# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/The Greek Church

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​GREEK CHURCH, The, or more properly the Eastern Church, is both the source and background of the Western. Christianity arose in the East, and Greek was the language of the Scriptures and early services of the church, but when Latin Christianity established itself in Europe and Africa, and when the old Roman empire fell in two, and the eastern half became separate in government, interests, and ideas from the western, the term Greek or Eastern Church acquired gradually a fixed meaning. It denoted the church which included the patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, and their dependencies. The ecclesiastical division of the early church, at least within the empire, was based upon the civil. Constantine introduced a new partition of the empire into dioceses, and the church adopted a similar division. The bishop of the chief city in each diocese naturally rose to a pre-eminence, and was commonly called exarch — a title borrowed from the civil jurisdiction. In process of time the common title patriarch was restricted to the most eminent of these exarchs, and councils decided who were worthy of the dignity. The council of Nicaea recognized three patriarchs — the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. To these were afterwards added the bishops of Constantinople and Jerusalem. When the empire was divided, there was one patriarch in the West, the bishop of Rome, while in the East there were at first two, then four, and latterly five. This geographical fact has had a great deal to do in determining the character of the Eastern Church. It is not a despotic monarchy governed from one centre and by a monarch in whom plenitude of power resides. It is an oligarchy of patriarchs. It is based, of course, on the great body of bishops; but episcopal rule, through the various grades of metropolitan, primate, exarch, attains to sovereignty only in the five patriarchal thrones. Each patriarch is, within his diocese, what the Galliean theory makes the pope in the universal church. He is supreme, and not amenable to any of his brother patriarchs, but is within the jurisdiction of an œcumenical synod. This makes the Greek Church quite distinct in government and traditions of polity from the Western. It has ever been the policy of Rome to efface national distinctions, but under the shadow of the Eastern Church national churches have grown and flourished. Revolts against Rome have always implied a repudiation of the ruling principles of Ultramontanism; but the schismatic churches of the East have always reproduced the ecclesiastical polity of the church which they have deserted.
The Greek Church, like the Roman, soon spread out far beyond the imperial dioceses which at first fixed its boundaries, but, unlike the Roman, it did not keep for Christianity all the lands it had once laid hold of. What Rome Christianized, with the exception of Africa, remained Christian. The old empire was overrun by the barbarians, but the conquered empire imposed its law and its religion upon its conquerors, and pagan and heretic became in the end Catholic Christians. In the East it was otherwise. The empire maintained itself long and died hard; but its decline and fall meant not merely the overthrow of the supremacy of the emperors of the East, it meant also the destruction of civilization and the submergence of Christianity. In the West, German and Saxon, and Goth and Lombard, became Christian law-abiding peoples. In the East Arab and Kurd, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turk, remained what they were before they swarmed over the Eastern empire, and could never be taught either law or gospel. It is true that the Eastern Church more than made up for her losses by her missionary enterprise, but she never conquered her conqueror, and the historian is too apt to speak of her past glories and forget her present strength. The same reason also makes it difficult to describe, with any accuracy, the extent of the Greek Church. She has shifted her position so often that to describe her extent at any one period must be misleading. The church never at any one period occupied all the territories she has possessed.
The patriarchate of Constantinople included the imperial dioceses of Pontus, Asia, Thrace, and Eastern Illyricum — i.e., speaking roughly, the greater part of Asia Minor, European Turkey, and Greece, with a small portion of Austria. The imperial diocese of Pontus was governed by the exarch of Caesarea, who ruled over thirteen metropolitans with more than 100 suffragans; now there are nine metropolitans (Kaisarieh, Nisi, Angouri, Niksar, Amasia, Isinid, Kadikiov, Broussa, Iznik), and one archbishopric (Trebizond), but the suffragans seem to have disappeared. Asia was governed by the exarch of Ephesus, who ruled over twelve metropolitans with more than 350 suffragan bishops. Of these there remain Ephesus, with its suffragans Aidene and Chisme, Smyrna, Artaki, Marmora, Allah Shehr, Rhodes, Samos, Khio, Cos, Paronaxia, Santorina, Audro, Milo, Lero, Scarpanto, Sephanto, Imbro, Lemno, Metelini, Molivo, Myra, and Konieh. In Asia Minor the church maintains but a small remnant of her former greatness; in Europe it is otherwise. The old outlines, however, are effaced wherever the Christian races have emancipated themselves from the Turkish rule, and the national churches of Greece, Servia, and Roumania have reorganized themselves on a new basis. Where the Turkish rule still prevails the church retains her old organization, but greatly impaired. The national churches of Russia, Georgia, and Armenia are offshoots from the patriarchate of Constantinople, but quite independent of its jurisdiction.
