Greek Church.

Greek Church. THE (styled 'orthodox' by reason of its vindications of dogma, and 'Eastern' from its geographical distribution), is the church of those Christians who follow the ancient rite of the East and accept the first seven councils, but do not admit papal supremacy, and reject those innovations on the dogmas and the practice of the early church which were introduced by subsequent councils in the West. She is 'the aged tree beneath whose shade the rest of Christendom has sprung up;' and 'it is her privilege to claim direct continuity of speech with the earliest times, to boast of reading the whole code of Scripture, old as well as new, in the language in which it was read and spoken by the Apostles' (Stanley, East. Ch.). The dogmas of Christianity were first expounded by the Greek fathers; the earliest forms of Christian worship were composed by Greeks in Greek, and during the first five centuries the Eastern Church may fairly be said to have comprised the whole body of Christianity.

History.—The tendency and desire, natural to the Eastern mind, to endeavour to estimate and define in the abstract the attributes of Deity, pushed to extremes during a time of absorbing theological controversies, brought about, in the earlier period of the church, the formation of sects to which we shall hereinafter advert. But the great Schism between the eastern and western portions of Christendom, an event which has exercised abiding influence on the whole course of subsequent European history, was due to two primary causes—the inherent difference in the spirit and the traditions of East and West, and the transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople.

As the Christian faith became predominant ecclesiastical jurisdiction necessarily coincided with civil government, so that, when the Council of Nicaea declared Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch to be patriarchal sees, it but recognised the political importance of those three centres of Christianity. As such, Rome was then the least important of the three. Indeed the early Roman Church was a colony of Greek Christians and Grecised Jews; the first popes themselves were Greeks, not Italians, and the very name of 'pope' is not a Latin name, but the Greek designation (papas) of every pastor of the Eastern Church.

When, however, the seat of empire was transferred to Constantinople (330 A.D.), although Rome was thus deprived of its sovereignty and its courtly splendour, a signal opportunity for increase of power and self-assertion was given to the Roman pontiffs. Favoured by the absence in their diocese of theological controversies, such as distracted the East, and endowed for the most part with rare ability and worldly astuteness, they were not slow to seize upon and gradually appropriate the prerogatives and the civil authority of the absent emperors, and they soon arrogated to themselves even their pagan titles and military prestige. Constantinople, on the other hand, now rose rapidly to pre-eminence, not in the same sense of an ambitious ecclesiastical despotism, but as the official centre of a church already venerable, which had just received into its fold the first Christian emperor. A generation had hardly passed when Gregory Nazianzen (360) spoke of the city as a 'bond of union between East and West to which the most distant extremes from all sides come together, and to which they look up as the common centre and emporium of the faith.' It is true that, on the ground that 'Constantinople is the new Rome,' the second general council (381) assigned to it 'precedence of honour' next after Rome. But this declaration, and the subsequent decree of the fourth Council of Chalcedon (451), establish that these ecclesiastical honours were grounded upon the political distinction only to which both cities had successively risen. Jerusalem itself, in spite of its unrivalled associations, was included amongst the patriarchates—which thus reached the number of five—only at this latter council. Yet the initial advantages which the Greek Church already possessed never disappeared; they still subsist, 'a perpetual witness that she is the mother and Rome the daughter' (Stanley).

But other and irresistible inward causes militated against the maintenance of even outward unity. Rome was destined soon to detach herself from the sisterhood of patriarchates, and renounce even that venerated title. According as the political ties between the eastern and western halves of the empire grew weaker, antagonistic ideas seemed to guide the two rival sections of the church. In each the divergent genius of their pagan forerunners, no less than opposed local temperaments, reappeared with fresh vigour, and influenced both thought and action. The Greeks were still swayed, however unconsciously, by the liberal tradition of democratic Hellenas; while the autocratic and centralising tendency of Rome never ceased to pervade the Latin pontificate. The fathers of the Greek Church inherited and christianised the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle; the Latin Church modelled its Christianity after Roman law. 'The East enacted creeds; the West discipline' (Milman). The one was controlled by a calm conservatism, the other was impelled by a restless desire for change. The one church remained ancient and catholic in spirit; the other was transformed into a medieval and Latin institution.

These contrasts, apparently superficial, were more deeply rooted and were fraught with weightier consequences than the outward theological differences which now mark the distinctions between other Christian churches. They were such as to lead to open rupture. Rome furthermore seemed again possessed by its traditional feeling of mingled jealousy and disdain for the Greeks, who were gradually becoming supreme at Constantinople, and who finally transformed the Roman empire into a Greek monarchy. Therefore, in the disputes which followed in quick succession, political considerations weighed more in proportion as the temporal power of the popes found sustenance in the gradual growth of an independent confederation amongst the Italian states.

