EASTERN
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EASTERN
keeps to his millet and hotly defends it, as we do to our
fatherlands; for a Jacobite to turn Orthodox would be
like a Frenchman turning German.
We have noted that religious con^^ction counts for little. It is hard to say how much any of these bodies (Xestorian or Monophysite) are now even conscious of what was once the cardinal issue of their schism. The bishops and more educated clergy have no doubt a general and hazy idea of the question — Nestorians think that everyone else denies Christ's real manhood, Monophysites that all theiropponents"divideChrist". But what stirs their enthusiasm is not the metaphys- ical problem; it is the conviction that what they be- lieve is the faith of their fathers, the heroes of their " nation " who were persecuted by the other millets, as they are to-day (for there everj'one thinks that every- one else persecutes his religion). Opposed to all these little milal (plural of millet) there looms, each decade mightier and more dangerovis, the West, Europe, Frengistan (of which the United States, of course, forms part to them). Their lands are ovemm with Frengis; Frengi schools tempt their young men, and Frengi churches, with eloquent sermons and attractive services, their women. They frequent the schools assiduously; for the Levantine has discovered that arithmetic, French, and physical science are useful helps to earning a good hving. But to accept the Frengi religion means treason to their nation. It is a matter of course to them that we are Catholics or Protestants, those are our tnilal; but an Armenian, a Copt, a Xestorian does not become a Frengi. Against this barrier argument, quotation of Scripture, texts of Fathers, accounts of Church liistory, break in vain. Your opponent listens, is perhaps even mildly inter- ested, and then goes about his business as before. Frengis are very clever and learned; but of course he is an Armenian, or whatever it may be. Sometimes whole bodies move (as Xestorian dioceses have lately begun to coquet with Russian Orthodoxy), and then every memlser moves too. One cleaves to one's millet whatever it does. Certainly, if the heads of any body can be persuaded to accept reunion with Rome, the rank and file will make no difficulty, unless there be another party strong enough to proclaim that those heads have deserted the nation.
The second characteristic, a corollary of the first, is the intense conservatis?n of all these bodies. They cling fanatically to their rites, even to the smallest custom — because it is by these that the millei is held together. Liturgical language is the burning question in the Balkans. They are all Orthodox, but inside the Ortho- dox Church there are various milal — Bulgars, Vlachs, Serbs, Greeks, whose bond of imion is the language used in church. So one understands the uproar made in Macedonia about language in the hturgy; the revo- lution among the Serbs of Uskub in 1S96. when then- new metropolitan celebrated in Greek (Orth. Eastern Church, 326); the ludicrous scanilal at Monastir, in Macedonia, when they fouglit over a dead man's body and set the whole town ablaze because some wanted him to be buried in Greek and some in Rumanian (op. cit., 333). The great and disastrous Bulgarian schism, the schism at Antioch, are simply questions of the nationality of the clergy and the language they use.
It follows then that the great difficulty in the way of reunion is this question of nationality. Theology counts for very little. Creeds and argu- ments, even when people seem to make much of them, are really only shibboleths, convenient expres- sions of what they really care about — their nation. The question of nature and person in Christ, the Filioque in the Creed, azyme bread, and so on do not really stir the heart of the Eastern Christian. But he will not Ijccome a Frengi. Hence the importance of the Uniat Churches. Once for all these people will never become Latins, nor is there any reason why they should. The wisdom of the Holy See has always been
to restore union, to insist on the Catholic Faith, and
for the rest to leave each millet alone with its own
native hierarchy, its own language, its own rites.
When this is done we have a Uniat Church.
IV. Rome and the Eastern Churches. — The attempts at reunion date from after the schism of Michael Caerularius (1054). Before that Rome was little concerned about the older Xestorian and Jlono- physite schisms. The conversion of these people might well be left to their neighbours, the Catholics of the Eastern Empire. Naturally, in those days the Greeks set about this conversion in the most disastrous way conceivable. It was the Government of Constantinople that tried to convert them back along the most impos- sible line, by destroying their nationahty and central- izing them tmder the patriarch of the imperial city. And the means used were, frankly and crudely, perse- cution. Monophysite conventicles were broken up by imperial soldiers, Monophysite bishops banished or executed. Of course this confirmed their hatred of Caesar and Caesar's religion. The East, before as well as after the great schism, did nothing towards pacify- ing the schismatics at its gates. Only quite lately has Russia taken a more reasonable and conciliatory atti- tude towards X'estorians in Persia and Abyssinians, who are outside her political power. Her attitude towards people she can persecute may be seen in her abominable treatment of the Armenians in Russia. It was, in the first instance, with the Orthodox that Rome treated with a view to reunion. The Second Council of Lyons (1274) and the CoimcO of Ferrara- Florence (143S-39) were the first efforts on a large scale. And at Florence were at least some representa- tives of all the other Eastern Churclies; as a kind of supplement to the great atfair of the Orthodox, reunion with them was considered too. None of these re- unions were stable. X^evertheless they were, and they remain, important facts. They (the union of Florence especially) were preceded by elaborate discussions in which the attitudes of East and West, Orthodox and Catholic, were clearly compared. Every question was examined — the primacy, the Filioque, nzxrae bread, purgatory, celibacy, etc. The Council of Florence has not been forgotten in the East. It showed Eastern Christians what the conditions of reunion are, and it has left them always conscious that reunion is possible and is greatly desired by Rome. And on the other hand it remains always as an invaluable precedent for the Roman Court. The attitude of the Holy See at Florence was the only right one: to be quite unswers'- ing in the question of faith and to concede everj'thing else that possibly can be conceded. There is no need of uniformity in rites or in canon law; as long as prac- tices are not absolutely bad and immoral, each Church may work out its own development along its own hues. Customs that would not suit the West may suit the East very well; and we have no right to quarrel with such customs as long as they are not forced upon us. So, at Florence, in all these matters there was no attempt at changing the old order. Each Church was to keep its own liturgy and its own canon law as far as that was not incompatible with the Roman primacy, which is de fide. The very decree that proclaimed the primacy added the clause, that the pope guides and rules the whole Church of God "without prejudice to the rights and privileges of the other patriarchs". And the East was to keep its married clergy and its leavened bread, was not to say the Filioque in the Creed, nor use solid statues, nor do any of the things they resent as being Latin. This has been the attitude of Rome ever since. Many popes have published de- crees, Encyclicals, Bulls that show that they have never forgotten the venerable and ancient Churches cut off from us by these schisms; in all these docu- ments consistently the tone and attitude are the same. If there has been any latinizing movement among Uniats, it has sprung up among themselves; they have