The patriarchate of Antioch has undergone most changes in extent of jurisdiction, arising from the transfer of sees to Jerusalem, from the progress of the schismatic churches of the East, and from the conquests of the Mahometans. At the height of his power the patriarch of Antioch ruled over 12 metropolitans and 250 suffragan bishops. In the time of the first crusade 153 still survived; now there are scarcely 20. Most of those that remain are called either metropolitan or archiepiscopal sees, but they have few or no suffragans. In Syria there are still Antioch, Aleppo, Laodicea, and Arcadia; in Phoenicia, Tyre and Sidon, Beyrout, Tripolis, Emesa, and Heliopolis; in Cilicia, Adana; in Syria, Epiphania; in Isauria, Seleucia; in Cyprus, Famagosta, with Piscopa, Baffo, Neapolis, Limasol, and Nicosia as suffragan sees. Cyprus has been independent of Antioch, however, since the council of Ephesus. Antioch also had jurisdiction beyond the bounds of the empire over Chaldæa and India, and the missionaries of Antioch seem to have preached Christianity in the borders of China. The Chaldæaean Church now, however, is almost entirely Nestorian. The Thomas Christians of India do not belong to the Orthodox Greek Church. In Syria the Jacobites are more numerous than the Orthodox; while the Maronites of Lebanon have become subject to Rome.
In the earlier period of the church, ecclesiastical followed civil divisions so closely that Jerusalem, in spite of the sacred associations connected with it, was merely an ordinary bishopric dependent on the metropolitan of Casarea. Ambitious prelates had from time to time endeavoured to advance the pretensions of their see, but it was not until the council of Chalcedon, in 451, that Jerusalem was made a patriarchate with jurisdiction over Palestine. From this time on to the inroad of the Saracens, the patriarchate of Jerusalem was highly prosperous. It ruled over three metropolitans with eighty suffragans. The modern patriarch has seven suffragans, all of whom enjoy the titles of metropolitan or archbishop, Cæsarea, Scythopolis (Bethshan), Petra, Ptolemais, Sinai, Nablous, Samaria. The patriarchs, however, are non-resident (they live in Constantinople), and the primate of Palestine is the metropolitan of Cæsarea.
​The patriarch of Alexandria in ancient times possessed much more power than the others, and the church ruled by him was much more centralized. He had no metropolitans. His hundred suffragans were ordinary bishops. This perhaps in part accounts for the decay of the Orthodox church in Egypt; at present there is no bishop but the patriarch. The Christians in Egypt are for the most part Monophysites. The church of Nubia has been blotted out. The church of Æthiopia or Abyssinia is Monophysite, and acknowledges the Jacobite patriarch of Cairo.
History.—Controversies and Schisms.—To describe the controversies of the Greek Church is to write the history of the church of the first five centuries; in a short sketch like this all that can be done is to mention those causes of division which led (1) to the formation of the schismatic churches of the East, and (2) to the open rupture with Latin Christianity. The great dogmatic work of the Greek Church was the definition of that portion of the creed of Christendom which concerns theology proper, the doctrines of the essential nature of the Godhead, and the doctrine of the Godhead in relation with manhood in the incarnation, while it fell to the Latin Church to define anthropology, or the doctrine of man's nature and needs. The controversies which concern us are all about the person of Christ, the Theanthropos, for they alone are represented in the schismatic churches of the East. These controversies are most easily described, at least for our purpose, by reference to the œcumenical councils of the ancient and undivided church.
Rise of Sects.—All the churches of the East, schismatic as well as orthodox, accept unreservedly the decrees of the first two councils. The schismatic churches protest against the additions made to the creeds of Nicæa and Constant inople by succeeding councils. The Nicæo-Constantin- opolitan creed declared that Christ was consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father, and that He had become man (ὲνανθρωπἠσας). Disputes arose when theologians tried to explain the latter phrase. These differences took two separate and extreme types, the one of which forcibly separated the two natures so as to deny anything like a real union, while the other insisted upon a mixture of the two, or an absorption of the human in the divine. The former was the creed of Chaldæa and the latter the creed of Egypt; Chaldæa was the home of Nestorianism, Egypt the land of Monophysitism. The Nestorians accept the decisions of the first two councils, and reject the decrees of all the rest as unwarranted alterations of the creed of Nicæa, The Monophysites accept the first three councils, but reject the decree of Chalcedon and all that come after it.
