides, pp 7-8.

34 Roe, [Thomas], [The] Negotiations [of Sir Thomas Roe in His Embassy to the Ottoman Porte, from the Year 1621 to 1628, ed. Richardson, Samuel] (London 1740), pp 171-72Google Scholar. For Roe’s career in Constantinople, where he was a staunch friend of Lukaris, see Brown, Michael J., Itinerant Ambassador: The Life of Sir Thomas Roe (Lexington, Kentucky 1970), pp 119-69Google Scholar; Wood, Alfred C., A History of the Levant Company (London 1964—orig. pubi. 1935), pp 50–88, 251Google Scholar.

35 Roe, Negotiations, p 102.

36 Roe, Negotiations, p 171.

37 Roe, Negotiations, p 172.

38 Roe, Negotiations, p 172.

39 Roe, Negotiations, p 172.

40 Roe, Negotiations, p 253. It is likely that one activity which occupied KritopouVos during this period was that of assisting Nikodemos Metaxas, another Greek in England, in making arrangements to transport a Greek press from London to Constantinople. For this historic press—the first Greek press to be established in the Levant—and the political and religious circumstances which very quickly brought about its demise, sec Layton, Evro, ‘Nikodemos Metaxas, the First Greek Printer in the Eastern World’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 15 (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1967), pp 140-68Google Scholar.

41 Roe, Negotiations, p 373.

42 Rhenieres, p 24. As this passage suggests, one of the pleasures of studying at Oxford for the Greeks must have been the opportunity of reading the Greek fathers of the church. This safe conduct was found in Hamburg, an indication, no doubt, of the route Krito-poulos followed home.

43 Legrand, ed, Bibliographie Hellénique, vol 5, p 209.

44 See Tappe, E. D., ‘The Greek College at Oxford, 1699-1705’, Oxonicnsia, 19 (Oxford 1954). PP 92–111 Google Scholar.

45 Compare Fouyas, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism, pp 35, 64-5; Istavridis, V. T., Orthodoxy & Anglicanism (London 1966), pp 149-51Google Scholar.

46 Kemke, p 123.