venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 167
The four Cretan towns of Candia, La Canea, Rettimo, and Sitia had their
protopapàdes, or chief priests, each of whom had a deputy with the title
of protopsaltis (chief cantor).148 The chief priests were elected by the com-
munity of priests (except for about 130 Greek priests directly subjected to
the Latin archbishop) under the surveillance of the Reggimento. The elec-
tion of priests, as well as the license to leave the island for ordination, was
subject to confirmation by the Venetian civil authorities.149
By contrast, there were Greek bishops in Cyprus, Coron and Modon,
in Malvasia (Monemvasia), on Cerigo (Kythira), and apparently also on
Scarpanto (Karpathos).150 This was simply the heritage of pre-Venetian
arrangements. But the existence of such Orthodox bishops also served
Venetian interests, since Greek priests had to be ordained somewhere, and
Venice preferred such ordination to be performed in Venetian territories.151
The alternative would have been ordination by bishops who were subjects
of foreign powers. In fact, since there were no Serbian-Orthodox bishops
in the Venetian dominions, Serbian-Orthodox priests were subject to prel-
ates who resided in Ottoman, Hungarian, and, later, Austrian territories.152
When Corfu became a Venetian territory in 1386, there was only a
Roman bishop (actually an archbishop) there, whereas the Greek Church
Manoussakas, “Η χειροτονία iερέων της Κρήτης από tο μητροπολίτη Κορίνθου (έγγραφα του Ις’
αιώνα),” Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολοφικής Εταιρείας 16 [Δ’/4] (1964–65), 317–30.
148 Nikolaos B. Tomadakis, “La politica religiosa di Venezia a Creta verso i Cretesi
ortodossi dal XIII al XV secolo,” in Agostino Pertusi, ed., Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo
XV, 2 vols (Florence, 1973), vol. 1, part 2, p. 789.
149 Freddy Thiriet, “La situation religieuse en Crète au début du XVe siècle,” Byzantion
36 (1966), 204–206; Thiriet, “Eglises, fidèles et clergés en Crète vénitienne,” in Πεπραγμένα
του Δ’ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου (1976), vol. 2 (Αthens, 1981), pp. 484–500.
150 Gerassimos D. Pagratis, ed., Εκκλησία και Κράτος στα βενετικά νησιά του Ιονίου Πελάγος.
Μαρτυρίες για τη δράση Ιταλών Φραγκισκανών Μισσιοναρίων από τα αρχεία της Propaganda Fide
( 17 ος αιώνας) (Athens, 2009), p. 63 (Cerigo). For the bishops of Coron, see Thiriet, La Romanie,
pp. 129 n. 1, 289, 404–05 (claiming that only Coron preserved its Greek bishop); for Modon,
see Tsirpanlis, “Il decreto fiorentino,” p. 49; for Monemvasia, see Giorgio Fedalto, Ricerche
sulla posizione giuridica ed ecclesiastica dei Greci a Venezia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence,
1967), p. 71 (1504). For the bishop of Scarpanto, see Chryssa Maltezou, “Gavriil Seviros
imprigionato dai Veneziani per calunnia di rebelione,” in Dimitris C. Apostolopoulos, ed.,
Gavriil Seviros, arcivescovo si Filadelfia a Venezia e la sua epoca (Venice, 2004), p. 108.
151 Tomadakis, “Οι Ορθόδοξοι παπάδες,” pp. 39–72; Maria Chaireti, “Νέα στοιχεία περί
της χειροτονίας Ορθόδοξων ιερών Κρήτης επί Βενετοκρατίας,” in G. I. Kourmoules and M. I.
Manoussakas, eds., Πεπραγμένα του Τρίτου Διεθνου Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου (Ρέθυμνοv, 1971),
3 vols (Athens, 1973–75), 3:333–41; Manoussakas, “Η Χειροτονία ιερέων,” pp. 317–30; Tsirpanlis,
“Il decreto fiorentino,” 48.
152 Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans, p. 569; Elizabeth Roberts, The Realm of the Black
Mountain: A History of Montenegro (London, 2007), p. 116; John Anthony McGuckin, The
Orthodox Church: An Introduction to its History, Doctrine and Spiritual Culture (Alden,
Mass./Oxford, 2011), p. 65.