The Greek rebellionism

Originally posted by Phallanx Well I think all 'allies' have to answer to questions. The French as you mention for giving advice to the Ottomans as seen in Navarino with the Admiral Lieu....(something), the British for dispatching E.Cordington (after PM G.Canning's death) for destroying the Ottoman fleet in Navarino, which interestingly enough, they obviously didn't want But most of all, those that sold out their country, what we call the 'kotzampasides' (those used by the Ottomans to run the districts). As seen in the names of, Tsolakoglou of Agrafa, the : Nikolaioi, Kapanitsas, Krebbatas, Adrachtas of Mani,  the priests: Simeon Trapezountios, Ieremiah, Pachoumios Patestos, Leontios of Larissa, Dionysos of Chios, the: Deligiannis of Ileia, Gortunis and Olympia, the : Liontaioi, the : Sontuxos.......and unfortunately many more that actually were against the  revolution.....

I know more about the international politics and warfare as seen from the Greek side, but did many Greeks play an active role in trying to sabotage the revolution? How decisive was their involvement?

Originally posted by Constantine XI I know more about the international politics and warfare as seen from the Greek side, but did many Greeks play an active role in trying to sabotage the revolution? How decisive was their involvement?

Sir William Gell, in his 'Narrative of a journey in the Morea' has recorded that the locals used to say that 'three are the plagues of this land, the Bishops, the 'Kotzampasides', and the Turks'.

The Bishops

The Bishops as mentioned by the simple folk were actually given several privileges by the Sultans for one and only reason. To literally rob the enslaved people (while they called it 'rule). The Bishop had both administrative and judicial patness. To understand exactly how much this position was wanted, the Sultan would auction the position of the Bishops throne with the candidates literally paying enormous amounts of money.
Athanasios Ypsilantis in his "After the capture" gives the names of the 'priest' I mentioned above and the amount of money they paid:

1476- Simeon Simeon Trapezountios gave a 1.000 florin 'gift' to the Sultan.
1572 - Ieremiah gave 2000 florins and another 2.000 to the successor of Murat
1584 - Pachoumios Patestos raised the 'gift' to 10.000 ducats and sent the previous Bishop to jail
1604 - Leontios of Larissa 10.000 ducats
1755 - Dionysos of Chios 10.000 ducats

Anyway, without getting into accounts, let's just say that we have several records of the robbing tactics of the Bishops that, in Patra for example, would perform continuous excommunications and confiscation of lands of the families of the 'Kleftes', which they would later sell to make up for the enourmous amounts they had paid for their throne.

Under this same robbing mentality, Bishop Grigorios V' sent a dispatch to all 'Despots' (the Hellinic language tells the truth since Despot means among other things, 'tyrant') to blindly obey the orders of the Sultan. He actually wrote that all those that are poor in this life will have a rich and prosperous life in the heavens and that the fall of the Byzantine Empire, was decided by God for the good of Christianity.
Why he was hanged is a different story which I'm sure you know of...

The church literally gained power during the Ottoman rule. In Hellas alone they had the 1/3 of the lands in their ownership. In Chios the church  owned 32 of the 68 vilages in total. All Christians were enforced to pay 1/3 of their total income to the Church, as if that wasn't enough, they were made to pay another special tax for the Bishop.
(History Pipinelis p35)

The Kotzampasides

Kotzampasides, Proestoi, Prouchontes, were all names for the large landowners that were, with the Bishops the rulers of the land.
They too were given administrative, judicial and police patness.

There are several accounts of them assisting the Ottomans in the pogrom of the 'Kleftes'. G.Papandreou in his 'anniversary of Kalabryta' tells us that after the pogrom of the Kolokotronides, Plapoutas, Koumaniotes the sole rulers of Mani were the Kotzampasides, Proestoi, Prouchontes seen in the face of the monks of "Agia Triada, "The abbey of Taksiarches" and those of the 'Megalo Spilaio" (great cave). Who for their assistance were given many privileges by 'firmans' from the Sultans.

