The mere fact that they are all opposed to the Papacy for many centuries and have no inheritance from the Reformation of the 16th century is a negative common ground. But beyond this the Eastern attitude is a real and important point to realize. It applies to all these sects as much as to the Orthodox. What it comes to is, first, much in common with us except the Papacy. All have very definite ideas about hierarchical organization and authority; we shall hear much about their Patriarchs, Katholikoi, Mafrians, and so on. All have a fully developed sacramental system, a clear idea of the priesthood and eucharistic sacrifice, elaborate rites, vestments, and ceremonies, copious incense, monasticism, complicated laws of fasting and celibacy, saints—in short, what we may call the visible, organized Church idea. The mere minister and Gospel preacher, the Bible only, Protestant ideas of Grace and Predestination, all this is as strange to them as to us. It follows that all Eastern Churches stand much nearer to us Catholics than does any Protestant sect. Most of the dogmas we have to explain and justify to Protestants are accepted by them as a matter of course. Although many have a panic fear of the Pope, his position can easily be explained to them. They have most autocratic Patriarchs already; they have only to add the topmost branch to their idea of a hierarchy. What the Patriarch is to his Metropolitans, that is the Pope to the Patriarchs. Even infallibility can be no great stumbling-block to people who have a very definite idea of an infallible Church, of which Patriarchs are the authentic mouthpiece. They do not admit the Immaculate Conception of our Lady, because the Pope has defined it. If he had not done so, they probably would. Nestorians, of course, will not call her Mother of God. But they have unbounded veneration for the all-holy, most pure and sinless Virgin; they keep her feasts, and their liturgies surpass ours in glowing praise of her. If they do not all go to confession, they all know they ought to. All venerate relics and the holy cross; most have numerous holy pictures in their churches.
Then, lastly, there are many points in which they agree with the Orthodox rather than with us. Ferdinand Kattenbusch goes so far as to call them all "bye-churches"[1] of the Orthodox.
- ↑ "Nebenkirchen" (Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Confessionskunde, i. 205).
