The Orthodox Eastern Church/Chapter 9

by Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue

 

CHAPTER IX

 

ORTHODOX THEOLOGY

 

The Orthodox Church during the four centuries of Turkish oppression naturally sank to a low level of culture. One cannot expect any great theological movements, nor look for the names of famous scholars in a community that was ground down as were the Rayahs before the more tolerant laws of the 19th century. The one duty of the Orthodox, then, was to keep their faith in spite of everything, and this they did very nobly.

However, their Church was not really quite dead. She produced some theologians; was very conscious of her own position when the Protestants wanted to make an alliance with her, and she was on one occasion convulsed by a really serious trouble in the affair of Cyril Lukaris. These three points now require some notice.

 

1. Theologians since 1453.

The names of a few of the theologians whose works are still read over there, and who enjoy a reputation as classical exponents of the Orthodox faith, ought at least to be mentioned. These theologians all studied at the Western universities: there were no means of education in Turkey. Venice had a large colony of Greeks; and Greek students came to Padua, Pisa, Florence, Paris, Oxford, even Rome.

Since the Council of Florence there have always been a number of Eastern Christians of every rite who have accepted its decrees and who therefore, while keeping the liturgies, rites, and customs of their fathers, acknowledge the Roman Primacy, and are in communion with the Holy See. These Catholics of Eastern rites are called Uniates, and for the Greek and Ruthenian Uniates Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) founded the Greek College at Rome. Of the students of the Greek College the greater part of course remained Uniates when they went back to their own country and worked for the cause of the Pope; but some afterwards joined the majority and turned Orthodox. So the Pope's College at Rome has the quite undesired honour of being remembered by Orthodox historians as one of the Western sources from which their fathers drew the knowledge that adorned in them the Orthodox Church. The Greek colony at Venice was the first to found an Orthodox school. Thomas Phlangenes of Kerkyra established the Academy, called after him the Phlangenion, in 1626; it lasted till 1795, and was the central home of their theology during that time. At last, in the 18th century, the Phanar managed to set up colleges and schools at home. The great "School of the Nation" (σχολὴ τοῦ γένους) at Constantinople was the first of these; then Smyrna, Janina, Mount Athos, Bucharest, and other towns had schools too.

Most, indeed nearly all, of the work of the Orthodox theologians during this time has been written against the Pope and the Latins. One can understand this. To the Eastern Christians the enormously greater, more powerful, and more prosperous Catholic Church looms very large; the question why they are not in union with the bishop, who should be the first of the patriarchs, is always the burning one. And the Popes have never ceased trying to convert them back: papal missionaries and schools are to be found all over Eastern Europe (except, of course, in Russia); there has always been a Latinizing party among the Orthodox, and they continually hear of some priest or bishop, sometimes of whole communities, that have made their submission to the Pope. So to people who believe that the claims of the Holy See rest upon nothing but a monstrous tissue of lies and forgeries, who look upon the Papacy as something almost diabolical (and many of these Orthodox writers hate Rome as violently as the wildest Protestants), to such people as this naturally the first duty is to justify their schism, to defend themselves against papal aggression; Rome is the greatest, the most untiring, the most dangerous enemy. They dare not try to convert Turks; Protestants have not inferfered with them very much on the whole (though there has been trouble on this side too, see p. 254), the unorthodox Eastern Churches are quite harmless—no one ever thinks of changing from Orthodox to Jacobite or Copt—so the great question of all, here as all over the Christian world, is that of the enormous united communion that may be hated but cannot be ignored. Still from any point of view the fact that they have done hardly anything but discuss us all this time is a disadvantage. Controversy is never the highest kind of theological literature, and certainly one reason why Orthodox theology is so very far behind ours is that while Catholics during the last four centuries have written on every branch of theology, and have elaborated their system from every conceivable point of view, the others have been doing scarcely anything but fussing over and over again about the Filioque and the Primacy, and repeating the feeble accusations they always ferret out against our rites and customs. Another difference that is very clearly marked is between the rigid consistency of Catholic theology and the really amazing confusion of their ideas. We noticed the germ of this difference long ago (p. 110), and we shall come back to some startling examples of it later (p. 384 seq.).

In the 15th century the only Orthodox theologian was Maximos Peloponnesios (Maximos III of Constantinople, 1476–1482). He opens the tradition of the whole school by writing against the Council of Florence and a "Refutation of the Seven Chapters which were written by one of the Western Frati."^[1] It is not known who his Western Frate was.