The first notes of disunion were sounded in Rome, by such innovations as the enforcement of clerical celibacy (385), followed by more or less peremptory demands for the recognition, first of the hierarchical, and later of the doctrinal supremacy of the Roman pontiff, which was ultimately to be admitted as 'by divine right.' Minor changes were gradually introduced into the Western Church, such as denying to priests power to administer confirmation, and the use of unleavened bread in the eucharist. These innovations the Greeks regarded as expressly designed to force upon them either a complete rupture or an unconditional submission to papal authority. But the chief and most abiding point of dogmatic difference consisted in the doctrine of the two-fold procession of the Holy Ghost and the interpolation in the ancient creed of the church of the words Filioque ('and from the Son'). Without entering into the details of this interminable, hopeless, and bitter controversy, it may be safely said that the complete absence of such a doctrine from the deliberations of the early councils is not denied by the Latins; that popes, such as Leo III. and John VIII., admitted that its surreptitious insertion into the Creed was reprehensible; and finally, that the Greeks base their uncompromising reprobation of it on the explicit word of Christ: 'The spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father' (John, xv. 26).

Such being the abundant sources of an estrangement which steadily increased, the pope was not at a loss for pretexts in hurling his first excommunication against the emperor and the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria in 484. Thus the East and West were de facto separated for a period of nearly forty years. Efforts at conciliation followed, and successive excommunications were withdrawn to be renewed from both sides with intensified animus. But while the pope subordinated dogmatic differences to the recognition of his supremacy, the title of 'oecumenical', which the emperor conferred on the patriarch of Constantinople, proved a fresh stumbling-block. The contest which followed (862) between the learned patriarch Photius and the popes Adrian I. and Nicholas I. was one of the most memorable periods of that long and eventful struggle, and although the so-called 'Photian Schism' was again compromised, the reconciliation proved neither cordial nor lasting. The same causes of difference, with others of a disciplinary nature, reappeared in the 11th century; and in 1054 Pope Leo IX. issued a formal excommunication against the patriarch Michael Cerularius. Since that time the separation has subsisted rigidly; for although more than one attempt was made by either side to restore intercommunion between the two churches, every effort failed before the unalterable demand for submission to papal supremacy and jurisdiction. Pope Gregory IX. conceded even the omission of Filioque by the Greeks, provided they burned publicly all books inimical to the Roman see; and the desire of many Greeks for reconciliation was so sincere that some sort of reunion might have been effected at a later time, if the old antipathies of East and West had not been rendered even more intense and irremediable through the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins in the fourth crusade (1204). The atrocities of this unprovoked and fanatical onslaught, which was instigated by the papal see, the outrageous desecrations of Greek churches, the horrors of the sack 'of a refined and civilised capital by a horde of comparative barbarians' (Stanley), and the cruel tyranny by which the Franks maintained their power, rendered the existing breach irreparable. The Frank invasion, by disorganising and weakening the Greek empire, opened the gates of Europe to the inroads of the Turks, whose rising power had carried before it everything in Asia. So that on his restoration to the throne of Constantinople (1261) the emperor Michael Palaeologos, pressed by dangers, was compelled, on a promise of material assistance from the West, to submit to the dictates of Rome at the Council of Lyons in 1274. When, however, he endeavoured, at a synod held at Constantinople, to obtain ratification of that union, he failed to gain the assent of the body of bishops to what was a one-sided measure, resulting from political necessity. In the succeeding reign the breach was even more seriously widened by the councils held at Constantinople in 1283 and 1285. The last attempt at union was the one made by the Emperor John Palaeologos, who, to save Constantinople, and with it the West, from the invasion of the Turks, appeared (1437) with the patriarch Joseph and several Greek bishops at the Council of Ferrara, better known from the place of its close as that of Florence. Protracted discussions took place on all the points at issue; but while received with marks of distinction and outward show of friendship, the Greeks were, as on former occasions, deceived, out-reached, and entrapped into signing misleading and fraudulent documents, with the inevitable result that, even before their return to Constantinople, they renounced and repudiated the proceedings of what they characterised as one of the most scandalous of Roman conclaves. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks followed in 1453, and the fall of the Greek empire removed the political considerations which alone had dictated these latter attempts at reconciliation. Thus the Greek Church may be said to have died politically, but it has never surrendered its religious heritage.

Doctrines.—As already stated, the Greek Church receives the first seven oecumenical councils and the canons of the Trullan Council (from Τροῦλλος, the domed chamber of the imperial palace at Constantinople, where it was held). They adopt as their rule of faith not only the Bible, but also the traditions of the church 'maintained uncorrupted through the influence of the Holy Spirit by the testimony of the Fathers,' amongst whom Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and St John Chrysostom are held in special veneration as 'the three hierarchs.' The Greek Church admits seven sacraments—viz. baptism, confirmation, penance, eucharist, matrimony, unction of the sick, and holy orders; but both in the acceptance and the use of them it differs widely from the Church of Rome. Baptism is administered by a triple immersion, in accordance both with the meaning of the term itself and with the indisputable practice of the early church. Confirmation (Μύρον or Χρίσμα) follows immediately upon and in connection with baptism, even in the case of infants—again in obedience to apostolic precept. In the sacrament of Penance the church requires (a) admission before God of one's own sins, (b) faith in His mercy, (c) resolve of self-amendment: this confession to be made before a priest, (1) that he may offer spiritual guidance and admonition; (2) that he may announce to the penitent, in the name of Christ ('May the Lord absolve thee'), absolution and hope of salvation; (3) that he may recommend penitential work. 'Therefore the scandals, the influence, the terrors of the confessional are alike unknown in the East' (Stanley). As to the Eucharist, the Greeks admit the propitiatory sacrifice, the real presence of Christ, and transubstantiation, which, 'if used at all as a theological term, is merely one amongst many to express the reverential awe with which the eucharist is approached' (Stanley). They differ from the Latins in the use of leavened bread and in the administration of communion in both kinds to all, even to children—this again in strict obedience to evangelical precept (John, vi.). Marriage is held to be dissoluble in case of adultery, but not till a probationary period has elapsed during which a bishop or priest mediates with a view to reconciliation. A fourth marriage is regarded as unlawful. Unction is administered not in extremis, as in the Latin Church, but in ordinary sickness, as laid down by St James (v. 14, 15), and is therefore called oil of prayer (Εὐχέλαιον). The sacrament of Holy Orders is celebrated by the observance of rites which have remained unchanged since the earliest times. With the exception of this last, all the sacraments may be administered by priests. The Greek Church not only reprobates clerical celibacy, but, although it has at all times favoured monastic orders, it requires that the parochial clergy should be married, so that they may not be cut off from the domesticity of the life of their flocks. Priests cannot marry after ordination, and consequently cannot contract a second marriage, nor may they wed a widow; but they must be married before ordination. Bishops are selected from the monastic orders, and are therefore single.