The council of Ephesus, the third œcumenical, had insisted upon applying the term Theotokos to the Virgin Mary, and this was repeated in the symbol of Chalcedon, which says that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, "according to the manhood." The same symbol also declares that Christ is "to be acknowledged in two natures, . . . indivisibly and inseparably." Hence the Nestorians, who insisted upon the duality of the natures to such a degree as to lose sight of the unity of the person, and who rejected the term Theotokos, repudiated the decrees both of Ephesus and of Chalcedon, and upon the promulgation of the decrees of Chalcedon formally separated from the church. Nestorianism had sprung from an exaggeration of the theology of the school of Antioch, and the schism weakened that patriarchate and its dependencies. It took root in Chaldæa, and became very powerful. No small part of the literature and science of the Mahometan Arabs came from Nestorian teachers, and Nestorian Christianity spread widely. "It was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, the Elamites. The barbaric churches from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea were almost infinite. . . . The Malabar coast and the Isles of the Ocean, Zocotra and Ceylon, were peopled with an increasing number of Christians. The missionaries of Balkh and Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the valleys of the Imaus and the banks of the Selinga." Their principal bishop took the title of patriarch of Babylon. His seat was later removed to Baghdad and then to Mosul; it is now at Julamerik in Kurdistan. In the 11th century he ruled over twenty-five metropolitans, and his jurisdiction extended from the Tigris to China, from Lake Baikal to South India. Persecutions weakened the church, Timur almost extirpated it. In the 16th century a schism occurred; many of the Nestorians yielded obedience to Rome. The Roman Nestorians are usually called Chaldæans, though all lay claim to the title. At present the patriarch rules over two metropolitans and sixteen suffragan bishops. The Nestorians dwell principally in Kurdistan, though many are found in Mesopotamia and in India. In the latter country they are numerous on the Malabar coast, and are called Thomas Christians.
The council of Chalcedon, the fourth œcumenical, declared that Christ is to be acknowledged "in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably," and therefore decided against the opinions of all who either believed that the divinity is the sole nature of Christ, or who, rejecting this, taught only one composite nature of Christ (one nature and one person, instead of two natures and one person). The advocates of the one nature theory were called Monophysites, and they gave rise to numerous sects, and to at least three separate national churches — the Jacobites of Syria, the Copts of Egypt, and the Abyssinian Church.
The term "Jacobite" (from Jacobus Baradæus, a Syrian theologian) is properly confined to the Syrian Monophysites, but is sometimes used to denote all the various divisions of this heresy. The Jacobites therefore accept the first three councils and reject those that follow. The Armenian Church does the same, and it is common to class the Armenians with the Jacobites, while some theologians have made them more heretical than the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt (Neale, Holy Eastern Church, Patriarchate of Alexandria, pp. 8-10). This, however, seems a wrong opinion, and the Armenians ought to be reckoned as Orthodox (see Armenian Church). Apart, however, from theological criticism, the Jacobites are arranged under three patriarchates — Antioch, Alexandria, and Armenia. Antioch and Alexandria have intercommunion, but Armenia, in spite of times of reconciliation, stands apart. Under the patriarch of Alexandria is the metran or metropolitan of Abyssinia, and under the patriarch of Antioch the maphrian or primate of the East. The Jacobites or Copts of Egypt greatly outnumber the members of the Orthodox Greek Church there. The patriarch assumes jurisdiction over Egypt, Jerusalem, Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Pentapolis. He now resides in Cairo, and is chosen by lot in a council of all the bishops from a number of monks recommended by four convents to whom belongs this privilege. He has for suffragans the bishops of Menouf, Sherkeyeh, Behnese, Fayoum, Miniyeh, Senabau, Manfalout, Siout, Abuteg, Aschumin, Esne, Kauss and Nekada, and Khartoum. He has besides jurisdiction over twenty-six monasteries, and rules nominally over the Church of Abyssinia.
The Syrian Jacobites also form a patriarchate — the patriarchate of Antioch. While Antioch belonged to the empire the persecution of the state drove the Jacobite patriarch from the city. He settled at Amida, now called Caramit, which is still the ecclesiastical centre. The second dignitary is the maphrian (fruitbearer) of the East, who was originally a missionary bishop to the regions east of the Tigris. He is now settled at Mosul. The Syrian Jacobites ​could at one time boast 20 metropolitans and 103 bishops; now there are only 5 metropolitans (Caramit, Mosul, Maadan, Aleppo, and Jerusalem) without suffragans.
The decisions of Chalcedon, which were the occasion of the formation of all these sects outside, did not put an end to Christological controversy inside the Orthodox Greek Church. The most prominent question which emerged in attempting to define further the person of Christ was whether the will belonged to the nature or the person, or, as it came to be stated, whether Christ had two wills or only one. The church in the sixth œcumenical council at Constantinople declared that Christ had two wills. The Monotheletes refused to submit, and the result was the formation of another schismatic church — the Maronite Church of the Lebanon range. The Maronites, however, in the 12th century were reconciled to Rome, and cannot now be said to belong to the Greek Church.
