EASTERN
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EASTERN
occasionally been disposed to copy practices of the far
richer and mightier Latin Church with which they are
united. But all the Roman documents point the other
way. If any Eastern customs have been discouraged
or forbidden, it is because they were obviously abuses
and immoral hke the quasi-hereditary patriarchate of
the Nestorians, or sheer paganism like the supersti-
tions forbidden by the Maronite Synod of 1736. True,
their liturgical books have been altered in places; true
also that in the past these corrections were made some-
times by well-meaning officials of Propaganda whose
liturgical knowledge was not equal to their pious zeal.
But in this case, too, the criterion was not conformity
with the Roman Rite, but purification from supposed
(.sometimes mistakenly supposed) false doctrine. That
the Maronite Rite is so latinized is due to its own
clergy. It was the Maronites themselves who insisted
on using our vestments, our azyme bread, our Com-
munion under one kind, till these things had to be
recognized, because they were already ancient customs
to them prescribed by the use of generations.
A short survey of papal documents relating to the Eastern Churches will make these points clear. — Be- fore Pius IX, the most important of these documents was Benedict XIV's Encyclical "Allatte sunt" of 2 July, 175.5. In it the pope is able to quote a long list of his predecessors who had already cared for the Eastern Churches and their rites. He mentions acts of Innocent III (1198-1216), Honorius III (1216-27), Innocent IV (1243-54), Alexander IV (1254-61), Gregory X (1271-76), Nicholas III (1277-80), Eugene IV (1431-47), Leo X (151.3-21), Clement VII (1523- 34), Pius IV (15.59-65), all to this effect. Gregory
XIII (1572-85) founded at Rome colleges for Greeks, Maronites, Armenians. In 1602 Clement VIII pub- lished a decree allowing Ruthenian priests to celebrate their rite in L.atin churches. In 1624 Urban VIII for- bade Ruthenians to become Latins, and Clement IX, in 1669, published the same order for Uniat Ar- menians (.AHatEB sunt, I). Benedict XIV not only quotes these examples of former popes, he confirms the .same principle by new laws. In 1742 he had re- established the Ruthenian Church with the Byzan- tine Rite after the national Council of Zamosc, con- firming again the laws of Clement VIII in 1595. When the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch wanted to change the u.se of the Presanctified Liturgy in his Rite, Benedict
XIV answered: "The ancient rubrics of the Greek Church must be kept unaltered, and your priests must be made to follow them" (Bullarium Ben. AlV., Tom. I). lie ordains that Melkites who, for lack of a priest of their own Rite, had been baptized by a Latin, should not be considered as having changed to our LTse: " We forbid absolutely that any Catholic Melkites who fol- low the Greek Rite should pass over to the Latin Rite" (ib., cap. xviii). The Encyclical "AUatae sunt" for- bids missionaries to convert schismatics to the Latin Rite; when they become Catholics they must join the corresponding Uniat Church (XI). In the Bull " Etsi pastoralis" (1742) the same pope orders that there shall be no precedence because of Rite. Each prelate shall have rank according to his own position or the date of his ordination ; in mixed dioceses, if the bi.shop is Latin (as in Southern Italy), he is to have at least one vicar-general of the other Rite (IX).
Most of all did the last two popes show their con- cern for Eastern Christendom. Each by a number of Acts carried on the tradition of conciliation towards the schismatical Churches and of protection of LTniat Rites. Pius IX, in his Encyclical " In Suprema Petri " (Epiphany, 1848), again assvires non-Uniats that "we will keep unchanged your liturgies, which indeed we greatly honour"; schismatic clergy who join the Catholic Church are to keep the same rank and posi- tion as they had before. In 1S53 the Uniat Ruman- ians were given a bi.shop of their own Rite, and in the Allocution made on that occasion, as well as in tjie one
to the Armenians on 2 February, 1854, he again in-
sists on the same principle. In 1860 the Bulgars, dis-
gusted with the Phanar (the Greeks of Constantino-
ple), approached the Catholic Armenian patriarch,
Hassun; he, and the pope confirming him, promised
that there should be no latinizing of their Rite.
Pius IX founded, 6 January, 1862, a separate depart-
ment for the Oriental Rites as a special section of the
great Propaganda Congregation. Leo XIII in 1888
wrote a letter to the Armenians (Paterna charitas) in
which he exhorts the Gregorians to reunion, always on
the same terms. But his most important act, per-
haps the most important of all documents of this kind,
is the Encyclical "Orientalium dignitas ecclesiarum"
of 30 November, 1894. In this letter the pope re-
viewed and confirmed all similar acts of his predeces-
sors and then strengthened them by yet severer laws
against any form of latinizing the East. The first
part of the Encyclical quotes examples of the care of
former popes for Eastern Rites, especially of Pius IX;
Pope Leo remembers also what he himself has already
done for the same cause — the foundation of colleges at
Rome, Philippopoli, Adrianople, Athens, and St. Ann
at Jerusalem. He again commands that in these col-
leges students should be exactly trained to observe
their own rites. He praises these venerable Eastern
liturgies as representing most ancient and sacred
traditions, and quotes again the text that has been
used so often for this purpose, circumdata varietate
applied to the queen, who is the Church (Ps. xliv, 10).
The Constitutions of Benedict XIV against latinizers
are confirmed ; new and most severe laws are promul-
gated: any missionary who tries to persuade a Uniat
to join the Latin Rite is ipso facto suspended, and is to
be expelled from his place. In colleges where boys of
diff'erent Rites are educated there are to be priests of
each Rite to administer the sacraments. In case of
need one may receive a sacrament from a priest of an-
other Rite; but forCommunion it should be, if possible,
at least one who uses the same kind of bread. No
length of use can prescribe a change of Rite. A
woman in marrying may conform to her husband's
Rite, but if she becomes a widow she must go back to
her own.
In the Encyclical "Prseclara gratulationis", of 20 June, 1894, that has been often described as "Leo XIII 's testament", he again turned to the Eastern Churches and invited them in the most courteous and the gentlest way to come back to communion with us. He assures schismatics that no great dift'erence exists between their faith and ours, and repeats once more that he would provide for all their customs without narrow- ness (Orth. Eastern Church, 434, 435). It was this letter that called forth the unpardonably offensive answer of Anthinios VII of Constantinople (op. cit., 435-4.38). Nor, as long as he lived, did Leo XIII cease caring for Eastern Churches. On 1 1 June, 1895, he wrote the letter " Unitas Christiana" to the Copts, and on 24 December of the same year he restored the Uniat Coptic patriarchate. Lastly, on 19 March, 1895, in a motti propria, he again insisted on the rever- ence due to the Eastern Churches and explained the duties of Latin delegates in the East. As a last ex- ample of all, Pius X in his Allocution, after the now famous celebration of the Byzantine Liturgy in his presence on 12 February, 1908, again repeated the same declaration of respect for Eastern rites and cus- toms and the same assurance of his intention to pre- serve them (Echos d'Orient, May, 1908, 129-31). Indeed this spirit of conservatism with regard to litur- gies is in our own time growing steadily at Rome with the increase of liturgical knowledge, so that there is reason to believe that whatever unintentional mis- takes have been made in the past (chiefly with regard to the Maronite and Uniat Armenian rites') will now gradually be corrected, and that the tradition of the most entire acceptance and recognition of other rites
