by the Turkish authorities to ban the movement for freedom.
When the Greeks achieved independence they refused to be subject
ecclesiastically to a patriarch who was nominated by the sultan
(June 9, 1828); and, to add to their difficulties, there were in the
country twenty-two bishops who had been consecrated by the
patriarch, twelve bishops who had been consecrated irregularly
during the war, and about twenty bishops who had been deprived
of their sees during the troubles—i.e. fifty-three bishops claimed to
be provided for. In these circumstances the government and people
resolved that there should be ten diocesan bishops and forty additional
provisional sees. They also resolved that the church should
be governed after the fashion of the Russian Church by a synod;
and they decreed that the king of Greece was to be head of the
church. All these ideas were carried out with some modifications,
and gradually. The patriarch of Constantinople in 1850 acknowledged
the independence of the church, which gradually grew to
be more independent of the state. By the Greek constitution of
16th/28th November 1864 “the Orthodox Church of Greece remains
indissolubly united, as regards dogmas, to the great Church of
Constantinople, and to every other church professing the same
doctrines, and, like these churches, it preserves in their integrity
the apostolical constitutions and those of the councils of the Church,
together with the holy traditions; it is αὐτοκέφαλος, it exercises
its sovereign rights independently of every other church, and it is
governed by a synod of bishops.”
4. The Servian Church.—After the suppression of the Church of Ipek in 1766 Servia became ecclesiastically subject to Constantinople; but in 1830 the sultan permitted the Serbs to elect a patriarch (as a matter of fact he is merely styled metropolitan), subject to the confirmation of the patriarch of Constantinople. Eight years later the seat of ecclesiastical government was fixed at Belgrade; and when Servia gained its independence its church became autocephalous.
5. The Rumanian Church.—The fall of the church of Okhrida in 1767 had made Moldavia and Wallachia ecclesiastically subject to Constantinople. On the union of the two principalities under Alexander Couza (December 1861) the Church was declared autocephalous under a metropolitan at Bucharest; and the fact was recognized by the patriarchs, as it was in the case of Servia, after the treaty of Berlin had guaranteed their independence.
6. The Church of Montenegro has from early times been independent under its bishops, who from 1516 to 1851 were also the temporal rulers, under the title of Vladikas, or prince-bishops.
7. The Orthodox Church in Austria-Hungary, which, however, really consists of four independent sections: the Servians of Hungary and Croatia, under the patriarch of Karlowitz; the Rumanians of Transylvania, under the archbishop of Hermannstadt; the Ruthenians of Bukovina, under the metropolitan of Czernowitz; and the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzogovina, where there are four sees, that of Sarajevo holding the primacy.
8. The Russian Church dates from 992, when Prince Vladimir and his people accepted Christianity. The metropolitan, who was subject to the patriarch of Constantinople, resided at Kiev on the Dnieper. During the Tatar invasion the metropolis was destroyed, and Vladimir became the ecclesiastical capital. In 1320 the metropolitans fixed their seat at Moscow. In 1582 Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, raised Job, 46th metropolitan, to the patriarchal dignity; and the act was afterwards confirmed by a general council of the East. In this way the Russian Church became autocephalous, and its patriarch had immense power. In 1700 Peter the Great forbade the election of a new patriarch, and in 1721 he established the Holy Governing Synod to supply the place of the patriarch. This body now governs the Russian Church, and consists of a procurator representing the emperor, the metropolitans of Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg, the exarch of Georgia and five or six other bishops appointed by the emperor. There are altogether some 90 bishops and about 40 auxiliary bishops called vicars. There are 481 monasteries for men and 249 convents of nuns. The Church of Georgia, which has existed from a very early period, and was dependent first on the patriarch of Antioch and then on the patriarch of Constantinople, has since 1802 been incorporated in the Russian Church. Its head, the archbishop of Tiflis, bears the title of exarch of Georgia, and has under him four suffragans. A petition was presented to the emperor by the Georgians in 1904 asking for the restoration of their church and their language, but nothing came of it.
