Europe -- Politics and government -- 1815-1871; Turkey -- Foreign relations; Turkey -- History -- 1829-1878
Be the cause of the Greek nation good or bad, none have been its warmer
or more sincere supporters than the English. So powerful an element in
our motives for the support of Greece, was the desire to emancipate
Christianity from a Mahomedan yoke, that, in order to attain this end,
England ran the risk of weakening, by the emancipation of Greece, the
bulwark which she found in Turkey against the advances of Russia. And
for a long series of years no part of the policy of England has been
more unvarying than her resolution, expressed by deeds, to employ her
just influence at the Porte in the most unwearied and enlightened
disinterestedness, by embracing—often at great sacrifices and risks,
and with singular success—every opportunity to plead the cause of the
Christian population in the East, although belonging to a different
section of the Church from her own. In this respect she may well bear
comparison with any other power, especially with one which, although it
seeks to Wind the pious by vaunting itself the protector of Oriental
Christianity, has done little or nothing for the co-religionists of its
own subjects, save to entice them, through a proposed ecclesiastical
union, into a political subjugation which they abhor.
But this leads us to speak of Russia, the new protector of Oriental
Christians. If the other European governments had in due time,
either independently or in concert with England, lifted as constant
and sincere a protest as hers at the court of Turkey against the
wrongs of these Christians, and had required with one voice that
the government should administer its laws impartially to all its
subjects, irrespective of their creed, we might have heard less of this
new protectorate, and should, by an act of justice and mercy, have
foreclosed the present flimsy pretexts of Russia. But the weakness of
Christian zeal, our indifference between Christ and Belial, and the
absence of Christian concord, have prevented this. And by our “lâches”
we have furnished the pretexts against which we now exclaim. But let
us consider for a moment who the helper and helped are. Even granting
that the professions of Russia were true in the letter, there is surely
no one so blindly charitable as to believe that, however sincere the
ill-informed masses in Russia may be in the fanatical excitement to
which they have been goaded, the Czar or his advisers have either
tears of compassion on their eyelids or indignation in their hearts, at
the wrongs of Oriental Christians. Without entering into the maze of
diplomacy, or attempting to interpret treaties intentionally Delphic,
it may suffice to observe, that the general plea now urged by Russia
formed no part of her original demands, but was resorted to lest those
should be satisfied. The Czar has two characters. He is, in the first
place, the spiritual head of the Russian Church. But he is not, and
knows that he is not, the spiritual head of the whole Greek Church;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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