Monastic life originated in the East, and in countries of the Greek rite numerous convents of both sexes are established, most of which follow the rule of St Basil. The rule of St Anthony (the Egyptian hermit who first instituted Christian monasticism) prevails at Mount Sinai (established 527). This monastery, Jerusalem, and Mount Athos form the three great centres to which convents throughout the East are affiliated. According to their mode of life, monks are distinguished as (α) Ἀσκηταί, if leading the ascetic existence of hermits; (β) Ἀναχωρηταί, when living in retirement and in separate cloisters; and (γ) Κοινοβιακοί, when assembled in a convent under an Ἡγούμενος or abbot. If several convents are subject to one abbot he is called Ἀρχιμανδρίτης, archimandrite; but bishops often hold the post of abbot. Nuns must either be virgins or widows, and they follow the rule of St Basil under an Ἡγουμένη, abbess. With both monks and nuns the duty of manual labour is a leading observance; the nuns, like their western sisters, apply themselves to the care of the sick and to the education of girls. But the chief glory of the Greek monastic institutions is that in them Greek learning and Greek nationality found refuge, protection, and succour during the long night of Turkish tyranny and Mohammedan persecution.

Worship and Liturgy.—Fasts in the Greek Church are many and rigorous. Besides four yearly fasts—the forty days of Lent, from Pentecost to the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the fifteen days before the festival of the Sleep of the Theotokos (August 15), and the six weeks before Christmas—Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year should be observed. Indulgences are not recognised; and although prayers for the dead are practised they give rise to no ecclesiastical abuse. 'A general expectation prevails that, by some unknown process, the souls of the sinful will be purified before they pass into the Divine presence; but this has never been consolidated into a doctrine of purgatory' (Stanley). The Mother of our Lord is venerated, and homage (ὑπερδουλεία) is paid to her, but such homage has never been transformed into a dogma of immaculate conception; and the Greek Church speaks of 'the sleep' (κοίμησις) not the 'assumption' of the Virgin. Reverence (δουλία as distinguished from ἀληθινῇ λατρεία, actual worship) is paid to saints, and their icons freely adorn the churches; but, with the exception of the crucifix, no graven image is permitted. Instrumental music is forbidden in churches, but singing is universally in use. In public prayer the kneeling posture is used only at Pentecost; at ordinary times they stand, the body being turned towards the east, and the sign of the cross is frequently made during prayers. The ceremonial of the Eastern ritual is not inferior in splendour to that of the Western, but it is more solemn and archaic; though 'organs and musical instruments are as odious to a Greek or Russian as to a Scottish Presbyterian' (Stanley). Originally several liturgies were used in the East; but the liturgy of St James prevailed in the Greek Church. In its shorter form, as defined by St Chrysostom, it is read in churches throughout the year, with the exception of two or three festivals, when the longer version, attributed to St Basil, is said. This version is invariably used in convents. The Scriptures are in the hands of all believers, who are encouraged to study them in the vernacular, and although the idioms of some of the eastern churches into which the Bible as well as the liturgy were originally translated are now antiquated, 'the actual difference may be about that between Chaucer's English and our own.'

Hierarchy in the Eastern Church is thus defined in the catechism of Philaretus, which is in universal use in Russia: 'The four patriarchs, of equal dignity, have the highest rank among the bishops, and the bishops united in a general council represent the church, and infallibly decide under the guidance of the Holy Ghost all matters of faith and ecclesiastical life.' Thus the authority of the church is not despotic, centralised, or vested in one person. Each patriarch is independent in the exercise of his canonical authority, within his own diocese; but he is amenable to an oecumenical synod. The Greek clergy levy no tithes, claim no civil power over their flocks, and hardly possess any organisation as a separate body. 'The Eastern Church has never ruled that religious light and instruction are confined to the clergy.' And its strength 'reposes not so much on the power and influence of its clergy, but on the independent knowledge and manly zeal of its laity' (Stanley). The Eastern Church has become inactive since its subjection to Turkish rule. It is not a missionary church, and it abstains from proselytism. On the other hand, it never was intolerant, and its history has not been disgraced by persecutions, inquisition, or a St Bartholomew's massacre.

