That is perhaps not quite fair either to them or to the Orthodox. But certainly, in many ways, of the two great Churches they stand nearer to Constantinople than to Rome. This is natural enough. When they broke away they left the Eastern half of Christendom. The "Orthodox" Church in our technical sense did not yet exist, or (if one likes) the Orthodox were then Catholics. But they always had their own customs, rites, and in many points their own ideas. It was these that the lesser Eastern Churches took with them. And since then, since the schism of the Orthodox, that Church has been their great neighbour. Rome is far away; most Nestorians and Monophysites have been too poor, too ignorant, to know much about her. The great rival at hand was always the Church of the Eastern Empire. Their relations to her have varied considerably, as we shall see. Sometimes they have been well disposed towards her, often bitterly hostile. But her influence has always been great. And in one point they are always ready to join her. When the Orthodox fulminate a mighty protest against the horns of Roman pride, when they protest that the "mad Pope makes himself equal to God," then they sound a note soothing and grateful to the unorthodox also. So there is a common Eastern attitude in many ways. The liturgies of all these little sects, widely different as they are, have a certain common colouring with that of the Byzantine Church. A Nestorian would be very much puzzled by either the Byzantine Liturgy or the Roman Mass, a Copt still more; but of the two the Byzantine rite would seem less hopelessly unintelligible. The vestments of all these sects are rather Byzantine than Roman. Their Calendars, again, various as they are, are nearer to that of the Orthodox than to ours. Titles, ranks, functions of all kinds can generally best be explained by parallel Orthodox ones. Their theology too. All these Churches are profoundly affected by Greek ideas, by the Greek Fathers; all use Greek terms in their various languages; all, in short, come from a Greek foundation.[1] So there are definite points of theology in which all agree with the Orthodox against us. Besides the questions of the Papacy and the Immaculate Conception, all
- ↑ Most the Copts, Jacobites, Armenians, less the Nestorians and Abyssinians—but these also, as we shall see.
