EASTERN
23G
EASTERN
This is what has happened. There is at any rate no
certain evidence of continuity from time before the
schism in any of these Uniat Cliiirches. Through the
bad time, from the various schisms to the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, there are traces, isolated
cases, of liishops who have at least wished for reunion
with the West ; but it cannot be claimed that any con-
siderable body of Eastern Christians have kept the
union throughout. The Maronites think they have,
but they are mistaken; the only real case is that of the
Italo-Greeks (who have never been schismatic).
Really the Uniat Churches were formed by Catholic
missionaries since the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. And as soon as any number of Eastern Chris-
tians were persuaded to reunite with the West, the
situation that had existed before the schisms became
an actual one again. They became Catholics; no one
thought of asking them to become Latins. They
were given bishops and patriarchs of their own as suc-
cessors of the old Catholic Eastern bishops before the
schism, and they became what all Eastern Christians
had once been — Uniats. That the Uniats are com-
paratively small bodies is the unfortunate result of the
fact that the majority of their countrymen prefer
schism. Our missionaries would willingly make them
larger ones. But, juridically, they stand exactly
where all the East once stood, before the Greek schism,
or during the short-lived union of Florence (1439-53).
And they have as much right to exist and be respected
as have Latins, or the great Catholic bishops in the
East had during the first centuries. The idea of latin-
izing all Eastern Catholics, sometimes defended by
people on our side whose zeal for uniformity is greater
than their knowledge of the historical and juridical
situation, is diametrically opposed to antiquity, to the
Catholic system of ecclesiastical organization, and to
the policy of all popes. Nor has it any hope of suc-
cess. The East may become Catholic again; it will
never be what it never has been — Latin.
1. The Byzantine Uniats are those who correspond to the Orthodox. They all use the same (Byzantine) Rite ; but they are not all organized as one body. They form seven groups: (a) the Melkites in Syria and Egypt (about 110,000), under a Patriarch of Antioch who administers, and bears the titles of, Alexandria and Jerusalem too. They have eleven dioceses and use Arabic liturgically with fragments of Greek, though any of their priests may (and some do) cele- brate entirely in Greek. The old name Melkite", which meant originally one who accepted the decrees of Chalcedon (and the imperial laws), as against the Jacobites and Copts, is now used only for these Uniats. (b) There are a few himdred LTniats of this Rite in Greece and Turkey in Europe. They use Greek litur- gically and depend on Latin delegates at Constanti- nople and .\thens. (c) One Georgian congregation of Constantinople (last remnant of the old Georgian Church destroyed by Russia), who use their own lan- guage and obey the Latin Delegate, (d) The Ruthen- ians, of whom there are nearly four millions in Aus- tria-Hungary and hidden still in corners of Russia. They use Old Slavonic, (e) The Bulgarian Uniats (about 13,000), under two vicars Apostolic, who also use Old Slavonic, (f) Rumanian Uniats (about a million and a half) in Rumania, but chiefly in Tran- sylvania. They have four bishops and use their own language in the liturgy, (g) The Italo-Greeks (about .50,000), a remnant of the old Church of Greater Greece. They are scattered about Calabria and Sicily, have a famous monastery near Rome (Grotta- ferrata) and colonies at Leghorn, Malta, Algiers, Mar- .seilles, and Corsica, besides a church (St-Julien le Pauvre) at Paris. They use Greek liturgically, but, living as they do surrounded by Latins, they have considerably latinized their rites.
This completes the list of Byzantine Uniats, of whom it may be said that the chief want is organiza^
tion among themselves. There has often been talk of
restoring a Uniat (Melkite) Patriarch of Constanti-
nople. It was said that Pope Leo XIII intended to
arrange this before he died. If such a revival ever is
made, the patriarch would have jurisdiction, or at
least a primacy, over all Catholics of his Rite : in this
way the scattered unities of Melkites in Syria, Riithen-
ians in Hungary, Italo-Greeks in Sicily, and so on,
would be linked together as are all othei Uniat
Chiu"ches.
2. The Chahtees are Uniats converted from Nestor- ianism. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a complicated series of quarrels and schisms among the Nestorians led to not very stable unions of first one and then another party with the Holy See. Since that time there has always been a Uniat Patriarch of the Chaldees, though several times the person so ap- pointed fell away into schism again and had to be re- placed by another. The Chaldees are said now to mmiber about 70,000 souls (Silbernagl, op. cit., 354; but Werner, "OrbisTerr.Cath.", 106, gives the number as 33,000). Their primate lives at Mosul, having the title of Patriarch of Babylon. Under him are two archbi.shoprics and ten other sees. There are monas- teries whose arrangements are very similar to those of the Nestorians. The liturgical books (in Syriac, slightly revised from the Nestorian ones) are printed by the Dominicans at JIosul. Most of their canon law depends on the Bull of Pius IX, "Reversurus" (12 July, 1867), published for the Armenians and ex- tended to the Chaldees by another Bull, "Cum ec- clesiastica" (31 Aug., 1869). They have some stu- dents at the Propaganda College in Rome.
3. The Uniat Copts have had a vicar Apostolic since 1781. Before that (in 1442 and again in 1713) the Coptic patriarch had submitted to Rome, but in neither case was the union of long duration. As the number of Catholics of this Rite has increased very considerably of late years, Leo XIII in 1895 restored the Uniat patriarchate. The patriarch lives at Cairo and rules over about 20,000 Catholic Copts.
4. The Abyssinians, too, had many relations with Rome in past times, and Latin missionaries built up a considerable Uniat Abyssinian Church. But re- peated persecutions and banishment of Catholics pre- vent etl this community from becoming a permanent one with a regular hierarchy. Now that the Govern- ment is tolerant, some thousands of Abyssinians are LTniats. They have an Apostolic vicar at Keren. If their numbers increase, no doubt they will in time be organized vmder a LTniat Abuna who should depend on the ITniat Coptic patriarch. Their liturgy, too, is at present in a state of disorganization. It seems that the Monophysite Abyssinian books will need a good deal of revision before they can be used by Catholics. Meanwhile the priests ordained for this rite have a tran.slation of the Roman Mass in their own language, an arrangement that is not meant to be more than a temporary expedient.
5. The Catholic Syrian Church dvLtes horn nSl. At that time a number of Jacobite bishops, priests, and lay people, who had agreed to reunion with Rome, elected one Ignatius Giarve to succeed the dead Jaco- bite patriarch, George III. Giarve sent to Rome ask- ing for recognition and a pallium, and submitting in all things to the pope's authority. But he was then deposctl by those of his people who clung to Jacobit- ism, and a Jacobite patriarch was elected. From this time there have been two rival successions. In 1830 the Catholic Syrians were acknowledged by the Turk- ish Government as a separate millet. The ITniat patri- arch lives at Beirut, most of his flock in Mesopotamia. Under him are three archbishops and six other bish- ops, five monasteries, and about 25,000 families.
G. There is also a U inut Chnrrli uj Muhilmr formed by the Synod of Diamiier in 1509. This Church, too, has passed through stormy periods; quite lately, since
