Chrysanthos Notaras as an Astronomer

The aim of the present work is to emphasize the contribution of Chrysanthos Notaras (16??-1731) in the dispersion of Astronomy in the begining of the eighteenth century. Chysanthos Notaras, Partiarch of Jerusalem (1707-1731), is included among the most educated Greeks of his epoch. Although his first studies were suitable for ecclesiastic offices and religion, (since he studied ecclesiastic low, at Patavio, Italy), he continued at Paris for additional studies in Astronomy and Geography (1700). He became student of G.D. Cassini, who was the Director of Paris Observatory at that time, and he served as observer and astronomical instruments constructor, under Cassini's supervision. Chrysanthos Notaras included the teaching of "Astronomy" as a lesson in the schools of the Holy Sepulchre, in order to disperse the new ideas and knowledge about the earth and the universe among the young students. He published the first International Map (of the known world) in the Greek language in 1700 and in 1716 his book "Intoduction in Geography and Sphericals" was published in Paris. This book, written before 1707, was mainly an introduction to Astronomy and was used by the afterwards authors as an essential and basic manual and offered a lot to the enlightenment of the enslavement Greeks.