It becomes even more obvious that those seen above and in addition with the 'Fanariotes', the merchants and the shipowners. Actually had no part in the early stages of the revolution.
All we need to see is the correspondent of 'Allgemeinge Zeitung' that on 17/8/1821 wrote:

"He who believes that this is a national revolution is deeply deceived. Untill today the more prosperous class of Hellas has not taken any part nor has assisted in any way the revolution. Besides the obvious problem of lack of organization which is totally absent, they have an absolute lack in financial support due to their absence".

The best example of 'sabotage' would probably be Rigas Ferraios 'Velinstinlis'. While in contact with Napoleon and  trying to start a pan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans was betrayed by some other wanna-be Hellin, named Dimitrios Oikonomou to the Austrian authorities who handed him to the Turks.

Well, to be objective, while these events are facts, we can't overlook that it was actually thanks to the priesthood and a few 'Fanariotes' that language, religion, customs, national identity were preserved. There are many records of priest taking part in the rebelion, but unfortunately there were always the others as mentioned above that didn't really care.

To be honest I really haven't looked into how the Russian Christians saw this issue but it may be due to the excommunication of the Russian Prince Alex. Ypsilantis issued by Grigorios A'. which also lead to his deposition of Prince by the Tzar.

If we look into the excommunication a bit more we find that, the Russian Tzar denounced any participation to Ypsilantis 'plan' and stated that the Sultan was allowed to 'handle the rebelous' as he choosed, just to satisfy his reaction to Ypsilantis' involvement.
The Sultan issued an order to the Muslim religious leader to slaughter the Christians, he and two prime ministers refused which lead to their execution. Dispite their original rejections, the persecution of several thousand Hellines throughout the land but especially in Constantinoupoli wasn't avoided.

It is obviously due to these actions that the Patriarch Grigorios was forced to issue the excommunication.
The records of S.Trikoupis may add something to this since he states that, Ypsilantis not only, was not 'offended' by the consequences (excommunication and deposition) but actually supported the 'priesthood' by issuing a dispatch on Jun.8.1821, that demanded all his soldiers continue to fight for the 'cause' and demanded revenge for the blood of the 'ministers of our religion', Grigorios A' and Ciril 6th. and all other religious brothers that have been killed.
This may be why the Hellines had a different view.

The tradition of the church as a secular authority for the Greek people was established, nevertheless, by Mehmed II "El Fatih" himself. Mehmed the Conqueror (of Constantinople) for those not familiar with his Ottoman title.

When he appointed Georgios Scholarios as first post-Byzantine Patriarch, he absolutely knew what he was doing. Scholarios, known as a Patriarch with the name of Gennadios, was instrumental in making the business of achieving unity of the Greek Orthodox with the RomeoCatholic church a total chimera, through his vehement opposition (and his great influence over the lower clergy and simple townsfolk).

Consequently, he was "awarded" by gratious Mehmed, who knew that the only way Constantinople could be saved, was through western intervention (and a really heavy one, as well, the Ottomans were extremely strong at that point). And the only way to achieve such intervention was the "Enosis", the submission (essentialy) of the GO church to RC.

If we speak in modern - nationalistic, partly - terms, what Gennadios did to jumpstart his career can viewed as High Treason, Lese Majesty. Maybe he - and people as Lucas Notaras, who said "better the Turks than Enosis - was more insightful than the emperor, though, and the best way to have the Greek people survive was to adopt to a conqueror that was not going to absorb them if they kept their faith intact (and that's precisely what happened, Orthodoxy has played - despite the treacherous attitude of many Despots - a pivotal role in keeping the Greek "ethnos" intact during 400 years of foreign rule).  Maybe the Greeks would've been eventually "absorbed" by the Westeners, had they chosen to adopt to their religion. We'll never know, I guess...