Conflict with Rome.—The relation of the Greek Church to the Roman may be described as one of growing estrangement from the 5th to the 11th century, and a series of abortive attempts at reconciliation since the latter date. The estrangement and final rupture may be traced to the overweening pretensions of the Roman bishops and to Western innovation in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by an alteration of creed. In the early church three bishops stood forth prominently, principally from the political eminence of the cities in which they ruled — the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. The transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople gave the bishops of Rome a possible rival in the patriarch of Constintinople, but the absence of an overawing court and meddling statesmen did more than recoup the loss to the head of the Roman Church. The theological calmness of the West, amid the violent theological disputes which troubled the Eastern patriarchates, and the statesmanlike wisdom of Rome's greater bishops, combined to give a unique position to the pope, which councils in vain strove to shake, and which in time of difficulty the Eastern patriarchs were fain to acknowledge and make use of, however they might protest against it and the conclusions deduced from it. But this pre-eminence, or rather the Roman idea of what was involved in it, was never acknowledged in the East; to press it upon the Eastern patriarchs was to prepare the way for separation, to insist upon it in times of irritation was to cause a schism. The theological genius of the East was different from that of the West. The Greek theology had its roots in Greek philosophy, while a great deal of Western theology was based on Roman law. The Greek fathers succeeded the Sophists, the Latin theologians succeeded the Roman advocates (Stanley's East. Ch., ch. i.). This gave rise to misunderstandings, and at last led to two widely separate ways of regarding and defining one important doctrine — the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father or from the Father and the Son. Political jealousies and interests intensified the disputes, and at last, after many premonitory symptoms, the final break came in 1054, when Leo. IX. smote Michael Cerularius and the whole of the Eastern Church with an excommunication. There had been mutual excommunications before, but they had not resulted in permanent schisms. "It was scarce two centuries since anathemas had been exchanged between Adrian I. and Photius, between Photius and Nicholas I. The sixth council had formally anathematized Honorius I. by name. There had been great violence of language in the 6th century between Gregory I. and John the Faster, and not many years before that the name of Vigilius had been deliberately erased from every one of the diptychs of the Eastern Church" (Ffoulkes's Christendom's Divisions, i. § 17). Now, however, the separation was final, and the ostensible cause of its finality was the introduction by the Latins of two words filioque into the creed. It is this addition which was and which still remains the permanent cause of separation. Ffoulkes has pointed out in his second volume (ch. 1-3) that there was a resumption of intercourse more than once between Rome and Constantinople after 1054, and that the overbearing character of the Norman crusaders, and finally the horrors of the sack of Constantinople in the fourth crusade, were the real causes of the permanent estrangement. It is undeniable, however, that the filioque question has always come up to bar the way in any subsequent attempts at intercommunion. The theological question involved is a very small one, but it brings out clearly the opposing characteristics of Eastern and Western theology, and so has acquired an importance far beyond its own worth. The question is really one about the relations subsisting between the persons of the Trinity and their hypostatical properties. The Western Church affirms that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from" the Father and from the Son. It believes that the Spirit of the Father must be the Spirit of the Son also. Such a theory seems alone able to satisfy the practical instincts of the West, which did not concern itself with the metaphysical aspect of the Trinity, but with Godhead in its relation to redeemed humanity. The Eastern Church affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only. The Eastern theologian thinks that the Western double procession degrades the Deity and destroys the perfection of the Trinity. The double procession, in his eyes, means two active principles (αὶτἰαι) in the Deity, and it means also that there is a confusion be tween the hypostatical properties; a property possessed by the Father and distinctive of the First Person is attributed also to the Second. This is the theological, and there is conjoined with it an historical and moral dispute. The Greeks allege that the addition of the filioque was made, not only without authority, and therefore unwarrantably, but also for the purpose of forcing a rupture between East and West in the interests of the barbarian empire of the West.
Attempts at reconciliation were made from time to time afterwards, but were always wrecked on the two points of papal supremacy, when it meant the right to impose Western usages upon the East, and of the addition to the creed. First there was the negotiation between Pope Gregory IX. and the Greek patriarch Germanus. The Latin conditions were practically recognition of papal jurisdiction, the use of unleavened bread enforced on the Greeks, and the Greeks to be permitted to omit filioque on condition that they burnt all books written against the Western doctrine. The Greek patriarch refused the terms. Then came negotiations under Innocent IV. and Clement IV., in which the popes proposed the same conditions as Gregory IX., with additions. These proposals were rejected by the Greeks, who regarded them as attempts to enforce new creeds on their church.
The negotiations at the council of Lyons (1274) were, strictly speaking, between the pope and the Greek emperor, and were more political than ecclesiastical. Michael Palseologus ruled in Constantinople while Baldwin II., the last of the Latin emperors, was an exile in Europe. Palseologus wished the pope to acknowledge his title to be emperor of the East, and in return promised submission to the papal supremacy and the union of the Greek with the Latin Church on the pope's own terms. This enforced union lasted only during the lifetime of the emperor. The only other attempt at union which requires to be mentioned is that made at the council of Florence. It was really sugested by the political weakness of the Byzantine empire and the dread of tho approach of the Turks. John Palseologus the emperor, Joseph the patriarch of Constantinople, and several Greek bishops came to Italy and appeared at the council of Florence — the papal council, the rival of the
​council of Basel. As on former occasions the Greeks were at first deceived by false representations ; they were betrayed into recognition of papal supremacy, and tricked into signing what could afterwards be represented as a submission to Western doctrine. The natural consequences followed, a repudiation of what had been done ; and the Greek bishops on their way home took care to make emphatic their ritual istic differences from Rome. Soon after came the fall of Constantinople, and with this event an end to the political reasons for the submission of the Greek clergy. Rome s schemes for a union which meant an unconditional submis sion on the part of the Greeks did not cease, however, but they were no longer attempted on a grand scale. Jesuit missionaries after the Reformation stirred up schisms in some parts of the Eastern Church, and in Austria and Poland many of the Greeks were compelled to submit them selves to the se e of Rome. The result of these schemes has been what is called the U/iia, or the United Greeks. These various unions have commonly arisen from dissensions among the Greeks themselves when a portion of the dis sentients have made submission to Rome. Rome commonly promised to allow them to enjoy their own liturgies and rites of worship, but usually broke her promises. This was done so systematically that the college of the Propaganda prints what profess to be the old liturgies of the Eastern churches, which are really so interpolated as to bring them surreptitiously into harmony with the Western rites. This is done so universally that it is impossible to trust to any professedly Eastern creed or service-book printed at the office of the Propaganda in Rome.
