have been much moved by such a thoroughly Western agitation as that of the Reformation. But this is not all. The times were not ripe. In the East there had been no renaissance, no intellectual awakening as in the West. There had been no precursors of a reformation such as the German mystics, no stirring of conscience, no hunger and thirst for better things. The world needs "the man and the hour." Perhaps Cyril was not the man; he had neither Luther's passionate energy nor Calvin's masterful will. But if he had possessed both qualities he would have failed because the hour had not sounded. The blow may be struck; but there will be no explosion if the dynamite is not ready. The Greek Church was still in the patristic period. It had not advanced beyond John of Damascus. To Eastern Christendom, the new age, when, as the enthusiastic Ulric von Hutten declared, "it is a joy to live," had not arrived. Will this ever arrive?
There is one fact of a more specific character that must not be left out of account when we consider the heroic career of Cyril and his ultimate failure. Whatever views we may hold with regard to the question of an establishment of religion and the right relations of Church and State, we must perceive the anomaly of the Greek situation. For a Christian Church to be officially connected with a Mohammedan government could not but be an unholy alliance. When Cyril accepted the position of patriarch of Constantinople he put himself in a false position. In one way he gained freedom for his attempted innovations. The Ottoman government was more tolerant than most Christian governments of his time. While Spain burnt its heretics, the sultan was magnanimously indifferent to the quarrels among his Christian subjects, or perhaps he was ready to welcome them as weakening the power of the rival of Islam. At all events, as the officially recognised head of the Church owing his appointment to the sultan, Cyril could pursue his own policy with a large measure of independence. But he paid a dear price for that
