168 benjamin arbel
was guided by a college of 32 priests, headed by a “great chief priest” (μέγας
πρωτοπαπάς) who was elected for five years by the assembled clergy and
nobles. He was subject, in spiritual matters, to the Oecumenical Patriarch
of Constantinople.153 Each one of the four provinces of the island, as well
as the island of Paxo, had its own chief priest (protopapàs), but all proto-
papàdes were subject to Corfu’s great chief priest.
Like in the other territories just mentioned, the population of Cyprus
was overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox, but since the late 12th century the
island had been ruled by the Lusignan dynasty, and its society was largely
dominated by a Frankish (Catholic) aristocracy. From 1260 the local
church was headed by a Latin archbishop, who was the sole metropolitan
on the island, and by three Latin bishops. However, there were also four
Greek Orthodox bishops, who were subordinate to the respective Latin
prelates. Venice simply adopted this pre-existing arrangement.154
Likewise, following the occupation of Zante 1482 and of Cephalonia
and Ithaca in 1500, the Republic was forced to recognize, in addition to
the Roman bishop, the existence of a Greek bishop (later archbishop) of
Cephalonia Zante, Ithaca, and the Strophades. The Greek bishop had been
instituted in 1454 by the former lord of these islands, Leonardo Tocco, and
was dependent on the metropolitan Archbishop of Corinth.155
Far-away Tinos was (and still is) exceptional in the religious composi-
tion of its inhabitants. More than half of Venice’s Tiniot subjects were
Roman Catholic. The island’s capital, the so-called Borgo, which was the
biggest town in the early modern Cyclades, had a mixed population of
Catholics and Orthodox, and so did a few villages. Thus, the distinction
between the two rites did not correspond to any division between the
urban and the rural society, as it did in Dalmatia. Most villages had either
an exclusively Catholic or an exclusively Orthodox population, but all
Greek churches also had an altar for the Latin rite. A protopapàs, subject
153 On the College of 32 priests, see Bacchion, Il dominio veneto su Corfù, p. 56 (1406).
According to Thiriet, there were other 33 priests, who functioned in the countryside;
Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, p. 403; on the Chief Priest, see Pagratis, ed., Εκκλησία και
Κράτος, p. 62; Miller, “The Ionian Islands,” pp. 218–19.
154 Hill, History of Cyprus, 3:1059–60; Theodoros Papadopoullos, “Η Εκκλησία Κύπρου
κατά την περίοδο της φραγκοκρατίας,” in Theodore Papadopoullos, ed., Ιστορία της Κύπρου
vol. 4/A (Nicosia, 1995), pp. 543–665; Chris Schabel, “Religion,” in Angel Nicolaou-Konnari
and Chris Schabel, eds., Cyprus. Society and Culture, 1191–1374 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 157–218;
Benjamin Arbel, “L’elezione dei prelati greci a Cipro durante la dominazione veneziana,”
in Maltezou, Tzavara, and Vlassi, eds., I Greci durante La venetocrazia, pp. 373–80.
155 Pagratis, ed., Εκκλησία και Κράτος, pp. 61–62. The Latin bishop of Cephalonia and
Zante had his see in Zante, whereas the Orthodox one was located on Cephalonia.