9. The Bulgarian Church, unless indeed it be classed with the separated churches. It differs from the national churches already mentioned in that it had its origin in a revolt of Turkish subjects against the patriarchal authority. From the earliest times the Bulgarians had occupied an anomalous position on the borders of Eastern and Western Christendom, but they had ultimately become subject to Constantinople. The revival of Bulgarian national feeling near the middle of the 19th century led to a movement for religious independence, the leaders of which were the archimandrite Neophit Bozveli and the bishop Ilarion Mikhailovsky. The Porte espoused the cause of the Bulgarians, partly to pacify them, but still more to strengthen its hold on all the Christians of Turkey by fostering their differences. Ultimately, on 28th February 1870, the sultan issued a firman constituting a new church, including all Bulgarians who desired to join it within the vilayet of the Danube (i.e. the subsequently-formed principality of Bulgaria), and those of Adrianople, Salonica, Kossovo and Monastir (i.e. part of Macedonia, Eastern Rumelia and a tract farther south). The members of this Church were to constitute a millet or community, enjoying equal rights with the Greeks and Armenians; and its head, the Bulgarian exarch, was to reside at Constantinople. Naturally, this was resented by the patriarch Anthimus, who stigmatized the racial basis of the Bulgarian Church as the heresy of Phyletism. A local synod at Constantinople, in August 1872, pronounced it schismatical; Antioch, Alexandria and Greece followed suit; Jerusalem pronounced a modified condemnation; and the Servian and Rumanian churches avoided any definite expression of opinion. Russia was more favourable. It never actually acknowledged the Bulgarian Church, and Bulgarian prelates may not officiate publicly in Russian churches; on the other hand, the Holy Synod of Moscow refused to recognize the patriarch’s condemnation, and Russian ecclesiastics have secretly supplied the Bulgarians with the holy oil. Above all, when Prince Boris, the heir-apparent of the principality, was received into the Bulgarian Church on 14th February 1896, the emperor of Russia was his godfather. The position is further complicated by the fact that many Bulgarians, both within and without the kingdom of Bulgaria, still remain subject to the patriarch. Nevertheless, the Bulgarian Church has made great headway both in Bulgaria itself and in Macedonia. The curious thing is that the Russian Church is in communion with both sides. The patriarch of Constantinople dares not excommunicate Russia, but the chief of its many grievances against that country is its patronage of the Bulgarian exarchate. The Bulgarians of course say they are not schismatics, but a national branch of the Church Catholic, using their sacred right to manage their own affairs in their own way. They have never excommunicated the Patriarchists. On the whole it seems likely that the patriarch will ultimately have to yield, in spite of the strong Greek feeling against the Bulgars.[1]
Present Position of the Orthodox Church.—Although the signs of weakness which have characterized the past are still present, there are some indications of improvement. The encyclical on unity of Pope Leo XIII. (1895) called forth a reply from the patriarch Anthimus V. of Constantinople and his Synod, which was eminently learned, dignified and charitable.[2] The theological school of the patriarchate, at Halkē, is not undistinguished, and the university of Athens has a good record. Whilst the parochial clergy are still as unlearned as ever, there are not a few amongst the higher clergy who are distinguished for their learning beyond the limits of their own communion: for example, the metropolitan Ph. Bryennios, who discovered and edited the Didachē; the archbishop N. Kalogeras, who discovered and edited the second part of the commentary of Euthymius Zigabenus (d. c. 1118) on the New Testament; the archimandrite D. Latas, author of a valuable work on Christian archaeology (Athens, 1883); and the logothete S. Aristarchi, who edited a valuable collection of 83 newly discovered homilies of the patriarch Photius. This was published in 1900 at the Phanar press, erected as a memorial to Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury, by Greek and English churchmen, which was set up by the patriarch Constantine V. in 1899. An authorized version of the Scriptures in ancient Greek is also one of the works undertaken by this institution. On the other hand, the attempt made in 1901 by the Holy Synod at Athens, with the co-operation of Queen Olga of Greece (a Russian princess), to circulate a modern Greek version of the Gospels was resented as a symptom of a Pan-Slavist conspiracy, and led to an ebullition of popular feeling which could only be pacified by the withdrawal of the obnoxious version and the abdication of the metropolitan of Athens. The patriarch Constantine V. was deposed on the 12th of April 1901, and was succeeded on the 28th of May by Joachim III. (and V.), who had previously occupied the patriarchal throne from 1878 to 1884, when he was deposed through the ill-will of the Porte and banished to Mount Athos. His re-election had therefore no little importance. His progressive sympathies, illustrated by his proposals to reform the monasteries and the calendar, to modify the four long fasts and to treat for union (especially with the Old Catholics), were not very well received, and in 1905 an attempt was made to depose him. The sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, to whom the different parties appealed,