Relations with the Reformed Churches.—Owing to these reasons the early reformers turned their eyes to the Eastern Church in hope of support and eventual union. Melanchthon was the first to address a letter to the patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, through a Greek deacon, Demetrius Mysus, who visited Germany in 1558. Another Lutheran embassy, of a more formal character, headed by the well-known Tübingen divines Jacob Andreae and Martin Crusius, visited Constantinople during the patriarchate of Jeremias (1576–81). Both missions were equally devoid of immediate practical results. But in the following century the celebrated Cyril Lucaris, a native of Crete, was educated in Germany, and was there imbued with the tenets of the Reformers. On assuming the patriarchate of Alexandria first (1602) and then of Constantinople (1621) he opened negotiations with the Calvinists with a view to union and the reform of the Greek Church; he corresponded with the English Archbishop Abbot and with Laud, and he presented the Alexandrian Codex (q.v.) to Charles I.; and in 1629 he issued a confession of faith of a decidedly Calvinistic tendency. But his efforts were bitterly opposed by the intrigues of the Jesuits, who brought about his deposition five times after successive reinstate- ments in the patriarchal chair, and are supposed finally to have instigated his murder by the Turks. The innovations contemplated by Lucaris called forth a doctrinal declaration signed by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, and defining the differences between the Greeks and the Reformers. This exposition was later (1672) adopted at a synod held at Jerusalem. But within our time the conciliatory spirit which animates these two branches of Christianity has found expression in practical measures of closer intercourse. In February 1872 the Greek bishop of Patras was present and delivered his benediction at the laying of the foundation-stone of an Anglican church in that town. And when later Lyeurgus, the learned Archbishop of Syra and Tinos, and the Archbishops of Corfu and of Cyprus, visited England, they each attended Anglican services, and delivered their benediction in Anglican churches. But the most notable advance towards 'intercommunion' was made in 1859, and again in 1874, when the House of Convocation appointed a committee 'to establish such relations between the two communions as shall enable the laity and clergy of either to join in the sacraments and offices of the other without forfeiting the communion of their own church.' As a first step towards this end the patriarch of Constantinople issued an encyclical enjoining his clergy to bury deceased members of the Anglican Church in orthodox burial-grounds, and to celebrate their funeral rites with prayers taken from the funeral office of the orthodox church.

Sects.—The early theological controversies within the Greek Church itself, resulting in sectarianism, differ in this respect from the secessions from the Roman Church—that in the West the protest was directed mainly against abuse and ultramontanism, whereas in the East objections have always been raised against what was deemed innovation.

All the branches of the Eastern Church receive the first two councils, those of Nicea and Constantinople. But these two only are admitted by the Chaldeans, the earliest of Eastern separatists, whose dispute related to the meaning of ένανθρώπος ('incarnation'). This doctrine gave rise to two distinct and opposed theories. The one accepted complete union of the human and the divine nature of Christ, and formed the belief of the Monophysites. The other maintained a separation of the two natures, so as to deny their co-existence in one person, and rejected the term Theotokos as applied to the Virgin Mary. Such were the tenets of Nestorius, whom the third Council of Ephesus (431) condemned, and after whom the Chaldeans are also called Nestorians. This sect spread rapidly throughout the interior of Asia, and became active in missions, not only to the neighbouring Persians and Indians, but to the Baectrians and Huns, as far north as the Caspian, to Samarkand and the very confines of China, and to Socotra, Ceylon, and the Malabar coast in the south. In this last locality a remnant of the former growth and power of this church still exists. They are the Christians of St Thomas, so called either from the apostle, or more probably from a Nestorian missionary of that name. Mussulman persecution, however, and the inroads of eastern barbarians have weakened, and at one time had almost annihilated, the Nestorians, who are now found principally in Kurdistan, and who believe themselves to be the lost tribes of Israel. Their sacred city is Edessa, the reputed birthplace of Abraham, and their 'catholikos' or primate assumes the title of 'Patriarch of Babylon,' his seat having been successively removed thence to Bagdad, Mosul, and Julamerk (or Giulamerk), where he now resides. The Nestorian patriarch is the only Eastern prelate who may marry.

The tenets of the Monophysites were condemned by the fourth œcumenical council of Chalcedon (451), which established that Christ is to be acknowledged in two natures, 'indivisibly and unchangeably.' On this the larger portion of Syrian and Egyptian Christians, who had accepted the three former councils, seceded from the church, and soon broke up into three minor communities, largely through the influence of nationality.

In Syria the Monophysites were called Jacobites, from James the Apostle as they pretend, but more probably from Jacobus Baradeus, the Syrian heresiarch, since the name is equally applied to the other churches of the sect. The patriarch of the Syrian Jacobites bears in succession always the hallowed name of Ignatius, and resides at Diarbekir (the ancient Amida), on the right bank of the Tigris. The country beyond was originally under the charge of the 'Maphrian' ('fruit-bearer') of the East, so called from the fact that his was principally a missionary see—it is now established at Mosul. This church, like the Nestorian, was formerly widespread and flourishing, extending to more than a hundred bishoprics, of which but five now survive.