Differentiation of National Churches included in the Orthodox Greek Church.—Mr Finlay, in his History of Greece, has shown that there has been always a very close relation between the church and national life. Christianity from the first connected itself with the social organization of the people, and therefore iu every province assumed the language and the usages of the locality. In this way it was able to command at once individual attachment and universal power. This feeling died down to some extent when Constantine made use of the church to consolidate his empire. But it revived under the persecution of the A rian emperors. The struggle against Arianism was not merely a struggle for orthodoxy. Athanasius was really at the head of a national Greek party resisting the domina tion of a Latin-speaking court. From this time onwards Greek patriotism and Greek orthodoxy have bsen almost convertible terms, and this led naturally to revolts against Greek supremacy in the days of Justinian and other em perors. Dean Stanley is probably correct when he describes the heretical churches of the East as the ancient national churches of Egypt, Syria, and Armenia in revolt against supposed innovations in the earlier faith imposed on them by Greek supremacy. In the East, as in Scotland, the history of the church is the key to the history of the nation, and in the freedom of the church the Greek saw the freedom and supremacy of his race. For this very reason Orthodox Eastern Christians of alien race felt compelled to resist Greek domination by means of independent ecclesiastical organization, and the structure of the church rather favoured than interfered with the coexistence of separate national churches professing the same faith. Another circumstance favoured the creation of separate national churches. While the Greek empire lasted the Greek emperors had a right of investiture on the election of a new patriarch, and this right was retained by the Turkish sultans after the conquest of Constantinople. The Russian people, for example, could not contemplate with calmness as the head of their church a bishop appointed by the hereditary enemy of their country. In this way the jealousies of race and the necessities of nations have produced various national churches which are independent or autocephalous, and yet are one in doctrine with the Orthodox Greek Church. The most important of these are the churches of Russia, Georgia, Servia, Roumania, Greece, and Montenegro. The churches of Russia and Georgia have been united.
The Church of Russia dates from 992, when Prince Vladimir Russian and his people accepted Christianity. The metropolitan, who was Church. subject to the patriarch of Constantinople, resided at Kieff on the Dnieper. During the Tartar invasion the metropolis was destroyed, and Vladimir became the ecclesiastical capital. In 1320 the metro politans fixed their seat at Moscow. In 1582 Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, raised Job, 46th metropolitan, to the patriarchal dignity ; and the act was afterwards confirmed by a general council of the East. In this way the Russian Church became autocepha lous, and its patriarch had immense power. In 1700 Peter the Great forbade the election of a new patriarch, and in 1721 he estab lished the Holy Governing Synod to supply the place of the patriarch. This body now governs the Russian Church, and con sists of five or six bishops, one or two other ecclesiastics of dignity, and several laymen, all appointed by the emperor. The Church of Georgia, which has existed from a very early period, and was dependent first on the patriarch of Antioch and then on the patriarch of Constantinople, has since 1801 been incorporated in the Russian Church. Its head, the archbishop of Tiflis, is a member of the Holy Governing Synod, with the title of exnreh, and having under him four suffragans. Russia is divided for ecclesiastical purposes into eparchies of three classes, each of which is ruled over by a bishop. There are three eparchies of the first class, ruled by the metropolitans of Kieff, Novogorod and St Petersburg, and Moscow. The steady increase of the Russian Church makes it difficult to detail with exactness the number of bishops belonging to the three classes ; but, according to the report presented to the Holy Governing Synod in 1876, there arc, in addition to the three eparchies of the first class, twenty-one of the second, thirty-three of the third, and six vicariates. These sixty-three bishops possess diocesan authority; and there are besides, excluding the exarchate of Georgia, fifty-six bishops ruling over monasteries.
The Church of Servia has undergone great changes. 1 n mediaeval times, when Servia was a strong kingdom, the head of the church invariably claimed the title and authority of patriarch. In 1810, Avhen Kara George achieved the independence of the kingdom, the archbishop of Carlowitz in Hungary was recognized as the head of the church, but in 1830 the national church was reconstituted and declared to be autocephalous. In 1838 the seat of government was removed to Belgrade, and the metropolitan of Belgrade is now the head of the Servian Church, though his right is still disputed by the archbishop of Carlowitz. He has under him as suffragans the bishops of Shabatz, Csatsak, and Uschize, the last of whom resides at Karanowatz. Election to the episcopate is subject to the veto of the prince and of the patriarch of Constantinople. The extension of Servia under the provisions of the treaty of Berlin will probably cause some ecclesiastical changes.
