Friday, April 10, 2026

 

It is the 10th of April 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Today we are going to head to the Phanar district- this is in Istanbul, and you can think of it like the Phanar is to the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church what the Vatican is to the Pope.

 

If you were to visit today, you would see various entrance gates- but the middle one, sometimes called St. Peter’s Gate or the Martyrs’ Gate, is welded shut. And it has been for over 200 years, and that on account of what happened there on this, the 10th of April in 1821. And that day happened to be Easter Sunday- what they call Pascha or Resurrection Sunday.

 

Let’s do a quick “big picture” zoom out. What we call “Greece” today, and roughly its territory in the classical age, was enveloped by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But the Greeks continue to exist as a distinct people. And there are Greeks and Greek Orthodox Christians who are fine living under the Ottomans- maybe you have to pay a little extra in taxes, but it’s prosperous enough. The 1700s- from both of the Americas and then into Europe, we are seeing the age of revolutions and independence. And think of how those revolutions often idealized the Ancient Greek ideals. This bleeds into a new “Hellenism” and small uprisings and calls for independence in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

 

Under the Ottomans, the population was divided into Millets- not ethnic, but religious grouping wherein the religious leader was also the civic leader and could be forced into difficult situations as a vassal of the Sultan but the leader of a church. Such was the case for the patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople.

 

Gregory, born George Angelopoulos in 1746, the son of a poor shepherd in Arcadia on the Greek islands, was nonetheless educated and raised in the faith and went on to study at both Athens and Patmos for the priesthood. By 1785, he was the Bishop of Smyrna and a well-respected and fast-rising star in the church.

 

He would become Gregory V of Constantinople in 1797 and establish his reputation as a reformer. He brought back the Patriarchal Press to Constantinople- the first native printing press in centuries. But his reform made him a target of both conservatives in the church and the sultan. He was deposed in 1798 only to be imposed again as patriarch in 1806, deposed again in 1808, and then reimposed in 1818 as the Greek Revolutionaries were ascendant.

 

The Sultan declared a fatwa on all Christians in the Empire (that’s death) unless the Patriarch Gregory publicly condemned and excommunicated the revolutionaries. This put him in a terrible situation- Orthodoxy and Independence were so intertwined- they couldn’t be divided in the public mind. And so there was a scandal when he excommunicated them, but there is reason to believe a story that he and others held a private service annulling the excommunication.

 

With continued revolt, Gregory was advised to leave the Phanar and go into exile with Greek Nationalists. His response, as remembered in the popular imagination of the Greeks, had him responding

 

"I am Patriarch to save my people, not to throw them to the knives of Janissaries. My death will possibly be of more benefit than I could have even hoped my life to be. The foreign kings will be shaken at the injustice of my death… and wherever there are armed men, Greeks, they will fight with the desperation of war, which often grants victory. I am certain!”

 

He remained in defiance, on Easter Sunday in 1821- on this, the 10th of April, he celebrated the Resurrection as Turkish guards approached. He was seized while still in his high vestments and taken to the middle gate of the compound. He was hanged there and died on this date. Mourners welded the gate shut- as it remains still welded shut today as a testament to Patriarch and now Ethnomartyr and Hieromartyr Gregory V, whose martyrdom became a central story in the struggle for Greek Independence.

 

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and the good east reading from 1 Corinthians 15:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of April 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man, very normally born, I assume- Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who's finally gonna do that one show this weekend… let’s go. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.