The Jacobites of Egypt are better known under their national designation of Copts (q.v.), and form the great majority of the Christian population of northern Africa, as well as the most civilised of its native races. They have intercommunion with the Jacobites of Syria. Their patriarch, who takes his title from Alexandria, but resides at Cairo, claims jurisdiction over Jerusalem, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Pentapolis. He is elected by the body of bishops from candidates nominated by the four convents which possess this right. He alone has power of ordination, which is conferred, not by imposition of hands, but by the act of breathing.

A third branch of the great Jacobite communion is the Ethiopian Church in Abyssinia, where Christianity was first introduced in the 4th century by missionaries from Alexandria. The 'abouna' or metropolitan is, under the nominal supremacy of the Coptic patriarch at Cairo, primate of the Abyssinian Church, which presents an extraordinary combination of Christian and Jewish observances. Both baptism and circumcision are deemed necessary; both the Sabbath and Sunday are observed; polygamy is permitted, though not common; and the flesh of swine is forbidden. The old controversies as to the nature of Christ still continue in Abyssinia; and Pilate, because he washed his hands of the blood of Christ, is canonised by the Ethiopian Church.

The Armenian Church, which is often considered Jacobite, because it also receives only the first three councils, is, in all essential points, much more akin to the Church of Constantinople; and, indeed, the non-united section of the communion call themselves 'Orthodox.' The absence of the Armenian delegates from the Council of Chalcedon was due to the internal disorders of their country, but they were definitely separated from the Greek Church in 552. The Armenians were converted to Christianity by Gregory the Illuminator, and are therefore often called Gregorians (see ARMENIA). They, of all Christian churches, include as canonical Old Testament books the 'History of Joseph and Asenath,' and the 'Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs;' and in the New Testament the 'Epistle of the Corinthians to St Paul,' and 'Third Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians.'

The decisions of the sixth œcumenical council held at Constantinople (680) resulted in the secession of the Monotheletes, whose tenets as to the one will of Christ that council condemned. They included the Christian population of the Lebanon, who have since been better known as Maronites, from St Maro, as they allege, the Syrian anchorite of the 5th century, after whom the famous convent near Cyrus is named, but more credibly from John Moro, their first patriarch in 701. Their primate is the patriarch of Kanobin. In the 12th century, however, by the influence of the Crusaders, the Maronites submitted (1182) to the Roman Church, of which they now form an integral part.

It is essential to observe that in each of the sects and churches so described there are, almost without exception, three divisions, resulting from the influence respectively of old traditions, nationalistic proclivities, and the Jesuit Propaganda. In each of these Eastern communions one should therefore distinguish (1) the 'Orthodox' section, with decided leanings towards the church of Constantinople; (2) the 'National' section, which maintains the independence of each particular heresy; and (3) the 'United' or 'Catholic' section, which acknowledges the supremacy of the pope.

Uniates or United Greeks.—This last category forms an important fraction of the Greek Church itself. The fall of the empire facilitated the intrigues of the Roman Propaganda, which, especially after the Reformation, endeavoured actively to secure the submission to Rome of isolated Greek communities in the East; while, in the West, the influence of Catholic governments was brought to bear, to the same end, on the scattered Greek colonies, and on the outlying portions of the Greek Church. Thus, the numerous Greek and Albanian refugees from Epirus, who had settled in Sicily and southern Italy, were soon compelled to succumb; as also the indigenous orthodox populations in Austria and Poland—i.e. the Roumanians in Transylvania and eastern Hungary, and the Ruthenians in Galicia and Little Russia. The Polish Greeks, however, who had become 'Uniates' in 1590, reverted, for the most part, to the Russian Church in 1839. It is difficult to state exactly to what degree union has thus been attained. The primary, and in most cases, the only condition, was submission to papal supremacy; all else—clerical matrimony, communion in both kinds, church discipline, rites, and liturgy—being allowed to remain Greek. But when circumstances were favourable, more stringent conditions were gradually imposed. And therefore the 'Unia,' as the pact is styled, is not uniform in ought else but the unremitting efforts of the Propaganda to efface the individuality of these dismembered churches.

The Four Patriarchates.—The Mohammedan invasion submerged and curtailed the area, especially in Asia and Africa, over which the Eastern Church had spread; and the other vicissitudes to which reference has been made modified from time to time the extent of that area. Still, the four patriarchates claim jurisdiction within their original boundaries, with the exception of the independent states which were successively emancipated from Turkish rule.

The patriarchate of Constantinople includes the whole of European Turkey, Asia Minor and Pontus (Trebizond), and all the islands. The patriarchate of Antioch includes Syria, Phœnicia, Isauria, and Cilicia. This patriarchate, which at one time extended its influence to India and as far as China, has suffered most from the spread of Mohammedanism. The patriarchate of Jerusalem includes the whole of Palestine, and, prior to the Saracenic conquest, was one of the most flourishing, although the one established last (451). The patriarchate of Alexandria, once the most powerful and important, has shrunk, since the Mussulman occupation of Egypt, into the narrow limits of the see of that particular city.

