which have the same sacraments, the same priesthood, the same ethics, the same worship. In spite of these elements of union, division has been since the ninth century an acknowledged fact between these churches. Upon whom recoils the responsibility for this great religious and social crime? This is one of the gravest questions upon which a theologian can enter; he can not resolve it without bringing to judgment one of these churches, without accusing it of having despised the word of Jesus Christ, who made unity a condition essential to the existence of his Church. It is evidently only by the strangest perversion of Christian common-sense that the division could have been provoked and perpetuated. This is admitted in the two churches, Oriental and Roman. For this reason they return upon each other the accusation of schism, and are unwilling to accept before God and before the world the responsibility which they both regard as a stigma. One of the two must be guilty. For notwithstanding reprehensible acts might be specified on either side, these minor faults would not account for the separation. Discussions upon secondary points, coldness, occasioned by vanity or ambition, can engender only transient controversies. To determine a fundamental and permanent division, there must be a more radical cause and one which touches the very essence of things.
It is not possible, then, to resolve the question we have put without seeking this powerful and deep-seated cause which has provoked the schism and kept it alive to the present day. In approaching this question, we have been struck at the outset by the difference that exists between the reproaches which the two churches, Oriental and Roman, urge against each other reciprocally. The latter alleges that the Oriental Church separated herself (from her) to satisfy a pitiful grudge, through interest, through ambition. Such motives could, phil-
