Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/52

 TREASURY

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TREBIZOND

to disobey her and her laws, a third and very large point of treason."

A fourth point is taken from the refusal of the Catholics to disavow the pope's proceedings in Ire- land. After many other points — some of an historical nature addressed to foreign princes — the writer antic- ipates the objection that many sufferers had been simple priests and unarmed scholars. He says: "Many are traitors though they have no armour nor weapon." Such people are Uke spies, "necessary accessaries and adherents proper to further and con- tinue all rebellions and wars. . . . The very causes final of these rebellions and wars have been to depose her Majesty from her crown: the causes instru- mental are these kind of seminaries and seedmen of sedition." The pamphlet ends by proposing six questions or tests by which traitors might be dis- tinguished from simple scholars. These interroga- tories, known later as "the bloody questions", were ingeniously framed to entangle the victim into ad- missions with regard to the pope's action in excom- municating Elizabeth, which might be construed as treason. This is the government case and it was promptly answered by Allen in his "Answer to the Libel of English Justice", published in 15S4, in which he joins issue on all points, showing "that many priests and other Cathohcs in England have been persecuted, condemned and executed for mere matter of religion and for transgression only of new statutes which make cases of conscience to be treason without all pretence or surmise of any old treasons or statutes for the same". He defends Campion and the other martyrs from the imputation of treason, points to the oppression of the Government and the prudent attitude of the Catholics with regard to the Bull; he explains the doctrine of the excommunication and deprivation of princes, the advantages of having a supreme authority to decide between princes and people in causes involving questions of deprivation; defends the pope's action in Ireland and concludes by showing "that the separation of the prince and realm from the unity of the Church and See Apostolic and fall from Catholic religion is the only cause of aU the present fears and dangers that the State seemeth to stand in. And that they unjustly attrib- ute the same to the Pope's Holiness or Catholics and untruly call them the enemies of the Realm".

In the following year, 1585, the Government took another step forward in their policy of drawing relig- ious and indifferent acts into the political net. This was the statute 27 Eliz. c. 2, by which it was made high treason for any Jesuit or any seminary priest even to be in England, and felony for anyone to harbour or relieve them. Even so biased an historian as David Hume realized the injustice of this measure, of which he says: "In the subsequent part of the queen's reign the law was sometimes executed by the capital punishment of priests; and though the partisans of that princess asserted that they were punished for their treason, not their religion, the apology must only be understood in this sense, that the law was enacted on account of the treasonable views and attempts of the sect, not that every individual who suffered the penalty of the law was convicted of trea- son" (Hist, of Eng., sub an. 1584). The martyrs themselves constantly protested against this accusa- tion of treason, and prayed for the queen on the scaffold. In very many instances they were offered a free pardon if they would attend the Protestant church, and some priests unfortunately yielded to the temptation. But the fact of the offer being made suflficiently shows 1hat religion, not treason, was the ground of their ofTcni'e. This is notably the case with regard to Blessed Thomas Percy who had himself been the leader of the Northern Rising and who yet was offered his liberty at the price of conformity. There are three beatified martyrs directly connected

with the excommunication, Felton, Storey, and Wood- house, who for that reason stand in a class apart from the other martyrs; their cases have received special treatment by Father PoUen, S. J. (Camm's "Lives of the English Martyrs", II, xvii-xxii). It may not be amiss to state that so careful is the Holy See in such questions that the cause of beatification of James Laborne has been postponed for more careful consideration simply because of certain words he uttered about the queen. With regard to all the other martyrs there is no difficulty in showing that they died for their rehgion, and that the accusation of treason in their regard is false and unfounded.

Edw IN Burton.

Treasury of the Church. See Indulgences.

Trebizond, Diocese op (Trapezuntina), an Armenian Catholic diocese. The city owes its ancient name to the fact that it was built on the shores of the Black Sea in the form of a trapeze. It was a Greek colony from Sinopus, established in the eighth century, B. c, and not a colony from Trapezus, in Arcadia, as Xenophon relates, who was received here with enthusiasm during the retreat of the Ten Thou- sand. After having formed a part of the Kingdom of Armenia, and then of that of Pontus, it fell into the hands of the Romans, and was declared a free city by Pompey. The Emperor Hadrian adorned it and endowed it with great commercial importance by creating its artificial harbour. Lender Valerian the Goths took and pillaged it; its inhabitants were slain or sent as slaves to the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Jus- tinian raised it from its ruins and thenceforth it became rich in monuments, especially churches and monasteries. In 1204 when Constantinople fell into the power of the Latins, a prince of the family of the Comneni, who in 1185 sought safety in Iberia, pro- claimed himself Emperor of Trebizond under the name of Alexis, and founded a Greek empire, the rival of that of Nicaea. The new state comprised nearly all of the ancient Pontus Polemoniacus and stretched eastward as far as the River Phasis. It was in jierpetual conflict with the Seljuk Turks and later with the OsmanU Turks, as well as with the Greeks of Nica:a and Constantinople, the Italian republics, and especially the Genoese. During the two centuries and a half in which it succeeded in sub- sisting the Empire of Trebizond contributed greatly to the development of Christian civilization and Greek literature in those distant parts, until then somewhat backward. In 1462 Trebizond was taken by assault by the troops of Mohammed II, and its last emperor, David, was exiled to the vicinity of Serra, in Macedonia. He was soon obliged to choose be- tween embracing Islam or forfeiting his life; he kept the faith and was executed together with six of his children. The seventh fled to the Peloponnesus where he founded the Comneni of Morea. From 1204 to 1462 Trebizond had had, in all, twenty emperors.

At present Trebizond is the capital of the vilayet of the same name, bounded by those of Sivas and Erzeroum, the Black Sea, and Asiatic Russia, which after the war of 1877 absorbed a part of its teiritory. The vilayet measures about 270 miles from west to east by 65 miles at its extreme length; its area is 11,275 sq." miles. Its total population mav be estimated at 900,000. The city itself has 50,000 inhabitants, among whom are 12,000 Greeks, 10,000 Armenians, some Jews, and a few hundred Catholics. The rem.ainder are Turkish Mussulmans, Lazis, Cir- ca.ssians, and Afghazis. Trebizond has a citadel, at least 40 mosques, 10 Greek churches, some of which have preserved ancient paintings, several .\rmeni_an churches, etc.; it carries on an active trade with Persia, Russia, and European countries by way of the BLick Sea. Close to the city are several Greek men-