The archiepiscopal see of Cyprus, which formed part of the patriarchate of Antioch, was raised to an independent position by the Council of Ephesus (431), and its primate, though inferior in rank to the patriarchs, has precedence over all other archbishops. He enjoys the exceptional privilege of affixing his signature in red ink.

The church of Constantinople is known as 'the Great Church' (Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία), from its ancient pre-eminence as the see of the oecumenical patriarch—a title conferred by the emperor on John the Faster (587) against the remonstrances of Gregory I. The Church of Antioch claims to have been founded by St Peter, and that the similar pretensions of Rome are at once more recent and less certain. The name of Christians was first given to the believers in Antioch, and to its chief pastor alone the title of patriarch belongs by right. The patriarch of Alexandria is the first Christian primate who was styled 'pope.' His other title of 'oecumenical judge' arises from the right which the early Alexandrian Church possessed of fixing the period of Easter.

National Churches.—The authority which the Byzantine emperors exercised over the government of the Greek Church passed, with Constantinople, to the sultans. After the massacre which followed the capture of the city, and in which the patriarch had fallen with the emperor, Mohammed II. installed as patriarch George Gennadius, a Greek monk, renowned for his piety no less than for his scholarship, for which he was surnamed Scholarius. The courage and persuasiveness with which he expounded before the sultan the tenets of Christianity induced Mohammed to confer certain privileges on the patriarchate, enabling it to exercise a measure of authority over the orthodox church within Turkish dominions. This first concession constitutes to this day the charter regulating the relations of the church to the Porte. The patriarch is elected by a synod of bishops, but the candidate must be approved of by the Porte, which also issues firmans enabling the bishops to act within their dioceses. This gives to Turkish authority so effectual a control over the church, that its having survived at all is a proof of extraordinary vitality. But the abuse and scandal consequent upon the exercise of that authority was such as to make it the interest, both of the patriarchate and of the independent states which recognised its spiritual guidance, not to continue under a jurisdiction subjected to the sultan's will. Fortunately the constitution of the Eastern Church favoured the creation of autocephalous churches, which, while enjoying a separate internal administration, could remain bound to the Church of Constantinople and to each other by the unity of faith and dogma.

The Church of Russia, which alone of eastern churches presents historical continuity, was established when in 988 Anne, sister of the Emperor Basil, was wedded to Prince Vladimir, who was thus converted, and who at the same time ordered all his people at Kieff to be baptised in the Dnieper by the Greek clergy. From that time the Christian civilisation of Russia was Greek, from the alphabet which the Greeks adapted to the Slavonic language to the baptismal names of emperors and peasants alike; and Russia recognised this debt of gratitude by the powerful protection she has extended to the eastern Christians, amongst whom she is consequently known as 'Holy Russia.' The metropolitan, residing first at Kieff and later (1320) in Moscow, was subject to the patriarch of Constantinople. In 1582, however, with the concurrence of the whole church, the patriarch Jeremiah II. raised the Russian see to a patriarchate, still dependent on Constantinople. This dependency continued till the time of Peter the Great, who in 1700, again with the sanction of the whole body of eastern patriarchs, suppressed the patriarchate of Moscow and confided the government of the Church of Russia to a synod composed of five or six bishops and a number of lay dignitaries, all appointed by the czar, who remained supreme head of the church. In Russia there are several dissenting sects.

The Church of Georgia (ancient Iberia) dates from the time of Constantine, when Nina, a Christian slave, converted the king and his people. It first formed part of the patriarchate of Antioch, and was subsequently transferred to that of Constantinople. But since the annexation of Georgia to the Russian empire the archbishop of Tiflis has been a member of the Russian synod.

The Montenegrans, who never acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan, did not admit the jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan patriarch. They were governed, since 1697, when they formally proclaimed their independence, by a 'Vladika' or prince-bishop of their own, chosen from the family of Petrović, and who exercised both spiritual and temporal power. In October 1851, however, Danilo I., on succeeding his uncle, the last Vladika, abandoned his ecclesiastical functions, and assumed the temporal title of hospodar or prince. The bishops of Montenegro have since been consecrated by the Russian synod.

In Austro-Hungary there are over three millions of orthodox Christians, principally of the Servian and Roumanian nationality, besides four million Uniats. Of the former, who are there known as Byzantine Greeks, about half a million are scattered through the Austrian dominions, and the rest are in Hungary, with two archbishops (Carlowitz and Hermannstad) and eight bishops, six in Hungary proper, and two in Croatia. The archbishops exercise their jurisdiction under Austria.

