These Are Allowed To
Marry One Wife, But They Cannot Re-Marry In The Event Of Her Decease;
They Are Generally Poor To A Superlative Degree, And Are Frequently
Obliged To Work For Hire Like Common Labourers.
Should a man desire to
become a priest, it is only necessary that he should be recommended by
the inhabitants of his village as a person of good reputation that would
be suitable for the office:
He is then ordained by the bishop upon
payment of a fee of about one hundred piastres (or 150), and he is at
once at liberty to enter upon his duties. These ordination fees are a
temptation to the bishops to increase the number of priests to an
unlimited extent, and the result is seen throughout Cyprus in a large
and superfluous body of the most ignorant people, totally unfitted for
their position.
The monasteries vary in their revenues, as they have derived their
possessions at different periods from grants of land, or private gifts,
or legacies. In like manner with the bishops, although they cannot
legally compel the villagers to pay according to their demands, they
assumed a power which by long sufferance had become recognised by the
ignorant peasantry, who reluctantly acceded to their claims. I have
myself witnessed an altercation between the monks and shepherds on the
mountains upon a question of cheeses and goats, which the former claimed
as annually due to the monastery; it appeared that prior to the British
occupation they had been able by threats to extort this demand, but the
shepherds had now determined to free themselves from all payments beyond
those which the law compelled, and they resisted the priestly authority,
before which they had hitherto remained as slaves.
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