172 benjamin arbel
same pope even ruled in his bull In coena Domini that no Catholic prince
should allow people other than Catholics to enter into his territories. In
1573, Pope Gregory XIII founded a committee or congregation of cardi-
nals, Congregazione per la riforma dei Greci viventi in Italia, empowered
to “reform” all Greeks and Albanians living in Italy.168
Though founded mainly to combat the threat of Protestant heresy, the
Papal Inquisition quickly developed into a mechanism that prosecuted
any form of belief or behavior that was considered to be a menace to good
Christian society. Before the Catholic Reformation, the Orthodox Church
had generally been conceived by the Catholic Church as schismatic,
whereas Catholics tended to be considered by the Orthodox authorities as
heretics. The Catholic Reformation brought about a certain leveling of this
unbalanced relationship, since Orthodox Christians were often described
in Catholic documents of this period as heretics. Although Inquisition tri-
als against Orthodox Christians were relatively few, their very existence,
including in Venice’s Hellenic territories, is indicative of an ambition to
purify lands ruled by Catholics from any other form of Christian practice
and belief.169
This intolerant spirit ended up creating tensions also in Venetian over-
seas territories. Some of the Catholic prelates, led by the post-Tridentine
spirit of militant Catholicism, were resolute to reside in their sees in order
to oversee the implementation of the Church’s new policies. Thus in the
early 1560s, Filippo Mocenigo, Archbishop of Nicosia, who had also par-
ticipated in the last session of the Council of Trent, tried to implement its
decisions in Cyprus. His initiatives resulted in destabilizing the delicate
relationship between the dominant Catholic power and the predomi-
nantly Greek Orthodox Cypriots.170 The 21 years in which Lorenzo Vitturi,
a descendant of a Venetian patrician family, served as Archbishop of Crete
(1576–97) were characterized by recurrent conflicts between this prelate
and the Reggimento.171 The behavior of the Roman bishop of Tinos, Gior-
gio Perpignani, also ignited resentment among Greek Orthodox believ-
ers and caused preoccupation in Venice.172 The Republic considered
such intransigent conduct a threat to political stability. It instructed its
168 Peri, “L’incredibile risguardo,” pp. 600–01, 604.
169 Ibid., pp. 599–602.
170 J. Hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus (London, 1901; repr. 1972), pp.
174–75; Arbel, “Η Κύπρος,” p. 527.
171 Fedalto, Ricerche, p. 90; Tea, “Saggio sulla storia religiosa,” pp. 1380–85.
172 Tea, “Saggio sulla storia religiosa,” pp. 1409–11.