venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 175
The establishment of a Greek Archbishop of Philadelphia in Venice in
1578 was also aimed at severing the direct dependence of Greek Orthodox
prelates in Venice’s overseas territories on the Patriarch of Constantino-
ple and at preventing them from turning to Orthodox prelates in Otto-
man territories for their consecration. The Archbishop of Philadelphia
thus became, at least in principle, the highest authority of Greek Ortho-
dox Church in all the Venetian dominions, although his control over the
Orthodox clergy in the stato da mar could not be very effective. In 1644,
Venice even obtained the patriarch’s formal recognition of this author-
ity of the Archbishop of Philadelphia (as his legate), and in another bull,
issued seven years later, the patriarch confirmed the consecration of the
bishop of Cerigo by the Archbishop of Cephalonia, as a delegate of the
Archbishop of Philadelphia, an act that can be seen as both recognition of
a fait-accompli and an expression of his own superior authority.181
Venice also preferred that the Archbishop of Philadelphia be conse-
crated in the Ionian Islands (i.e., on Venetian territory) by three Ortho-
dox archbishops and not in Constantinople by the patriarch, although
this procedure also had to receive the patriarch’s permission. Another
stratagem to avoid the consecration by the patriarch was the election of a
former patriarch as Archbishop of Philadelphia, as in the case of Metho-
dios Moronis, elected in December 1677, or the election of senior prel-
ates such as Athanasios Valerianos, bishop of Cerigo, as Archbishop of
Philadelphia in 1635, and of Sofronios Koutouvalis, Archbishop of Zante
and Cephalonia, to the Philadelphia see in 1780; their nomination was
considered as a transfer from one seat to another, without need of another
consecration.182
However, the Patriarch of Constantinople continued to be “an invisible
local power” in Crete, and most probably also in other Greek Orthodox
territories of the stato da mar. According to the report of a 17th-century
Venetian governor of La Canea, the patriarch’s agents arrived every year
clandestinely to collect revenues; they carried with them blank forms of
diplomas, benedictions, and excommunications, which they offered for
sale, and they left the island “enriched by alms and spoils.”183 Apparently
Venice was unable to stop this activity.
An even more difficult situation awaited Venice in the Morea, conquered
by the Republic in the 1680s. Here, under the previous Ottoman rule, the
181 Manussacas [sic], “La comunità greca di Venezia,” pp. 55, 57–87.
182 Ibid., pp. 58–62, 67.
183 Tea, “Saggio sulla storia religiosa,” pp. 1368–69.