In the 16th century the chief writer is Meletios Pegas (Μελέτιος ὁ Πηγᾶς, 1535–1603).^[2] He was a Cretan who studied at Padua, and then became Patriarch of Alexandria (1590–1603). Leo Allatius had known him, and it was he who sent Lukaris to Poland (p. 264). His chief work bears the rather ponderous title: "A writing of the most blessed the Pope of Great Alexandria, Lord Meletios, concerning this: which is the true Catholic Church, and who is her legitimate and real Head, and concerning the origin of the Pope of Rome, dedicated to the most holy Silvester his (Meletios's) predecessor and elder."^[3] As the title says, this book is a polemical work against the Pope's claim. The legitimate and true Head of the Church is our Lord; the true Catholic Church is made up of all those who acknowledge this, apparently including Latins and "those from Luther." It is the beginning of a sort of branch-theory that was not destined to survive among Orthodox theologians. Meletios Pegas also wrote an "Orthodox Christian Dialogue," a letter to Sigismund III of Poland in Latin against the Roman Primacy, and a number of other works, nearly all of which, except one treatise against the Jews, are directed against Catholic belief and rites. His idea of the origin of the patriarchates is curious. Constantine made Rome and Constantinople patriarchal sees. As they then were jealous of one another, and always quarrelled, Alexandria was also made a patriarchate to judge between them;^[4] then Jerusalem was put in the lowest place among the patriarchal sees out of love for the holy places, but also because Christ who had lived there was so humble. He seems to have forgotten Antioch.^[5] Jeremias II of Constantinople (1572–1579, restored 1580–1584; restored again 1586–1595) is famous chiefly because of his correspondence with the Tübingen Protestants (p. 252). But he also wrote against the Latins. He protested against the use of the Gregorian Calendar which Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) had introduced in the West, and which some Greeks wanted to adopt; he wrote an answer to "The Prince of Little Venice" (Nicholas Daponte)^[6] who had proposed as a general principle that Catholics and Orthodox should keep the same feasts, protested against the leave given by the Porte to the Jesuits to come to Constantinople, and generally showed himself to be, as Manuel Malaxos in his History calls him, "a Pontiff just, irreproachable, true, godly, merciful, holy, notbad, and pure." The Bishop of Kythera (the large island close to the south of the Peloponnesus), Maximos Margunios (Μαργούνιος, 1602), who lived chiefly at Venice, was really anxious to restore the union. But the only way that seemed possible to him was by converting the Latins from their heresy about the procession of the Holy Ghost. So nearly all his writings ("Three books concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost," "Handbook of the Procession of the Holy Ghost," "Arguments against the Latins," "Dialogue between a Greek and a Latin"^[7]) are defences of their view on this question. He was a very zealous and pious person, and wrote so moderately and charitably against us that he got into trouble with his own friends as a disguised Latinizer. Really he was nothing of the kind, and he never wavered for a moment from the Orthodox position. So great was his zeal that he, like other good people, went all the way to Rome on the rather hopeless errand of trying to convert the Pope (Clement VIII, 1592–1605). Clement appears to have received him quite kindly,^[8] and he argued and argued. Then he went back to Venice. Manuel Malaxos († c. 1581), sometime notary of the Metropolitan of Thebes in Bœotia, and then a private tutor at Constantinople, wrote a "History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople."^[9] A contemporary description of him is not flattering: "This is a very old man; he teaches boys in a small and wretched house by the Patriarch's palace. He hangs up dried fishes in it, and then eats them. He writes books for money, and spends it all on wine. He is fat and hearty."^[10]

In the 17th century the most important person was Cyril Lukaris (p. 264). After him one should mention Metrophanes Kritopulos († 1641), who was sent by Lukaris to study at Oxford and at the German universities. He became Patriarch of Alexandria in 1630, and wrote a "Confession of the Orthodox Church"^[11] (p. 364). Peter Mogilas († 1647) was a Moldavian who became Metropolitan of Kiev in Russia. He wrote in Latin^[12] an "Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church," which was very soon done into Greek, was accepted by the Patriarchs as an authentic statement of their faith, and has always been one of the chief Orthodox symbolic books^[13] (p. 364). Gabriel Seberos († 1616), George Koresios († 1641), Meletios Syrigos († 1662), Nektarios, Patriarch of Jerusalem († 1676), all acquired some name as theologians by writing against Latin heresies.^[14]

