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 366 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE the "West. It was on this account, he declares, that the Great Church was, within an hour from the tidings of the entry of the Turks becoming known, filled with a great crowd who believed themselves to be safe. By so doing they Jaad only rendered their capture more easy. The first detachment of Turks who arrived and found the doors closed soon succeeded in breaking in. The great crowd were taken as in a drag-net, says Critobulus. The miserable refugees thus made prisoners were tied or chained together and any resistance offered was at once overcome. Some were taken to the Turkish ships, others to the camp, and the loot collected was dealt with in the same manner. The scene was terrible, but, unhappily, one which was destined to be reproduced with many even worse features in Turkish history, because, while the chief object of the Turkish hordes in 1453 was mainly to capture slaves and other plunder, the attacks on many congregations in later years, down to the time of the holocaust of Armenians at Ourfa on December 28 and 29, 1895, were mainly for the sake of slaughter. In the Great Church itself the Turks struggled with each other for the possession of the most beautiful women. Damsels who had been brought up in luxury among the remnants of Byzantine nobility, nuns who had been shut off from the world, became the subjects of violence among their captors. Their garments were torn from them by men who would not relinquish their prizes to others. Masters and mistresses were tied to their servants ; dignitaries of the Church with the lowest menials. The captors drove their flocks of victims before them in order to lodge them in safety under charge of their comrades and to return as quickly as possible to take a new batch. Hopes, ribbons, handkerchiefs were requisitioned to bind them. The sacredeikonswere torn downandburnt, thealtar cloths, chan- deliers, chalices, carpets, ornaments — indeed everything that was valuable and portable — were carried off. The greatest misfortune of all, says Phrantzes, was to see the Temple of the Holy Wisdom, the Earthly Heaven, the Throne of the Glory of God, defiled by these miscreants. One would