Patriarchal synodal document sealed with the lead bull of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V

By means of this Patriarchal document from 1819, Patriarch Gregory V placed the monastery of the Holy Trinity on the island of Halki in the Bosporus under the protection of the powerful prince of Moldavia, Michael Gregorios Soutsos. The monastery had fallen into decline, so Gregory V decided to place it under the protection of Soutsos, who was given the right to manage its property, appoint its abbots, custodians, etc. In return, his family would undertake to maintain the monastery and augment its property. The monastery proved incapable of recovery in the years that followed, however, during which it also suffered a fire. In the 1840s, the monastery was reorganized and became an important seminary. The document dates from just two years before the start of the Greek Revolution and we can identify two personalities associated with it: Patriarch Gregory V, who excommunicated the Revolutionaries under pressure from the Sultan, without this preventing the slaughter of Greeks in Constantinople and Asia Minor. The Patriarch himself was hanged in front of the entrance to the Patriarchate. Michael Soutsos, as a prince of Moldovlachia, helped Alexander Ypsilantis bring the revolution to the Transdanubian Principalities. He gave up his position when the revolutionaries were crushed. He later became an ambassador of the modern Greece state.

PUBLICATION
Brouskari E. 1982–83. “Patriarchal letters in the collections of the Canellopoulos Museum”, Bulletin of the Christian Archaeological Society XI, 249–266 esp. 262–265.