The greatest Greek scholar of the 18th century was, without question, Eugenios Bulgaris (Εὐγένιος Βούλγαρις, † 1800). He was born in Kerkyra, and studied at Padua. Then he taught philosophy at Janina and at the new school founded at Mount Athos; eventually he was called to Russia by Catharine II (1762–1796) and made Archbishop of Cherson (not far from Odessa). Bulgaris was a philologist,^[15] theologian, and especially philosopher. He was the first man who introduced modern philosophy to the Greek world, and what he taught was an eclectic combination of Descartes, Leibnitz, Locke, &c. It was because of this that he was rather persecuted. At that time to the Orthodox, as intermittently to Catholics, the only Christian philosophy was Aristotle. The Athos monks drove him out with contumely as an atheist and blasphemer. Besides his philosophical works he wrote on mathematics and astronomy, translated various foreign books into Greek (Ps.-Augustine: Soliloquia, &c.), did the Æneid into Homeric Hexameters; wrote a Compendium of Theology, and of course added to his many-sided collection of writings a treatise "On the Procession of the Holy Ghost" and a "Little Book against the Latins."

Bulgaris was an ardent Philhellene, and may be looked upon as the father of the modern Orthodox school. Nearly all the writers of the 19th century learned directly or indirectly from him. He was also the father of the much-discussed fashion of writing as near an imitation of old Attic Greek as possible, forming an artificial literary language to take the place of the common speech of his time.^[16] Other Greek theologians of the 18th century were Elias Meniates († 1714), who wrote a work called "The Stumbling-block" (Πέτρα σκανδάλου = Rock of scandal, a delicate allusion to the name Peter), which is, one need hardly say, the Roman See, also Athanasios Komnenos Hypsilantes († c. 1789), Alexander Helladios, Meletios of Janina († 1714), who all cooked up again the everlasting arguments against the Filioque and our habits generally. We shall come to some writers of the 19th century later (p. 315). Meanwhile these few names will serve to show that Greek letters were not altogether dead during these ages, although their life lingered almost exclusively in anti-Catholic polemics.

 

2. The Orthodox and the Lutherans.

It was natural that, soon after the Reformation, the Protestants, who had thrown off the Pope's authority, should remember and try to set up relations with the people in the East of Europe who, as far as this point went, had already for centuries stood in the same position. It is to the credit of the conservative spirit of the Orthodox Church that she has always refused communion with any religious body except on terms of the complete acceptance of the Orthodox faith. As we shall see, she believes herself to be the whole and only real Church of Christ, just as Catholics do. So any sort of alliance with other Churches on mutual terms is impossible, and the idea, often cherished, of building up a great united anti-papal Church to rival and balance the Catholic body has always broken down because of her refusal, as well as for other reasons.

The first in this field were the Lutherans. A certain Demetrios Mysos was studying at Wittenberg in the 16th century; when he went back to Constantinople, Philip Melanchthon († 1560) gave him a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession, and a letter to the Patriarch Joasaph II (1555–1565). Nothing came of this. The Tübingen theologians made a much more important attempt.^[17] In 1574 James Andreä and Martin Crusius, both professors at that university, sent to Jeremias II (p. 248) another translation of the Augsburg Confession with a mightily civil letter asking him for his opinion of it. Jeremias answered, giving his opinion, which was, of course, simply the most categorical re-statement of the Orthodox faith (1575). He blames the Filioque (one can never understand why Protestants have kept the Filioque), baptism by infusion (see p. 420), their denial of Transubstantiation, penance, prayers for the dead, prayers to Saints, and religious orders. In one point especially a greater gulf separated the Reformers from the Orthodox than from Catholics. The Protestants made Justification by Faith alone one of their chief, dogmas: and the Orthodox belief was and is at the very extreme other end of the scale in this matter (p. 108). Jeremias exposes what is really pure semi-Pelagianism ("a man must first determine himself to what is good, and then God gives him grace; otherwise there would be no free will"^[18]). Lastly, he insists on tradition as a source of revelation.