Before the union of the two provinces of Moldavia and "Wallacliia, Roiuna the Orthodox Greek Church was ruled by two metropolitans the man. one at Jassy and the other at Bucharest. Since the independence of the united provinces there has been along-continued conflict, which had for its design, not merely to throw off the supremacy of the patriarch of Constantinople, but to curb the influence of the higher clergy, and to assert the pre-eminence of the Slavonic over the Greek element. The result has been that the state, aided by the lower clergy and the people, has thrown off the supremacy of Constantin ople, united the church under one metropolitan of Roumania, who has under him the metropolitan of Moldavia and six bishops, con fiscated the property of most of the convents, which were centres of Greek influence, published liturgies either in the Slavonic or iu the Roumanian language, and asserted the supremacy of the state.
The constitution of the Church of Modern Greece is the result of the peculiar position of the patriarch of Constantinople. The war of liberation was sympathized in, not merely by the inhabitants of Greece, but by all the Greek-speaking Christians in the East. But the patriarch was in the hands of the Turks; he had been appointed by the sultan, and he was compelled by the Turkish authorities to ban the movement for freedom. "When the Greeks achieved independence they refused to be subject ecclesiastically to a patriarch who was nominated by the sultan (June 9, 1828); and, to add to their difficulties, there were in the country twenty-two bishops who had been consecrated by the patriarch, twelve bishops who had been consecrated irregularly during the war, and about twenty bishops who had been deprived of their sees during the troubles—i.e., fifty-three bishops claimed to be provided for. In these circumstances the Government and people resolved that there should be ten diocesan bishops and forty additional provisional sees. They also resolved that the church should be governed after the fashion of the Russian Church by a synod ; and they decreed that the king of Greece was to be head of the church. All these ideas were
carried out with some modifications, and gradually. The patriarch of Constantinople in 1850 acknowledged the independence of the church, which gradually grew to be more independent of the state. The provisional sees were not all merged in the ten proposed dioceses. Greece at present is divided into four exarchies: (1) the Continent and Eubcea divided into eight sees, of four archbishops and four bishops ; (2) the Peloponnesus divided into twelve sees, of six archbishops and six bishops; (3) the islands of the jEgean Sea governed by one archbishop and three bishops; and (4) the Ionian Islands governed by five archbishops. The Greek Church in Greece includes a good many monasteries ; but the number has been diminished since the war of liberation, and a great many of those that remain have been made use of for the purposes of educa tion. Many of these convents are dependent on the celebrated ancient monasteries of Athos, Sinai, and Jerusalem. The Greek Church has done and is doing a great deal for the cause of education in Greece.
The bitter enmity which subsists between the people of the Black Mountain and the Turks made them from the beginning repudiate the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, and the church is nominally independent. It is, however, very closely allied to the Russian Church. Up to the year 1852 the spiritual and the civil authority were vested in one individual, and the prince-bishops were always chosen from the family of Petrowitsch, but in that year the prince-bishop Dauilo married, and demitted his episcopal functions. Since then there has been a bishop of Montenegro who lias metropolitan functions. He has no suffragan bishops, but rules over three .arch-priests and a large number of inferior clergy. He is consecrated by the Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Church.
The Church of Bulgaria demanded independence about fifteen years ago, and has practically enjoyed it since 1858, although it has not yet obtained recognition. It is governed by an exarch who, while recognizing the supremacy of the patriarch of Constantinople, refuses to allow him to interfere in any way in the internal govern ment of the church. It is still under excommunication by the patriarch. The new rights which Bulgaria has acquired under the treaty of Berlin will probably lead to a rearrangement of the church.
