"In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with the approbation of the holy and universal Council of Florence, we define that this truth of the faith ought to be believed and received by all Christians, and that all should profess: that the Holy Ghost is eternally from the Father and the Son, and that he receives eternally his essence and existence from the Father and simultaneously from the Son; that he eternally proceeds from both as from one principle and by one only spiration. We declare that the assertion of holy doctors and fathers who say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son, goes to signify that just as is the Father so is the Sonaccording to the Greeks the cause, according to the Latins the principle, of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit. And because all that the Father has, the Father himself has given to his only begotten Son, in begetting him--all except his Paternity, so the Son receives eternally from the Father of whom he is eternally begotten, even this, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son. We define also, concerning the words. Filioque' that they were lawfully and reasonably added to the Creed for the sake of explaining the dogma, and were necessary at the time. Also that the body of Christ is truly produced in azyme, or in leavened wheaten bread, and that priests ought to consecrate the Lord's body in the one or in the other, each according to the usage of his own Church, whether the Eastern or the Western."

After the definition of what concerns Purgatory, a point on which the Greeks made fewer difficulties, the Decree continues: "We define, also, that the holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff possess primacy over the whole world, and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and the true Vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, and the father and doctor of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of blessed Peter, full power has been given by our Lord Jesus

Sanctum ad hanc intelligentiam tendit, ut per hoc significetur, Filium quoque esse secundum Græcos quidem causam, secundum Latinos vero principium subsistentiæ Spiritus Sancti sicut et Patrem. Et quoniam omnia quæ Patris sunt, Pater ipse unigenito Filio suo gignendo dedit, præter esse Patrem, hoc ipsum quod Spiritus Sanctus procedit ex Filio, ipse Filius a Patre æternaliter habet, a quo etiam æternaliter genitus est. Diffinimus insuper, explicationem verborum illorum, Filioque,' veritatis declarandæ gratia, et imminente tunc necessitate, licite et rationabiliter symbolo fuisse appositam. Item, in azymo sive fermentato pane triticeo, corpus Christi veraciter confici; sacerdotesque in altero ipsum Domini corpus conficere debere, unumquemque scilicet juxta suæ Ecclesiæ sive occidentalis sive orientalis consuetudinem. Item, diffinimus sanc

tam Apostolicam sedem, et Romanum Pontificem in universum orbem tenere primatum et ipsum Pontificem Romanum successorem esse Beati Petri principis Apostolorum et verum Christi vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiæ caput et omnium Christianorum patrem et doctorem existere; et ipsi in Beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem Ecclesiam a Domino nostro Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse; quemadmodum etiam in gestis oecumenicorum conciliorum, et in sacris canonibus continentur."

Christ, to feed, to rule, to govern the Universal Church-even as also is contained in the Acts of the Ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons."

Union being thus re-established, the Easterns returned to their sees and the Emperor to Constantinople. Metrophanes, who was elected in place of Joseph, who had died at Florence, published the Union, and the Schism was for the moment extinct. But Mark of Ephesus, who had never ceased his opposition in the Council, soon after sowed new seeds of discord. Many monks of Constantinople and its environs joined their clamour to that of the bishop of Ephesus, and as early as 1452 the Pope was obliged to send to Constantinople, Isidore, the primate of Kieff, to appease the disturbances. The Turks, on their side, seeing in the Roman Pontiff their most redoubtable adversary, strove to detach the Christians of the East from Rome. Thus they urged the three Patriarchs of Antioch, of Jerusalem, and of Alexandria to assemble in Council, in 1443, to declare the Act of Union of Florence wicked, and to separate themselves from the Patriarch Metrophanes.*

The fall of the Byzantine Empire and capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, forcibly put an end to all relations between the East and the West. The Turks, continually at war with Western princes, whom the sovereign Pontiffs aided with all their power, exerted themselves to prevent any relations between their Christian subjects and the Latins. Any Patriarch of Constantinople who should have dared publicly to speak of his union and submission to the Pope, would at once have been considered a traitor, and would have exposed his person, his clergy and his people to the greatest trouble, perhaps even to complete extermination. This explains how Gennadius and his three immediate successors were able to occupy the Patriarchal see without manifesting in their words or acts either any trace of schism, or any mention of the union, or of the sovereign Pontiff. A paramount interest, a supreme necessity may at least excuse, if it cannot justify, their conduct.†

The East thus found itself once more in Schism as did, quite recently, the United-Greeks of Chelm, almost without knowing it.

