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Turkish Crete
advice; he told them they were damned unless they confessed their
faith openly. Thirty of the family then decided to confess to the
pasha that they had been Christians all the time. The Metropolitan
dissuaded them, pointing out how they would compromise other
crypto-Christians and by assuring them that they were in no danger of
damnation.
The family hardly survived the 1821 revolt; out of sixty-four men of
the Kurmulidhes, only two were left alive. Their reputation was glorious
for years afterwards; and portents attended the death of two of
them. These were two brothers executed with a cousin in 1824 by
Mustapha Bey. As always they were offered their lives if they would
change their religion. The question was formulaic. ‘Do you turn Turk
or not?’ ‘No, I will not turn Turk. I was born Antony, I shall die
Antony’. During the three nights following their beheading, the bishop
of Rethymnon claimed to see a light descend on the two brothers’
bodies. Fragments of their clothing, if burnt in the bedroom, were said
to cure the sick.
In the social structure of Crete under the Turks the Christians represent
the lower class, liable to taxes, impositions and even insults from
the meanest Mohammedan. The open restrictions on religious freedom,
however, were minimal. Perhaps the only one was the ban on church
bells. Early on the Christians were ordered to deliver up their bells;
many gave in a substitute and buried the real bell, handing on the
secret of the hiding-place down the generations. This practice gave
the Turks a convenient means of extortion. A rich man would be
arrested and accused of concealing a bell on his land. He would have
to buy his way out of prison. Permission to build and repair churches
was needed from the City. Apart from such minor restrictions, the
church could function as it wished, and indeed the Turkish archives at
Heraklion show that there were severe penalties for anyone who violated
the integrity of the monasteries. Except in time of war. Then, of
course, the niceties of mutual respect went for nothing, and monasteries
and churches were burnt, their occupants slaughtered. The Cretan
clergy were peculiarly bellicose; their record as insurgents, martyrs, and
fighters for freedom, as notable as that of any other province of the
Greek world.
Crete was divided into three pashaliks, Heraklion, Rethymnon and
Canea, the pasha at Heraklion being as a rule supreme over the other
two. Since the pashas rarely stayed long, they had little interest in
reform and just administration. ‘The generality of the bashaws are
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