GREEK
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GREEK
the nineteenth century we find the Protestant Episco-
palian Church of England and of the United States
coquetting with the Greeks. In several Anglican
synods — e. g., 1866, 1867, 1868 — a desire for union
with the Greeks was expressed, and the Patriarch
Gregory VI showed sympathy, but did not hide the
difficulties in the way of its immediate realization.
At the Synod of Bonn (1874) the Anglicans resolved to
remove the "Filioque from the Creed, to insert the
formula "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the leather
through the Son", to recognize tradition as a source of
revelation, to maintain that the Eucharist was a sacri-
fice, to admit pra}"ers for the dead, and other points.
But the Greeks would not make any concessions. In
1S97 the 36th decision of the synod assembled at Lam-
beth Palace (London) charged the chief representa-
tives of Anglicanism to seek an understanding with
Constantinople. The Bishop of Salisbury, the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Gibraltar
(who pays an annual visit to the cecumenical patri-
arch) were to be the principal negotiators. But the
much-desired union is not yet a fact, the great draw-
back being the difficulty which both Churches find in
defining exactly what they hold to be of faith, and
what is only theological truth. In 1902 the Patriarch
Joachim III consulteil the Orthodox Churches as to
the usefulness of an understanding with the Protest-
ant Churches; nearly all tho.se who thought it worth
while to reply were opposed to the suggestion. Never-
theless there are several union societies in existence —
e. g., the Anglo-Continental Society, founded in 1862,
the Eastern Church Association, and others similar —
but so far they have effected nothing. On the other
hand, Evangelical societies of various countries have
been very active in the East, and have often called
forth protests from the higher Greek clergy. While
their success among the Greeks has not yet equalled
their success among the Armenians, their unceasing
propaganda in Asia Minor has ended by creating
Greek centres of Protestantism, something hitherto
unheard of.
The Old-Catholics from the beginning aimed at union with the <)rthodox Chvirch. Theological con- ferences were hckl at Bonn in 1874 and 1875 with that object in view, and both parties made concessions, but nothing came of these efforts. Although frequent conferences have since been held, an Old-Catholic Committee instituted at Rotterdam, and the " Revue Internationale de Th^ologie," established at Berne (189.3), the negotiations for union have not made the slightest advance.
With all the Orthodox churches, except the Bulga- rian exarchate and the Syrian Patriarchate of Anti- och — both of them considered schismatic for substitut- ing a native episcopate to a Greek one — the Greek Churches are on terms of union arising from a common faith and a common orthodox)'. By the canons of the cecumenical councils of 381 and 451 the Church of Con- stantinople enjoys a sort of pre-eminence over the other Churches. But this must not be understood to mean a pontifical primacy so that the head of the Orthodox Church may command with authority the faithful of all other Churches. The Byzantine patri- arch has a primacy of honour but not of jurisdiction; he is foremost among his equals — primus inter pares — and no more. This oft-repeated declaration was re- newed at the Council of Jerusalem in 1867, which proclaimed that the Orthodox Churches recognized only an oecumenical coimcil as their supreme master and sovereign judge. When Joachim III, in 1902, wished to consult the other Churches on matters con- cerning the whole Orthodox party — e. g., union with the Catholics or Protestants or Old-Catholics, the re- form of the calendar, and other matters? — out of thir- teen Churches five were not consulted, being in schism or manifestly unfavourable; two did not reply; six replied in the negative. Again in Cyprus, since 1900,
the attempts of the cecumenical patriarch to put an
end to the schism of that Church are resented; at
the present time (1909) his authority is being over-
thrown at Jerasalem, just as at Alexandria. There is
therefore no imity of authority among the Orthodox
Churches. Nor is there any unity of faith or disci-
pline. The Bulgarians and the Syrians of Antioch,
who are looked on as schismatics bj' the various Greek
Churches, are not such in the eyes of the other Ortho-
dox Churches. The Russians uphold the validity of
baptism administered by Catholics or Protestants ;" the
Cireeks say such baptism is invalid. The Russians
do not admit the deuterocanonical books of the Old
Testament, but the (ireeks, imtil quite recently, ac-
cepted them. It would be easy to multiply examples.
Formerly the Church of Constantinople claimed the
right to send the chrism to all Orthodox Churches as a
sign of Orthodox unity and of their dependence on
Constantinople. But since the .seventeenth century,
at least, the Russian Church blesses its own chrism,
and sends it in our day to the Churches of Montenegro,
Bulgaria, and Antioch. The three Orthodox Churches
within the Austro-Hungarian Empire bless their own
chrism, as does also the Rumanian Church since 1882.
So that the only Churches now receiving the chrism
from Constantinople are those of Alexandria, Jerusa-
lem, Cyprus, Greece, and Servia. The moral authority
of the ceciunenical patriarch over the other Churches
is null; consequently it stands to reason he has no
dogmatic privileges. The decrees of the first seven
cecumenical cotmcils alone have force of law. As a
rule, a number of creeds are also considered as instruc-
tive concerning faith, e. g., the confession of the Patri-
arch Gennadius, that of Peter Mohila, the decrees of
the Council of Jerusalem in 1672, the confession of
Metrophanes Critopoulos. At present these confes-
sions are not held to be infallible, but merel)' guides in
matters of faith.
Greek religious literature since 1453 is mainl}' po- lemical, against Catholics and Protestants. Literary interests, once so popular at B3zantiuni, have long been quite secondary. Cireek theologians re-edit con- tinuallj' the most fiery controversial treatises, accen- tuate the causes of separation between the two Churches, and on occasion invent others. Such, in the fifteenth century, are the writings of Maximus of Peloponnesus and Cieorge Scholarius; in the sixteenth century, of Maximus Margunius, Bishop of CMhera, and of Gabriel Severus, Archbishop of Philadelphia; in the seventeenth centurj' of the Calvinist, CjtH Lu- caris, of George Coresios, Theophilos Corydaleos, half pagan and half Protestant, Meletius Syrigos, Dori- theus of Jerusalem, Nicholas Kerameus of Janina, and Paisios Ligarides; in the eighteenth century the writings of the brothers Joannikios and Sophronius Lichoudes, who laboured especially in Russia, Chrys- anthus of Jerusalem, Elias Miniates, Eustratios Ar- gent is, etc. Apart from this truculent school, always fairly numerous among the Greeks, there are but few historians and chroniclers, e. g., Manuel Malaxos, who wrote a history of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from 1458 to 1578; Dorotheus of Monembasia, who drew up a chronological table from the creation to 1629, and Meletius of Janina or of Athens (d. 1714), their only historian of note. The monks were the most conscientious workers and tireless editors: Nico- demos the Hagiographer, of amazing productivity; Agapios Landos, his rival; Eugenios Bulgaris, the most learned Greek of the eighteenth century ; (Econo- mos, Meletius Tj-paldos, Gregory of Chios, and many others.
There are few living theological writers of note in the Greek church. Philotheos Bryennios, Metropoli- tan of Nicomedia. who rediscovered and edited the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles", is the only one deserving of mention. It is no less strange than true, that within nearly a century only one manual of dog-
