Word: gregorius
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Polyglot See. The principal entrance to the grounds of Istanbul's patriarchate is a door that is never opened. Before it, in 1822 the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregorius V was hanged on the orders of Sultan Mahmoud II, who accused him of conspiring with the Greeks in a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. For generations, the Closed Door was an Orthodox shrine to the ancient enmity. Under Athenagoras, the door is still closed, but now, as an Orthodox official recently explained: "The Closed Door is a memorial for a dead Patriarch, not a reminder of the way he died...
Mann leads his characters through the guilty old dilemma. Wiligis and Sibylla, twin children of the Duke of Flauadres and Artoys, fall into incestuous love. When a child is conceived, guilty Wiligis goes off to die on a pilgrimage, while Sibylla penitently vows never to marry. When little Gregorius is born, he is cast adrift in a little boat, with a note that tells his story but not his identity. Gregorius is saved by fishermen and grows up in a monastery. In due time, of course, he goes out in the world to unravel his origin-and meets and marries...
Their happiness is brief: confronted with the evidence that Sibylla is his mother, Gregorius.flees in horror. In penance, he chains himself to a rock for 17 years. Then one day, messengers from Rome arrive with the news of a miraculous vision: for his true penitence, Gregorius has been named the worthiest of all God's creatures to sit in St. Peter's chair...
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