Political reasons, not religious motives, brought about the separation. We have a proof of this in the Greek Churches of Sicily, Austria, and Hungary; they were not subjected to the yoke of the Ottoman, and have remained faithful to the union. made at Florence. At the present moment Austria alone counts more than four millions of United-Greeks. If further proof is

*Pitzipios, opere citato, p. 59.

† Pitzipios, p. 74-78.

needed let attention be given to the way in which the nomination of the Patriarch Gennadius was made, and the truth of what we have advanced will be easily understood.

Mahomet II. having rendered his name for ever famous by the capture of Constantinople; having destroyed the beautiful churches of that city; having converted the sumptuous basilica of Saint Sophia into a mosque, and massacred a multitude of Christians, grew terrified at the solitude which he himself had created, and determined to repeople Constantinople. He summoned the Christians thither, gave them back certain churches, and permitted the free exercise of their worship. The patriarchal throne was vacant. Mahomet desired that a Patriarch should be chosen in accordance with ancient customs. George Scholarius, a very learned monk, who had supported the union at Florence, was elected against his own wish. Mahomet claimed for himself the same rights as the schismatical Emperors had claimed for themselves. Seated on a throne magnificently adorned, in the grand hall of the palace, he received the newly elected bishop and placed in his hand the pastoral staff. Then, forgetting that he was a Mussulman, he pronounced, in Greek, the formula adopted by the Emperors: "The most Holy Trinity, who has given me the Empire, makes thee Archbishop of Constantinople-the new Rome-and ecumenical Patriarch." the same time he clothed the Patriarch with a rich pallium, enjoining on him to govern the Church according to ancient customs, and constituting him head of all his co-religionists, civilly as well as religiously, with the title of " Milet-Bachi" (head of nation), and with orders to keep all Christians in submission and obedience to the new sovereign. After a long discourse, in which the Patriarch explained to the Sultan the Christian teaching, without making mention of the Pope, the Sultan reconducted Gennadius to the door of the Hall of Audience. A horse from the Sultan's stables, richly caparisoned, was led up for the Patriarch, and the grandees of the palace accompanied him as far as the cathedral. A Berat, or diploma, was sent to him, in the name of the Sultan, which conferred on the Patriarch the largest civil and judicial rights over his co-religionists, and exempted him and his successors from all compulsory labour and taxes. The rights and privileges conferred by the Sultans on different Christian communities are, to this day, regulated according to the tenor of this Berat.

At

In this manner the Sultan put himself in the place of the schismatical Emperors and excluded all intervention of the Sovereign Pontiff. The Greek Church fell again under the domination of the temporal power, and was more enslaved than ever. Simony quickly made itself felt in the nomination of

Patriarchs, and the Byzantine Church, which the union of Florence had raised up, sank once more into schism and worthlessness. The first Patriarch who bought his dignity from the Sultan, was Simeon. In order to obtain it he bound himself to pay a fine, called karazion, of a thousand ducats, and to give up the salary which his predecessors had received from the public treasury. And he was supplanted, at the end of a year, by a rival who engaged to pay a karazion of two thousand ducats. And this one again, in his turn, was displaced by a third, who bid fifty ducats more. At last the karazion, under the Patriarch Joachim, towards the year 1500, had grown to be three thousand five hundred ducats, without counting gratuities and presents of every sort given to the eunuchs of the palace and to other employés of the Sublime Porte.*

