Summary.
Until the schism, then, the faith of the Eastern Churches was that of Rome. The development of doctrine went on in parallel lines in East and West, and the communication between the Churches, the councils, where bishops from different countries met, controlled and guided it. What differences there were did not affect points of faith; they were the natural result of different temperaments and attitudes of mind. There were real differences in ritual. The Eastern Churches have always had their own liturgies, as venerable and as beautiful as ours. But all the liturgies contain the same essential elements, they all obey our Lord's command to do as he did at the Last Supper, in memory of him. The other religious practices of Eastern Christians already had a markedly Eastern character. The morals of the Emperor's Court often sank very low; but there were continual revivals, and Constantinople succeeded in keeping off the Moslem for eight centuries. It was the leading city in Europe in the arts of civilization. Its architecture, painting, mosaic, form the bridge between classical Greek work and our mediæval art, while the unequalled splendour of the Court where the Roman Emperor still reigned made it the wonder of the world. In all these things the line that connects our civilization with that of the old Roman world and with the Greek States, the unbroken chain of continuity in European civilization, runs for many centuries through Constantinople.
