Note 256 — Chapter VI · THE PANIC IN SERAJEVO.

Lest this account of the Fanariote Hierarchy, as it exists in Bosnia should appear incredible to my readers, I may be allowed to appeal to Herr Kanitz’s description of the spiritual rule of these same gentry in Bulgaria, now happily terminated by the resolute action of their Bulgar flock. Herr Kanitz, who is a most candid and impartial observer, and has the advantage of twelve years’ residence in the country, finds no word for them but Spiritual Pashàs. Four thousand ducats (2,000l.) was a tolerably cheap price for a bishopric in Bulgaria, and the bishops, even of the poorest dioceses, sucked as much as 1,500l. a year from their flocks. When the Porte proposed the erection of school-houses for the Christians, the Fanariote Hierarchy stood out against this liberal measure, and embezzled their educational fund to build new churches in their usual swaggering style. ‘What need have you of better schools?’ asked the Archbishop of Nish of his congregation. ‘Do you want your children to become unbelieving heretics?’ True to their Grecizing policy, these Angels of Darkness burnt all the monuments of old Bulgarian literature that they could lay hands on, and imposed Greek services on congregations who could not understand a word. Of their moral influence I will let Herr Kanitz speak—in German:

‘Die schlimmste Demoralisation wurde in directester Weise in die Familien hineingetragen. Weder Frauen noch Jungfrauen waren vor den Gelüsten des höheren Klerus aus dem Fanar sicher. Die dem Grossvezier im Jahre 1860 vorgebrachten Anklagen in allen Städten, die er durchzog, überstiegen, was die Abscheulichkeit und Zahl betrifft, alle Begriffe. Unter vielen Thatsachen sei hier nur erwähnt, dass der Griechische Bischof von Sarköi von dem griechischen Arzte dieser Stadt beschuldigt wurde, 13- bis 14-jährige Mädchen der dortigen Schule geschändet zu haben. Zu diesen Verheerungen in der Unmündigen Jugend ihrer Sprengel gesellte sich ein anderer, nicht minder schwerer, sehr häufig gegen die fanariotische Geistlichkeit erhobener Vorwurf: ihre Begünstigung des Kindesmordes im Mutterschoosse.’—Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan, I. Band, p. 129.

Herr Jireček, in his recent Geschichte der Bulgaren, corroborates these facts, and adds others even more gross (see p. 513). Brought to bay at last by the sturdy opposition of the Bulgarian people, the Fanariote bishops got rid of some of their principal opponents by poison. See Jireček, op. cit, p. 555.