In order to be able to meet all these expenses the Patriarch levied a money payment in return for the collation of holy orders. Thus, simony spread to every rank of the clergy, and hence came the promotion to ecclesiastical dignities and to the patriarchate of incapable and corrupt subjects. But efforts were made at times, by pious prelates, to heal the Greek Church of the wound of simony. The Patriarch Jeremiah II. (15721594), in a numerous Synod, recalled to notice the canonical prescriptions as to the gratuitous collation of orders, and all bishops were forbidden, under pain of deposition, to receive any recompense for conferring sacred orders. It was this same Patriarch Jeremiah who, in 1584, wrote to Gregory XIII. that "it was his (Gregory's) office as head of the Catholic Church to point out what means ought to be adopted against the Protestants."t

It is not our purpose here to trace the history of the attitude which, in spite of its schism, the Eastern Church has maintained towards Protestantism. It is known that in four successive Councils she energetically rejected the errors of Luther, of Calvin, and of the other pretended Reformers.

The Patriarch of Constantinople gradually grew weaker under the iron hand of the Sultans. The erection, in 1589, of a Russian patriarchate at Moscow, by Jeremiah II., diminished very notably the influence of the Greek Church upon the Church of Russia. The foundation of the Holy Synod (1721) completely emancipated the Russian Church from the patriarchate of Constantinople. In their turn the Greek Churches claimed

*Lequien," Oriens Christianus," I. 145 sqq; Pitzipios, op. cit., 2nd part, p. 81, sqq.

+ See Schelstrate, "Acta Orientalis Ecclesiæ contra Lutherum," I., 219-252.

their autonomy, and were emancipated in 1833. Thirty-six bishops of Greece, assembled at Nauplia (15-27th July, 1833), defined that the orthodox Oriental Church of Greece recognized no other supreme head than Jesus Christ.* As to the temporal administration of that Church it is subject to the King of Greece, who, as supreme chief, names the members of the Synod which is placed at the head of the whole neo-Greek Church, just as the Tzars nominate the Holy Synod of the Russian Church. More recently the Bulgarians have, in like manner, demanded autonomy. After many difficulties the Churches of Bulgaria are at last subject to an exarch, or primate, who is independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The last war and the Treaty of Berlin have still further diminished the extent of the jurisdiction of the latter.

ORGANIZATION AND PRESENT CONDITION OF THE GREEK CHURCH.

The Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Schismatic Greeks who are subjects of Turkey number 11,000,000 to 12,000,000, inclusive of Bulgarians. Like the Russians, they pretend to be, and call themselves, "Orthodox." Their head is the Patriarch of Constantinople, and he assumes the title of Ecumenical Patriarch. By virtue of the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedont he is superior to the Patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. The last-named administers the patriarchate during a vacancy. The Patriarch is not only spiritual head of all who profess the Greek religion, but also their temporal head, under the supreme sovereignty of the

*Nevertheless the Patriarchs of Constantinople never ceased to assert their rights over Greece. But at last, seeing that their demands were useless, they definitely recognized, in 1868, the autonomy and independence of the Church of Greece.

This canon reads thus :-"The throne of ancient Rome, because it was the capital of the Empire, was adorned with privileges by the Fathers. For the same motive the hundred and fifty bishops, beloved of God, decide to attribute the same privileges to the throne of New Rome, so that she may enjoy equal privileges with ancient Rome, even in matters ecclesiastical, and thus be raised in honour the second after her. . . . ." This same canon extends the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople over the provinces of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace. But this canon, decreed in the absence of the Pope's legates, was never ratified. It is wanting from the "Canonical Collection" of Dionysius Exiguus. The essential part of it is wanting even in a MS. of Moscow, as was noticed by Cardinal Pitra in his great work "Juris Eccles. Græc. Historia et Monumenta," I., 532. The Emperors of Constantinople having arranged the hierarchical order of the Patriarchal Sees thus:-Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem-Innocent III., in the fourth Council of Lateran, ratified it, ordering that every Patriarch should receive the pallium from the Supreme Pontiff, and take an oath of obedience to him.