THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

76 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
not accustomed to discriminate between the innocent
and the guilty.
Sultan Mahmoud himself proved both
his energy of character and the terrible intensity of his
wrath.
Not content with ordering the arrest of members
of the Hetairia wherever he could lay hands on
them, he determined by a signal act of vengeance to
strike terror into the whole Greek world.
According
to the Ottoman theory of government, the higher
State officials
are personally responsible for the conduct
of those they rule. Already, on the 16th of April,
Musuri, the Greek Dragoman to the Porte, had been
led forth in his official robes to execution. A more
terrible example was to follow.
The Patriarch of Constantinople
was, as has been already explained, at once
the civil and religious head of the Greek nation.
As
the civil head, he was responsible to the Ottoman
Government for the conduct of the Greeks;
as the
religious head, he was the centre of all that was to
them most venerable and sacred. The war had been
proclaimed from the first
extermination.
as a crusade and a war of
Sultan Mahmoud now wished to prove
by a signal example that he took up the challenge.
the early morning of the 22nd of April the Patriarch
Gregorios celebrated solemn mass, as usual, surrounded
by his prelates. After the service a synod was assembled,
and a messenger from the Palace read a firman
In