When I returned to Constantinople, after my first visit to England, I had several interviews with the head patriarch, and with some of the bishops of the Orthodox Eastern Church, of which I am an humble though not a blind adherent. Finding them willing to listen to the remarks of one so much younger and more ignorant than themselves, whose only advantage arose from the experience gained by travelling in foreign countries, I strenuously endeavoured to shew them how erroneous and ill-judged was their practising miracles, the burning of incense, and other proceedings by which the senses are deceived, how well calculated they were to disgust the better educated and more intelligent of their followers, and eventually to drive them from the bosom of the Church.
The patriarch and the bishops did not seek to discomfit me by learned arguments or flimsy excuses. Like intelligent men, they acknowledged the practices complained of to be unnecessary if not improper; but they assured me, that however sincere their desire to establish a thorough reform, their efforts for the present were necessarily restricted; a choice between two evils being the only course which was open to them.
I was compelled to agree with them that the practice of drawing down fire from heaven on Easter Sunday, as well as that of burning incense in the churches during divine service, had both been established for so many years, and that the former especially had taken so deep a hold over the imagination of my unlettered brethren, that any sudden attempt to abolish either would at once be regarded as irreligious and revolutionary. Rather than incur so great a risk, they were content to continue what they considered the lesser evil; and in the meantime to promote as far as in them lay, the work of education, by means of which alone change in this direction is possible. To such an answer, of course, I had no reply; and I have endeavoured to aid the good cause of education wherever and whenever it has been in my power.
Such as it is, with all its errors, its imperfections, and its weaknesses, the Orthodox Eastern Church, the “Thistle of Lebanon,” most certainly claims precedence in point of antiquity over every other Christian church, and to my mind it as clearly deserves the sympathy of all Christians, especially of all who maintain the Protestant faith. For without other support than the rock of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, without assistance from abroad, and in slavery at home, this church has withstood the shock of Mahommedan invasion, and has maintained its position in Syria during a bondage of more than twelve hundred years. Nearly all those who now profess its faith must be the lineal descendants of families who acknowledged its authority and professed its doctrines before the time of the Hegira; for one of the first laws of our Mahommedan conquerors reimposed the punishment of death on all Christians who should seek to gain, and on all who should become, converts to their faith. It is only of late years that this law has been allowed to fall into disuse; but it is still most powerful, as the following interesting anecdote will prove.