ABSTRACT
The profound religiosity observed in the works of El Greco has naturally drawn much comment from art historians. Most, with only a few dissenting voices, consider it certain that El Greco was born a Roman Catholic, basing their view, not without reason, on his religious subject matter (which was in absolute accord with Catholic doctrine) and his stylistic consistency,1 as well as his doctrinally impeccable life in both Italy and the Catholic stronghold of Toledo. What else, apart from true Catholic, could this painter, a leading artistic proponent of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, have been? But was this really the case? Or, to put it more specifically: is it true that El Greco was born a Roman Catholic? We shall take a fresh look at the issue, beginning with some general remarks.2 First of all, the indisputable fact that El Greco’s family belonged to the cittadini class of Candia would normally be sufficient justification for assuming that they were Orthodox.3 From the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, and presumably also in earlier periods, the reports of Venetian officials in the city show that the class structure of Candia’s population (and of other Cretan cities, with some local divergences) reflected its religious composition. Although thoroughly Hellenised, the nobili Veneti, with the sole exception of the Kallergis family (who had been granted the privilege of remaining Orthodox), were all Roman Catholic,4
1 Features of his paintings that are assumed to reflect Orthodox stylistic influence (see, for example, Kalokyris, Θεοτοκόπουλος ὁ Γκρέκο, 22) and are wholly inevitable in the work of an artist who, as we have seen, had been trained to paint in both the Western and Byzantine manner, can hardly be used as evidence that El Greco himself was Orthodox.
