as now, was the great Ikonostasis, the screen across the church shutting off the sanctuary and covered with pictures of Saints.[1] In the East as in the West the holy Sacrifice must be offered over the relics of Saints. The enormous number of relics at Constantinople made that city a place of pilgrimage second only to Rome or Jerusalem. It is true that during the Iconoclast persecutions (726–775 and 813–842) the great majority of the Byzantine hierarchy gave way and condemned the images as much as the Emperor could wish. But that only shows their servile fear of the tyrant. The same bishops came back at once to the old custom when the persecution ceased. It was a council composed almost entirely of Eastern bishops (Nicæa II, 787) that approved of reverence paid to holy images; the great leaders of the anti-Iconoclast side were all Greeks, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. Theodore of Studium, St. John of Damascus. The Orthodox Eastern Church still keeps every year the memory of the day (February 19, 842) on which the images were finally brought back to the Cathedral at Constantinople.[2] The Iconoclast troubles, however, have left an interesting result to this day in the East. The old Greek idols were all statues, therefore there may be no statues in a church. There are hosts of pictures, painting, mosaic, even bass-relief, as long as the work is quite flat and shallow, but no statues (p. 129).
Three questions require some discussion. Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception and Predestination.
It has been disputed whether the Orthodox Eastern Church now agrees with the Catholic faith concerning Purgatory. That faith consists in these two articles only: 1. The souls of the just may after death still keep some stain of sin. 2. Such stain must then be expiated by punishment before they go into everlasting happiness. Whatever the modern Orthodox may think about these propositions,[3] both were taught by the Eastern Church before the schism. The Greek Fathers, in the first place, all pray for the dead, a practice that supposes at any rate some sort of middle state after death. Saints in heaven do not