Luke Osiander answered this letter in 1577, refuting each of the Patriarch's arguments from the Protestant point of view; the Patriarch wrote back and refuted Osiander, and then Osiander answered refuting the Patriarch. By this time, then, the correspondence, which had been meant to lead to an alliance, had become simply a rather acrimonious controversy. So, in 1581, Jeremias did a very sensible thing. He wrote, saying that evidently they would never agree: they started from different principles, and it was no good arguing any more. He would be very pleased to hear from them again if they would write for love (φιλίας ἕνεκα), but he did not want any more Protestant theology. Whether the Tübingers wrote him any letters for love I do not know; but that was the end of the attempt at a Lutheran-Orthodox union from Tübingen. Another abortive attempt was made in Poland in 1599. Both Protestants and Orthodox were then being much worried by the Catholic kings, and so the Protestants wrote to the Œcumenical Patriarch, proposing a defensive alliance against the common enemy. Popery. Meletios Pegas (p. 247), who happened to be then administrator of the vacant See of Constantinople (1597–1599), answered by asking them if they were prepared to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the OEcumenical throne. They, of course, said certainly not. What they proposed was to give the Patriarch the right hand of friendship, as St. Paul gave it to the elder Apostles. But to take the right hand of friendship in ecclesiastical matters from people outside his communion is as impossible for the Patriarch as for the Pope. So Meletios could only answer that he was sorry to find them schismatics and heretics, and that he would be glad to hear from them again as soon as they were prepared to join the Orthodox Church. The great affair of Lukaris (p. 264) is connected with this question of Orthodox and Protestants. Count Zinzendorf († 1760), the founder of the Moravian Brethren sect, again opened negotiations with the Patriarch Neophytos VI (1734–1740, and again, 1743–1744) in 1737. But Zinzendorf practically wanted to make Neophytos a Moravian, and Neophytos quite openly wanted to make Zinzendorf Orthodox, and, of course, neither succeeded. However, so far the Easterns had not been ill-disposed towards Protestants; in spite of the most radical disagreements, their common opposition to the Pope was a great tie of sympathy. What crushed all friendly feeling was the Protestant missionizing in the East. The Orthodox hate any attempt at proselytizing among their people above measure. In the first place, like Catholics, they hold their communion to be the whole and only true Church. So to be an apostate from it is to them, as to us in our case, an infinitely greater calamity than the loss of members to the Protestant bodies, who all claim to be only a branch of the Church, although, of course, always the best and purest branch. And then, to the Easterns their communion is not only the true Church, it is their nation as well. We have seen how the only national organizations they have under the Turk are the religious bodies. The Orthodox Church is the Roman nation, and every true son of Hellas must belong to that nation. It is their one bond; it has kept alive the sacred fire of Greek patriotism during the centuries of bondage; it has been the rallying point of the "Love of Hellas" under the barbarian. The metropolitans and priests have been leaders, patrons, protectors of the Rayahs when there was no one else to care for them; and when the first whisper of liberty went abroad, it was from the bishops' houses, the monasteries, the poor cottages of the Papades, that the people heard the summons to try once more and to strike for Christ and Hellas.^[19] The Orthodox Church is the heir of all the Greek traditions. The old glories of the free Greek States, vague memories of Marathon and Salamis, the majesty of the Roman Empire, their cause against Persian and Arab, Frank and Turk—it is all gathered together and still lives in the Holy Apostolic Orthodox Catholic Church of the Seven Councils. So one can understand how they feel about a renegade from that Church: he betrays the true faith of Christ, and he betrays the cause of the Fatherland. And one can understand, too, how the Church resents attempts at seducing her children. She trained them, protected them, and cared for them all through the long, dark days that are at last just passing, and now people come over from across the seas to try to make them leave her. And yet the Orthodox Church is unceasingly harried by missionaries of other religions. The Catholic missions—Jesuits, Franciscans, and so on—have been her bugbear for centuries. Of course, the Catholic Church cannot act otherwise. Since the basis of her whole position is that she is the only true Church, to which God wishes all men to be called, she will never, and can never, cease sending out missionaries, whose work is to try to convert any and every human being who is outside her communion, whether heathen, Mohammedan, Protestant, or Orthodox. It is the obvious and perfectly consistent policy she follows throughout the world, and which any reasonable person who understands her faith must always expect. At any rate, one must expect the Holy See to believe in the Roman Catholic claims, and to complain of the Pope because he does not act according to theories which are the exact contrary of his faith is mere foolishness. But one must see an Orthodox paper to understand what they think of the Roman Propaganda,^[20] which, instead of converting the heathen (!), sends out wolves and serpents to ruin other Christian Churches. And when Protestant missioners began to come out, too, to help their Catholic enemies rend Orthodox lambs, then even the precious bond of the fact that they were all against the Pope was no longer enough to make Orthodox and Protestants friends. The trouble began with the Bible societies. Various English, American, and German societies printed and distributed Greek and Russian Bibles.^[21] At first the Orthodox Hierarchy saw no harm in that, and even approved and blessed the work. A Greek society for the distribution of Holy Scripture was formed in 1818 to work in union with the British and Foreign Bible Society. But it soon became evident that the tendency of these societies was inconsistent with the Orthodox faith. In 1840 a new modern Greek Bible appeared in London. And now their Protestantism was manifest. This version was done straight from the Massoretic text, ignoring the Septuagint, and it left out the Deuterocanonical books.^[22] At the same time schools were being set up in the chief towns under Protestant teachers, and their pupils began to seek a purer faith by attending Evangelical prayer meetings. Then there came conventicles with Bible classes, pleasant Sunday afternoons, hymn-books provided and Gospel teas. An American—King—at Athens was the chief of these missioners. So at last the Patriarch (Gregory VI, 1835–1840 and 1867–1871), in a synod of the year 1836, forbade the use of these Bibles, and very properly excommunicated all who attended the Protestant meeting-houses. Since then there has been no persecution of the missioners. They have set up centres all over the Near East, and no one prevents them from preaching; but every one now knows that to join them is to leave the Orthodox Church. In Russia, where other ideas of liberty prevail, the Bible Society was expelled, and its Bibles forbidden. These Protestants have made an infinitesimal number of converts, who call themselves Εὐαγγελικόι, and the Orthodox feel nearly as bitter towards non-Anglican Protestants (Διαμαρτυρόμενοι) as towards Catholics.^[23]

