Bambas, Neophytos

Bambas, Neophytos an archimandrite of the Greek Church, and one of the principal prose writers of modern Greece, was born upon the island of Chios, and died at Athens in Feb. 1855. He studied at the College of Chios and at the University of Paris, reorganized, after his return from Paris, the College of Chios, and remained its president until the war of independence in 1821. In 1824 he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Corfu, afterward director of the college at Syra, and, at last, Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric at the University of Athens. On account of his extensive learning, the British and Foreign Bible Society confided to him the task of translating, in union with Rev. Mr. Lowndes, and Mr. Nicolaides of Philadelphia in Asia Minor, the Bible into modern Greek. During the latter years of his life, Mr. Bambas attached himself, however, to the Russian or Napaean party, which is hostile to the reformation of the Church. He wrote a manual of sacred eloquence (Ε᾿γχειρίδιον τÁς τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἀμβῶνος ῥητορικῆς, Athens, 1851), a manual of ethics (Ε᾿γχειρίδιον τῆς ἠθικῆς, Athens, 1853), and other works on philosophy, ethics, and rhetoric, and several Greek grammars. See Baird, Modern Greece, p. 80, 330 (N. Y. 1856).