Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil. (Greek)
At this point we finish our journey through the history of one of the most important orders of the catholic church, during the middle ages and in more recent times, as well as the monastic institutions maintained by the order on the island of Santorini. The question that arises is: what is the contribution of our thesis to research and to the order’s history, in Greece in general, and more specifically in Santorini. The answer to the above question is to be found in the eight chapters of this thesis, and for its compilation we have made use of extant bibliography in the greek as well as in other languages and a great amount of previously unpublished material from the archives of the catholic bishopric of Thera (AKES) and the archives of the Dargentas family, founder and proprietor of the Skaros monastery.
The first chapters of this thesis are introductory and introduce us to the inner workings of the domenican family, in order to better comprehend the establishment and the journey through time of the monastic institutions, founded by the domenican order at Skaros, Emporio and Fira, where apart from the nunnery there used to exist also a male cenobiotic convent , during the second half of the 19th century.
The first of the three chapters concerns the founding, the operation and structure of the order since the first centuries of its existence as well as the life of its founder, Saint Domenic
The second chapter deals mainly with the presence of domenicans in European universities during the 13th century but also with one of the more sinister practices of the order, the Holy Inquisition. In this chapter we begin by presenting the activity of the domenicans in big civic centers, their presence in medieval universities and their contribution to the introduction to the curriculum of the works of Aristoteles and the study of his teachings. Then we concern ourselves with the part played by the order in the organization and operation of the Holy Inquisition. We present the reasons which necessitated the creation of the Holy Inquisition and we analyse in detail its role in the entrenchment and protection of the official dogma of the Catholic Church. Alongside all this we project the reasons behind the papal decision to entrust the organising of this institution (the Holy Inquisition) at first to the mendicant orders of the Domenicans and the Franciscans and then solely to the Domenicans.
The Holy Inquisition may have constituted a dark page in the history of the order but on the other hand its contribution to rescuing the spirit of classical Greece and the introduction of the ancient greek texts to the European universities was one of its greatest achievements. From this order have originated the most terrible and hateful persecutors of any deviation in theological behavior but also some of the more enlightened minds of their time, like Albert the great, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Erckhart, Beato Angelico and others. Through the work of these men we have the manifestation of another, luminous side of the order, which should not be forgotten.
The last of the three introductory chapters deals with the history of the monasteries as well as the local history of the order throughout the greek territory. Relying mainly on secondary sources but also on material from archives of the area, we present the operating and activities of the order’s monasteries which were established and still existed by the end of the 17th century.