Doctrines and Creeds.—The Greek Church has no creeds in the modern Western use of the word, no normative summaries of what must be believed. It has preserved the older idea that a creed is an adoring confession of the church engaged in worship ; and, when occasion called for more, the belief of the church was expressed more by way of public testimony than in symbolical books. Still the doctrines of the church can be gathered from these confes sions of faith. The Greek creeds may be roughly placed in two classes, the oecumenical creeds of the early undivided church, and later testimonies defining the position of the Orthodox Church of the East with regard to the belief of the Roman Catholic and of Protestant Churches. These testimonies were called forth mainly by the protest of Greek theologians against Jesuitism on the one hand and against the reforming tendencies of Cyril Lucaris on the other. The Orthodox Greek Church adopts the doctrinal decisions of the .&lt;even oecumenical councils, together with the canons of the Concilium Quinisextum or second Trullan council ; and they further hold that all these definitions and canons are simply explanations and enforcements of the Nicaeo-Con- stantinopolitan creed and the decrees of the first council of Nicfea. The first four councils settled the orthodox faith on the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation ; the fifth supplemented the decisions of the first four. The sixth declared against Monotheletism ; the seventh sanctioned the worship (SovXeta not aXrjOivr) Aarpeta) of images ; the council held in the Trullus (a saloon in the palace at Constantinople) supplemented by canons of discipline the doctrinal decrees of the fifth and sixth councils. The Reformation of the 16th century was not without effect on the Greek Church. Some of the Reformers, not ably Melanchthon, expected to effect a reunion of Christen dom by means of the Greeks, cherishing the same hopes as the modern Old Catholic divines and their English sympa thizers. Melanchthon himself sent a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession to Joasaph, patriarch of Constantin ople, and some years afterwards Jacob Andrese and Martin Crusius began a correspondence with Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, in which they asked an official expression of his opinions about Lutheran doctrine. The result was that Jeremiah answered in his Censura Orientalis Ecchsice condemning the distinctive principles of Lutheranism. The reformatory movement of Cyril Lucaris brought the Greek Church face to face with Reformation theology. Cyril was a learned Cretan, who, having travelled exten sively in Europe, and having become acquainted with and devoted to the Reformed faith, was afterwards elected patri arch of Alexandria in 1602 and patriarch of Constantinople in 1621. He conceived the plan of reforming the Eastern Church by bringing its doctrines into harmony with those of Calvinism, and by sending able young Greek theologians to Switzerland, Holland, and England to study Protestant theology. His scheme of reform was opposed chiefly by the intrigues of the Jesuits. He was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. In the end he was murdered by the Turks at the instigation of the Jesuits. The church anathematized his doctrines, and in its later testimonies repudiated his confession on the one hand and Jesuit ideas on the other. The most important of these testimonies are (1) the Orthodox confession or catechism of Peter Mogilas, confirmed by the Eastern patriarchs and by the synod of Jerusalem (1643), and (2) the decree of the synod of Jerusalem or the confession of Dositheus (1672). Besides these, the catechisms of the Russian Church should be con sulted, especially the catechism of Philaret, which since 1839 has been used in all the churches and schools in Russia. Founding on these doctrinal sources the teach ing of the Orthodox Greek Church is :—
Christianity is a Divine revelation communicated to mankind through Christ ; its saving truths are to be learned from the Bible and tradition, the former having been written, and the tatter main tained uncorrupted through the influence of the Holy Spirit ; the interpretation of the Bible belongs to the Church-, which is taught by the Holy Spirit, but every believer may read the Scriptures. According to the Christian revelation, God is a Trinity, that is, the Divine Essence exists in Three Persons, perfectly equal in nature and dignity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; THK HOLY GHOST PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER ONLY. Besides the Triune God there is no other object of divine worship, but homage (v-n-fp- Sovia) may be paid to the Virgin Mary, and reverence (Sovia) to the saints and to their pictures and relics. Man is born with a corrupt bias which was not his at creation ; the first man, when created, possessed IMMORTALITY, PERFECT WIS DOM, AND A WILL REGULATED BY REASON. Through the first sill Adam and his posterity lost IMMORTALITY, AND HIS WILL RECEIVED A BIAS TOWARDS EVIL. In this natural state man, who even before he actually sins is a sinner before God by original or inherited sin, commits manifold actual transgressions; but he is not absolutely without power of will towards good, and is not always doing evil. Christ, the Son of God, became man in two natures, which in ternally and inseparably united make One Person, and, according to the eternal purpose of God, has obtained for man reconciliation with God, and eternal life, inasmuch as He by His vicarious death has made satisfaction to God for the world s sins, and this satisfac tion was PERFECTLY COMMENSURATE WITH THE SINS OF THE WORLD. Man is made partaker of reconciliation in spiritual regeneration, which he attains to, being led and kept by the Holy Ghost. This divine help is offered to all men without distinction, and may be rejected. In order to attain to salvation, man is justified, and when so justified CAN DO NO MORE THAN THE COMMANDS OF GOD. He may fall from a state of grace through mortal sin. Regeneration is offered by the word of God and in the sacraments, which under visible signs communicate God s invisible grace to Christians when administered cum intentione. There are seven mysteries or sacraments. Baptism entirely destroys original sin. In the Eucharist the true body and blood of Christ are substantially present, and the elements are changed into the substance of Christ, whose body and blood are corporeally partaken of by communicants. ALL Christians should receive the bread and the WINE. The Eucharist is also an expiatory sacrifice. The new birth when lost may be restored through repentance, which is not merely (-1) sincere sorrow, but also (2) confession of each individual sin to ihc priest, and (3) the discharge of penances imposed by the priest for the removal of the temporal punishment which may have been imposed by God and the Church. Penance accompanied by the judicial absolu tion of the priest makes a true sacrament.
