The supposed positive contribution of the highest hierarchy of the Church to the Revolution of 1821 is one of the greatest ideological distortions of modern Greek History. Two hundred years later, the study of original sources, condemnatory encyclicals, and the counter-revolutionary actions of the patriarchate leave no room for misinterpretation.

This book includes a useful collection of such texts, published during the period 1798-1828. The detection of these historical documents remains an extremely difficult task even today, requiring in some cases the painstaking search for rare or out-of-print editions. In the "Black Book of 1821" you will read:

• the texts of the excommunication of the Revolution by the Patriarchate of Constantinople
• the reasons why the infamous lifting of the excommunication is an ecclesiastical myth
• how Gregory V attempted to appease the revolutionary sentiments of the Ionians and Peloponnesians in the late 18th century, while ordering the burning of Riga Feraios' texts
• the reasons why the excommunication of the Klephts by Patriarch Kallinikos V negatively affected the Revolution of '21
• the encyclicals through which Gregory V attempted to control Greek book production, launching an attack on the Natural Sciences
• the excommunication imposed on Bouboulina a few months before the uprising of the Greeks
• the texts of Patriarch Eugenios II, aimed at intimidating the Greeks immediately after the outbreak of the Revolution
• how Patriarch Agathangelos attempted to provoke a civil war in Ioannis Kapodistrias' Greece