Free Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence by David Brewer Page A

marriage and funerals, and both celebrate Christmas and Easter in splendid and often colourful ceremonies. Both Churches have originally separated from the Roman Catholic Church, which they continue to view with wariness if not antipathy, although the immediate causes of the original split – the filioque phrase for the Greeks, Anne Boleyn for the English – could hardly have been more dissimilar.
    Beneath the similarities, however, there are major differences. In Greek Orthodox services the congregation plays little active part, aside from a few responses such as to the priest’s ‘Chrístos anésti’ (‘Christ is risen’) at Easter. There is no recitation or chanting of psalms, no cheerful or even boisterous singing of hymns as in an Anglican service. The priest alone conducts the Greek service, and for the members of the congregation the important thing is their presence, pious for some and perhaps social for others, rather than their overt participation. Moreover the sermon, such a central part of many Anglican services, is less important in a Greek church, and this points to another difference: the Greek Church puts relatively less emphasis on moral guidance and instruction, on sin, guilt and redemption, or on good works and social justice.
    This derives from the Orthodox tradition, dating from Byzantine times, of the true purpose of religion: communion with God. The tradition stems from the monks, clerics and mystics of the early Church, and is based on prayer. One of the earliest of the Church fathers, Evagrius of Pontus, laid down in the late fourth century what not to do when praying: do not try to visualise God, either within you or outside you. ‘Do not think’, he wrote, ‘of the divinity in you when you pray nor let your intellect have the impression of any form. You must go as immaterial into the immaterial, and you will understand.’ 1
    The most common metaphor for true communion with God was through the experience of Light, not earthly light but Divine Light. Another fourth-century monk and later bishop, St Gregory of Nazianzus, wrote of being carried by heavenly contemplation into the secret darkness of the heavenly tabernacle to be blinded by the Light of the Trinity. The metaphor was challenged in the fourteenth century by the theologian Barlaam of Calabria, who wrote: ‘I must confess that I do not know what this Light is. I only know that it does not exist.’ He was answered by his contemporary Gregory Palamas, who saw God’s grace as necessary for experiencing this Light. ‘He who participates in this grace’, he wrote, ‘becomes himself to some extent the Light. He is united to the Light and by that Light he is made fully aware of all that remains invisible to those who have not this grace. The pure in heart see God Who, being Light, dwells in them and reveals Himself to those that love Him.’ 2 If prayer is to lead to this experience it must be one that is as simple and undistracting as possible, exemplified by the prayer dating from the earliest church and known as the Jesus Prayer. This consisted simply of the words ‘Kyrie eleison’ (‘Lord have mercy on us’), or the single words ‘God’, ‘Lord’ or ‘Jesus’ constantly repeated.
    In view of these differences it is not surprising that there can be a gulf of incomprehension between the Church of England, young (less than 500 years old) and much concerned with behaviour, and the Orthodox Church with its much longer history and ultimately based on contemplation.
    However, there is another Orthodox tradition that seems to run directly counter to this, and can also surprise Anglicans. This is the involvement of the Greek clergy in politics, not in this case political issues, such as campaigns against injustice or poverty, but political office. In the chaotic Greek conditions at the end of 1944 Archbishop Dhamaskinós became for fifteen months the Regent of Greece as a result of a hurriedly summoned conference in Athens,