Περί της καταστάσεως του κλήρου στη Σμύρνη κατά το δεύτερο ήμισυ του ΙΗ' αιώνα

Περίληψη

This article presents and studies systematically for the first time a critical
text on the Orthodox clergy of Smyrna during the second half of the eighteenth
century. This text precedes chronologically all similar texts voicing criticism on
the condition and behaviour of the clergy, that were inspired by the principles
of Enlightenment.
The author of the text Gregory, archdeacon to the Metropolitan of Smyrna,
and later Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V, was not motivated by secular
principles in his criticism but by the patristic traditions of the Orthodox
Church. The text in question is of great interest not only because it provides
invaluable information about the life of the Orthodox clergy in the area, but
also because it represents a critical attitude emanating from religious princi- 

pies, free from the acerbity and divisiveness that marks the corresponding texts
of the Enlightenment.
The text in question constitutes the preface to an edition of St. John Chrysostom’s
Homilies on Priesthood, published in Venice in 1783.