The Church of Christ is the fellowship of ALL THOSE WHO ACCEPT AND PROFESS ALL THE ARTICLES OF FAITH TRANSMITTED BY THE APOSTLES AND APPROVED BY GENERAL SYNODS. Without this visible Church there is no salvation. It is under the abiding influ ence of the Holy Ghost, and therefore cannot err in matters of faith. Specially appointed persons are necessary in the service of the Church, and they form a threefold order, distinct jure divino from other Christians, of JBisJwps, Priests, and Deacons. THE FOUR PATRIARCHS, OF EQUAL DIGNITY, HAVE THE HIGHEST RANK AMONG THE BISHOPS, AND THE BISHOPS united in a General Council repre sent the Church and infallibly decide, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, all matters of faith and ecclesiastical life. All ministers of Christ must be regularly called and appointed to their office, and are consecrated by the sacrament of orders. Bishops must be unmarried, and PRIESTS AND DEACONS MUST NOT CONTRACT A SECOND MARRIAGE. To all priests in common belongs, besides the preaching of the word, the administration of the six SACRA MENTS, BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, PENANCE, EUCHARIST, MATRI MONY, UNCTION OF THE SICK. The bishops alone can administer the sacrament of orders. Ecclesiastical ceremonies arc part of the divine service ; most of them have apostolic origin ; and those connected with the sacrament must not be omitted by priests under pain of mortal sin.
Liturgy and Worship.—The ancient liturgies of the Eastern Church were very numerous, and have been frequently classified. Neale makes three divisions the liturgy of Jerusalem or of St James, that of Alexandria or of St Mark, and that of Edessa or of St Thaddpeus ; and Daniel substantially agrees with him. The same pas sion for uniformity which suppressed the Gallican and Mozarabic liturgies in the West led to the almost exclusive use of the liturgy of St James in the East. It is used in two forms, a shorter revised by Chrysostom, and a longer called the liturgy of St Basil. This liturgy and the service generally are either in Old Greek or in Old Slavonic and frequent disputes have arisen in particular districts about the language to be employed. Both sacred languages differ from the language of the people, but it cannot be said that in the Eastern Church worship is conducted in an unknown tongue, "the actual difference," says Neale, "may be about that between Chaucer s English and our own."
Monastic Life.—Monastic life was introduced into Christianity in the East, and has always remained a prominent feature in Greek Christianity. The monks usually follow the rule of St Basil, but some monasteries, notably that of Sinai, obey ths rule of St Anthony. The monks are of three classes : KowofiiaKoi, who live together in a monas tery ruled over by a ^ycty/eros or ap^i^ai Spir^s; dva^wp^Tat, who live either in a cloister apart from the other monks or among the laity ; and do-K^rai, who are hermits. The nuns, virgins or widows, all follow the rule of St Basil. There are three great convents at Jerusalem, Sinai, and Mount Athos ; each has a great number of daughter monasteries throughout the East. Many monasteries are presided over by bishops, and many monks are in priests and deacons orders. Monks alone are eligible for election to bishoprics and the higher offices in the Eastern Church.
Number of Adherents.—These can only be given approximately :— Orthodox Greek Church in Turkey 10,000,000 Roumania 4,529,000 Servia 1 ,345,000 Montenegro 130,000 Greece 1,310,000 Austria 3,000, 000 Russia (including Poland, Siberia, and the Caucasus) 58,000,000 78,314,000 To these may be added : Russian Dissenters 1,051,000 Armenians 3 5 000, 000 Nestorians (including the Thomas Christians of India) ... 360,000 Syrian Jacobites 90, 000 Copts 121,000 Abyssinians 1,200,000 United Greeks (chiefly in Austria and Poland),. 5,822,000 4,670,000
See the common boots on Church History, as those of Neander, Gieseler, Robertson, &c. Special mention may be made of Schrockh s Christliche Kirchengeschichte, and the various collections of councils, e.g., Mansi s or, for English readers, Hefele s History of the Coun cils, translated in Clark s series. For the controversies which gave rise to the schismatic churches, consult F. C. Baur, Die Christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkcit ; Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, translated in Clark s series; J. H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century; Swaiuson, The Apostles 1 and Nicene Creeds. For the Filioque controversy Walch, Historia Con- troversice de Processu Spiritus Sancti, and the works of Swete and Langen, may be referred to, also Schaff s History of the Creeds of Christendom. The following are devoted specially to the history and condition of the Eastern Church : M. Le Quien, Oriens Christianus; Asseman, Bibliothcca Oriental-is; Stanley s Eastern Church; and, above all, J. M. Neale, The Holy Eastern Church (General Introduction, 2 vols. ; Patriarchate of Alexandria, 2 vols. ; and, published posthumously in 1873, Patriarchate of Antioch, 1 vol.). For liturgy, see Daniel, Codex Liturgicus Eccl. Univ. in Epitomcn redactus, 4 vols., 1847-55, and the shorter works of Neale and Littledale ; Renaudot, Collectio Liturgiarum Orient. ; Leo Allatius, De libris et rebus Ecclcs. Grcecarum Disscrtationes. For hymnology, see Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, 4 vols., and Neale s translations of Eastern Hymns ; and for creeds, the collec tions of Kimmel, Gass, and Schafl .
(T. M. L.)