Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/69

 ATHIAS

ATHOS

and around the Old Market, near the Tower of the Winds. Mass is said there on Sundays and Holy Days by a priest from the cathedral. After the lapse of some years, in 1S76, an archbishopric was established in Athens. Those who have occupied this see are Archbishops Marangos, Zaffino, De Angelis, and Delendas. De Angelis was an Italian ; Zaffino a native of Corfu ; all the other archbishops were bom in the .Egean Islands. Within the Diocese of Athens there are now eight churches. Of these two are in Athens, and there is one in each of the towns of Peiraeevs (the harbour of Athens); Patrse, the chief town of the Peloponnesos; Volos, the seaport of Thessaly; Lavrion (Ergasteria), in the siher mines of Attica; Herakleion, a Bavarian settlement in At- tika; and Navplion in the Argohd. Most of the Cath- olics, however, are concentrated at Athens, Peira?evs, and Patrs. Of the two churches in Athens, one is the ancient mosque which Otho donated to the Cath- olics, and the other is the cathedral of St. Dionysios. It is a stone structure in basilica style, with a portico in front supported by marble columns. The interior is di\'ided into three naves separated from each other by rows of columns of Tenian marble. The apse has been frescoed. This cathedral was built ■irith money sent from abroad, especially from Rome. Besides the regular parishes there are missioiLS here and there. Some years ago there were missions at Kalamata, PjTgos, and Kalamaki. The only considerable one at present is at Lamia. Within the Diocese of Athens there are at present eleven priests engaged in paro- chial work: four at the cathedral in Athens, two at Patrie, and one at each of the churches of Peirseevs, Lavrion, Volos, Herakleion, and Navplion. All of them are secular priests.

French sisters conduct schools for girls in Athens and at the Peirsevs, and Italian sisters have schools for girls at Patrae. They have boarders as well as day scholars. In the town of the Peirieevs there is a good school for boys conducted by French Salesian Fathers. Boarders and day scholars are accommo- dated, and both classical and commercial courses are given. But the most important school of the diocese is the Leonteion at Athens, founded by Pope Leo XIII, to supply ordinary and theological educa- tion for all Greek-speaking Catholics. It embraces a preparatorj' depart ment, an intermediate or " hellenic " school, a gymnasium or college, and an ecclesiastical seminary. The average number of pupils and stu- dents for the past five years is about 175. The faculty consists of both priests and laymen. In its character as seminary, the Leonteion receives stu- dents from other dioceses as well as from that of Athens. Previous to the establishment of the Leonteion, candidates for the priesthood were edu- cated chiefly in the Propaganda, at Rome, and in a diocesan seminarj' which existed in the -Egean town of Syra. The seminary at SjTa has been closed, and it is now intended that all clerical training be given in the Leonteion and the Propaganda.

The only publication of note for the Catholics of this diocese is the "Harmonia ", a periodical devoted to Catholic interests. The "Harmonia" is supported chiefly by a subsidy from Rome. One does not ex- pect to find a large number of noted scholars in so small a Catholic community. But all the clergy are men of wide education. Every one of them, with other accomplishments, speaks two or three other languages as well as the vernacular Greek of the country. Amongst the laymen special mention should be made of the brothers Kyparissos Stephanos and Ivlon Stephanos. Kyparissos, a mathematician whose fame extended far beyond the confines of Greece, was made a professor in the National Uni- versity. His brother Klon, an anthropologist of repute, engaged in special historical, archseological, and anthropological researches, became director of

the Anthropological Museum of Athens. There are in Greece no Uniat Greek Catholics. All are of the Latin Rite. This is because most of these Catholics are from the West, either by descent or by birth, and they have kept their own Western rite. It might be better for Catholicism in Greece if the Catholics were to adopt the native rite, and to have their liturg)' in the liturgical language of the country. But many of the Catholics of AtheriS would never willingly accept such a change, which they would re- gard rather from a national than from a religious point of view, and would consider a denial of their Italian, or other Western, origin.

Dajjiel Qcinn.

Athias, Joseph, b. in Spain, probably in Cordova, at the beginning of the seventeenth century; d. at Amsterdam, 12 May, 1700. In 1661 and 1667 he issued two editions of the Hebrew Bible. Though carefully printed, they contain a number of mistakes in the vowel points and the accents. But as they were based on the earlier editions compared with the best manuscripts, they were the foundation of all the subsequent editions. The copious marginal notes added by Jean de Leusden, professor at Utrecht, are of little value. The 1667 edition was bitterly attacked by the Protestant savant, Samuel Des- marets; Atliias answered the charges in a work whose title begins: "Cecils de coloribus". He published, also, some other works of importance, such as the "Tikkvm Sepher Torah", or the "Order of the Book of the Law", and a Jud^o-German translation of the Bible. The latter involved Athias in a competition with Uri Phoebus, a question that has been discussed but cannot be fully cleared up at this late date.

Hedrtebize in ViG., Diet, de la Bible (Paris. 1895); The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1903), II,

A. J. Ma.\s.

Athos, JIouxT. — Athos is a small tongue of land that projects into the -Egean Sea, being the eastern- most of the three strips in which the great moun- tainous peninsula of Chalcidice ends. It is almost cut off from the mainland, to which it is bound only by a narrow isthmus dotted ^\ith lakes and swamps

Monastery of Esphigmenon, Mocxt Athos

interspersed vcith allu\'ial plains. It has been well called "a Greece in miniature", because of the varied contour of its coasts, deep bays and inlets, bold cliffs and promontories, steep wooded slopes, and valleys winding inland. Several cities existed here in pre- Christian antiquity, and a sanctuary of Zeus (Jupiter) is said to have stood on the mountain. The isthmus was famous for the canal (3,950 feet in length) which Xerxes had dug across it, in order to avoid the perilous turning of the limestone peak immemorially known as Mount Athos, in which the small penin- sula ends, and which rises to a height of some 6,000 feet. From the summit of this peak on a clear day