Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/181

 THE GREEKS UNDER TURKISH BONDAGE. 1 59 It was this sense which made them long to be free again. The consciousness of dishonor hurt them more than the hardships of the life of slavery. Proofs of this exist in the writings which Hellenes published in foreign countries, and, after the war broke out, in documents in which the insurgents made known to Europe their resolve to die sooner than endure again what they had suffered so long. Next to the privileges granted to the Church it was the communal system which was the social anchor to which Hellenism owed its preserva- tion. While the patriarchs supplied the ele- ments of political unity, the communal system gave shape to the home life of the people. The pressure of slavery, which weighed upon all alike, made close the ties which bound the members of every family, of every little com- munity together. It is needless to enter here into the question whether the communal system which existed in Greece under the Turks owed its origin to classical or mediaeval times. Fortu- nately, it did not occur to the Turks to make" any attack upon this system. On the contrary, they found that it suited their system of administra- tion very well. Just as they made the Patriarch of Constantinople responsible for the whole race,