In England a Greek Church has existed since the middle of the 17th century. The periodical emigrations of Greeks to the west, consequent upon each fresh recrudescence of Turkish tyranny, resulted in the formation of a Greek colony in London, which must have been considerable both in numbers and position; for we find that many young Greeks were sent to Oxford, as a rule to St John the Baptist (Gloucester) Hall, where they replaced the Irish, who, after the establishment of Trinity College, remained in Dublin. A certain Nathanael Conopius, however, was at Balliol, where he first taught the Oxonians to make coffee, and whence he was expelled by the Puritans in 1648. When the Archbishop of Samos, Joasaph Georginos or Georgirenes, had to flee from his diocese, and arrived in England about 1666, he found amongst his co-religionists in London Daniel Bulgaris as priest, but there was no church. He therefore applied to the then Bishop of London, Henry Compton, who befriended him, and who with other English bishops collected a small fund, to which even King Charles II. is said to have contributed, for the erection of a Greek church on a piece of land in Crown Street, Soho Fields, given by the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields. (See A Description of the Present State of Samos, Nicaria, Patmos, and Mount Athos, by Joseph Georgirenes, Archbishop of Samos; Lond. 1678.) This church, which was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin's Sleep, is still extant, and a marble tablet over the west door bears an inscription in Greek recording these facts, as well as the names then given to Greek Street and Compton Street in the same neighbourhood commemorate those events. The church, which is the one represented in Hogarth's well-known picture of 'Noon,' soon passed to the French Protestant refugees; it was subsequently fitted up as a meeting-house for the Rev. John Rees, and in 1850 it was reconsecrated as an Anglican church, to St Mary the

Virgin (Ecclesiologist, xi. 120). A copy (made about 1760) of the original register, which seems to have perished, of that first Greek community exists in the chapel of the Russian embassy in London (Welbeck Street), and records the fact that when the Archimandrite Gennadius was priest in London, both the church and the community had become 'Græco-Russian.' After the death of Gennadius (February 3, 1737), who was buried in St Pancras' Churchyard, the entries in the register record more and more frequent marriages between English and Greeks, who thus appear to have been absorbed by the indigenous element, their anglicised names which are still to be met with (Rodos, Pamphylos, Lesbos, &c.) confirming the fact. But in the beginning of the 19th century another Greek community sprung up in London by the arrival in 1818 from the island of Chios of three out of the five brothers Ralli, who founded the great firm of that name, and who were soon followed by others of their countrymen. They at first met at a chapel in one of the houses in Finsbury Circus, and in 1847 built a church in London Wall. As the community increased in riches and in numbers, this modest building was replaced in 1879 by a magnificent Byzantine church in Moscow Road, Bayswater, built after the model and bearing the hallowed name of 'Hagia Sophia.' Flourishing Greek churches exist also in Liverpool and in Manchester.

In the United States there are a Greek church in New Orleans and a Russian in San Francisco.

The Church of Greece offers a strong instance of the causes which militate against dependence upon a jurisdiction subject to the will of the sultan. The Greek struggle for freedom, which carried with it the active sympathy of the whole Greek nation, was, at the dictate of the sultan, put under the ban by the patriarch Gregorius, who, nevertheless, was soon afterwards hanged for complicity in the national cause. In the second year of the war the Assembly of the Greeks at Epidauros proclaimed (1822) the orthodox church as church of the new state, and the Royal Decree of 15-27th July 1833 organised the church on a plan similar to that of Russia, with a synod of five bishops, presided over by the Archbishop of Attica. A lay government commissioner attends the deliberations, but may not vote. The synod is the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal, and elects bishops under the confirmation of the crown. The clergy are excluded from all participation in politics, and are not eligible to sit in the legislature. In 1850 the patriarchate of Constantinople acknowledged the independence of the Church of Greece, which has already rendered to the other Greek-speaking churches great services in the education and training of priests. Of the large number of convents which existed in Greece, many were destroyed during the war of independence, and others have been utilised for educational purposes. Of those still extant the Meteora in Thessaly and Mega Spileon in the Peloponnese are the most notable for extent and historical interest.

The Church of Serbia existed, under the early Servian kings, as an independent church, with a patriarch at Belgrade (1300). The Turkish conquest disorganised that church, and, in 1679, 37,000 Servian families emigrated to Hungary under Arsenius Czernowitz, and established the see of Carlowitz. In 1765 the Servian patriarchate was suppressed by the Turks, and the Servian Church placed under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. When the semi-independence of Serbia was achieved under Kara George (see CZERNY), in 1810, the government of the church was again transferred to the metropolitan of Carlowitz. Finally, in 1830, Serbia declared her church autocephalous under the Bishop of Belgrade.

The Church of Roumania is the outcome of more violent and unfilial proceedings. The ecclesiastical administration of the two Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia was originally vested in the metropolitans of Jassy and Bucharest respectively, acting under the patriarch of Constantinople. The clergy in both principalities were almost exclusively Greek, few Roumanians having at that time either education or vocation for clerical life. The numerous conventual institutions in which they were assembled possessed immense landed estates, the bequests of Greek merchants and benefactors, who, through many generations adopted this as the only safe mode of endowing philanthropic and educational institutions within the reach of Turkish rule. Those estates, as well as others of an even greater extent and value in Russian Bessarabia (the revenues from which were sequestered in 1873), furnished to the patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem almost the only means of maintaining schools and hospitals throughout Turkey. When, however, the Moldo-Wallachians awoke to a sense of independent nationality and proclaimed the union of the two principalities under Alexander Couza (December 23, 1861), one of the first acts of the new Roumanian government was to sequester the Greek monastic property and declare the Roumanian Church autocephalous. It is now governed by the primate of Roumania, whose see is at Bucharest, with an archbishop of Moldavia at Jassy, and six bishops.

The Bulgarians, even before their political independence, had organised, for political purposes, a church of their own under an exarch. The Turkish government, anxious to foment disunion between its Christian subjects, encouraged the forcible appropriation by the Bulgarians of Greek churches and schools, and sanctioned their ecclesiastical policy. As, however, canon law does not admit of the co-existence within the same diocese of two separate churches of the same faith, the patriarch of Constantinople signified his readiness to acknowledge the independence of the Bulgarian exarchate, if its territorial limits were clearly defined, and if the exarch designated his see within those limits. This the Bulgarians refused to do, their avowed object being to extend their political influence through the exarchate, not only in mixed Græco-Bulgarian districts, but even over purely Greek dioceses. A general synod of the four patriarchs was therefore convened (1873) at Constantinople, and the excommunication of the exarchate followed. The Russo-Turkish war resulted in 1878 in the constitution of an independent Bulgarian state; but its ecclesiastical head, the Bulgarian exarch, continues to reside at Constantinople and to claim jurisdiction over the Bulgarians in Thrace and northern Macedonia also. He does not concede, however, to the patriarch of Constantinople a similar right over the Greeks in Bulgaria. The excommunication of 1873 is still maintained.

The total number of adherents of the Greek Church it is impossible to state precisely; the following are the only available reliable figures:

LITERATURE.—The first portion of this article is founded on Dean Stanley's admirable Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, which have served as a basis to later treatises on the same subject. But the following authorities may also be consulted.—(1) History: Gibbon; Robertson; Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History; J. M. Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church.—(2) Controversies: Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ (in Clark's translations); Swainson, The Apostles' and Nicene Creed; Walch, Historia Controversiae de processu Spiritus Sancti; J. H. Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century; W. Palmer, Dissertations on Subjects relating to the Orthodox Communion.—(3) Councils and Common Law: Hefele, History of the Councils (Clark's translations); Photius, Nomocanon (Paris, 1615); G. A. Ralli and M. Potlis, Σύνταγμα τῶν θεῶν καὶ τῶν ἱερῶν κανόνων (Athens, 1852-56).—(4) Liturgy, Ceremonies, &c.: E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio (Paris, 1715-16); J. Goar, Euchologium sive Rituale Græcum (1647); H. A. Daniel, Codex Liturgicus Ecclesie Orientalis (1853); J. M. Neale and R. F. Littledale, The Liturgies (trans. 1869); H. A. Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus (Leip. 1841-56); J. M. Neale, Hymns of the Eastern Church (trans. 1868); Kimmel, Libri Symbolici Ecc. Orientalis (Jena, 1843); J. Covell, Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church (1722); H. C. Romanoff, Rites and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church (1868); Les Religions Anciennes et Modernes des Moscovites (Cologne, 1698); Μηνολόγιον and Συναξιαστής, for lives of saints.—(5) Genius and Condition of the Church: D. Stourza, Considérations sur la doctrine et l'esprit de l'Égl. Orthod. (trans. from the Greek; Jena, 1816); A. N. Mouravieff, Question religieuse de l'Orient et de l'Occident (Moscow, 1856) and Lettre à un ami sur l'Office Divin (St Petersburg, 1850); Angeli (Ch.) Græci, De Statu hodiernorum Græcorum (Leip. 1671); Th. Smith, De Gr. Eccl. hodierno Statu (1698); P. Ricaut, Histoire de l'État présent de l'Égl. Græque et de l'Égl. Arménienne (1692); Helladius (Alex.) Græcus, De Statu presente Eccl. Gr. (1714); T. Ellsner, Beschreibung der Gr. Christen in der Turkei (1737).—(6) Hierarchy and Dioceses: M. le Quien, Oricens Christianus (an account of the Eastern dioceses and their occupants from their foundation to 1732); Philippi Cyprii Protonotarii Constantinopolitani, Chronica Eccl. Gr. (1679); H. Hodius, De Græcis illustribus (1742); F. Cornelius, Creta Sacra, sive de Episcopis in insula Creta (Venet. 1755).—(7) Relations with the Reformers: G. Williams, The Orthodox Church and the Nonjurors (1868); Eastern Church Association Papers (1866-76).—(8) Uniat: P. P. Rodota, Dell Origine et Stato presente del Rito Gr. in Italia (Rome, 1758).—(9) Sects, &c.: Bibliotheca Orientalis (Rome, 1719-28), by J. Simon Assemauni, a Maronite (contains list of MS. and writers of Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and Ethiopia); Simon, Histoire critique de la Créance et des Coutumes des Nations du Levant (1684; trans. in Eng. by Lovell, 1685); G. H. Badger, The Nestorians and their Ritual (1852); J. Wortabit, Researches into the Religions of Syria (1860); J. W. Etheridge, The Syrian Churches (1846); J. M. Vausleb (Dominicain), Hist. de l'Égl. d'Alexandrie que nous appelons celle du Jacobites Coptes (1677); M. La Croze, Hist. du Christianisme d'Éthiopie et de l'Arménie (1739); Harris, Highlands of Ethiopia (1844); Th. Wright, Early Christianity in Arabia (1855); J. G. Müllern, Disputatio de Eccl. Maronitarum (Jena, 1668); E. Duaulquier, Histoire, Dogmes, Traditions, et Liturgie de l'Égl. Arménienne Orientale (Paris, 1855); S. C. Malan, Short History of the Georgian Church (1866).