 

3. The Orthodox and the Anglicans.

The relations of the Orthodox Church to the Church of England, of late years especially, have been very much more friendly than towards any other religious body, except, perhaps, the Armenians. The first connection was in the affair of Lukaris. Naturally, it has always been the High Church party in England that has wished for union with the Orthodox. In 1672 the Eastern Patriarchs sent a document to England to answer the question: "What are the sentiments of the Eastern Church?" In 1677 Henry Compton, Bishop of London, built a church in his own city (St. Mary, Crown Street, Soho) "for the nation of the Greeks," and in 1694 Worcester College, Oxford (then Gloucester Hall), was to be a Greek College, although nothing came of this plan. In 1710, Samuel Kapazules, Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, finding his see in great financial difficulties, sent out people to all parts of the world to collect alms for it. Two of these collectors, Arsenios, Metropolitan of the Thebais, and Gennadios, Archimandrite at Alexandria, come to England with letters from Samuel to Queen Anne. They arrive in 1714, and Anne gives them £200. Then, instead of going back at once, they wander about England collecting more money, and at last in 1716 they meet the Non-jurors. Archibald Campbell and Thomas Brett, who were leading men of that party, now conceived the project of a union with the Orthodox. Peter the Great of Russia (1689–1725) was to be the intermediary. So they draw up a document addressed to the Eastern Patriarchs, in which they describe themselves as the "orthodox and catholic remnant of the British Churches." The chief differences of belief and practice noted in this first document are that the Non-jurors fear to pay too much honour to the Blessed Virgin and Saints, say that the Real Presence is only subjective in the soul of the communicant, and prefer to have no images. They then make two most astonishing propositions, first that the Bishop of Jerusalem shall be the first bishop of Christendom,^[24] and secondly, in order to secure uniformity of rites, they want to restore everywhere a primitive liturgy, to be specially drawn up. The Bishop of New Rome is to be in every way equal to his brother of Old Rome, and the Church of England (that is themselves) is to be recognized as an independent branch. The whole plan is curiously Protestant and reckless of tradition. Arsenios and Gennadios then take this paper with them to Peter the Great, who sends it on to Constantinople. The Patriarchs answer as might have been expected. Their Church has always kept the Orthodox faith intact and has nothing to modify; they insist on her teaching about the procession of the Holy Ghost, and proceed to instruct the Non-jurors on the other points, as one would instruct catechumens. The idea of making the Patriarch of Jerusalem first bishop is absurd and revolutionary. If the Anglicans like to put themselves under his jurisdiction, of course they may, and he would then appoint bishops for them (this was the last thing the Non-jurors, with their hope of being an equal branch, wanted). As for a primitive liturgy, there is one already, the Byzantine rite, which the Anglicans would do well to adopt. Without Chrism, they say, no one is a perfect Christian, and so on. They do not wonder that Englishmen brought up in the principles of Luther and Calvin should be so mistaken as the Non- jurors are, but they should now be converted to the Orthodox faith; and the Patriarchs end with a tremendous curse against all who deny it. In spite of so great a snub, however, the correspondence dragged on till 1725. Then Archbishop Wake of Canterbury (1716–1737) found out what was going on, and wrote to warn the Patriarchs against these "schismatic presbyters"; "we," he says, "are the true bishops and clergy of the Church of England." That was the end of the negotiations.^[25] The abortive Anglican-Lutheran Bishopric at Jerusalem in 1841 (to 1881) of course gave great offence to the Orthodox, and confirmed them in their conviction that there is nothing much to choose between Anglicans and any other Protestants.^[26] In 1840, William Palmer of Magdalen (Oxford) went to Russia in the naive hope that, as a member of the Church universal, he would be admitted to Orthodox Sacraments. Of course, he was told by every one that he must first join the Orthodox Church, and on May 20, 1841, he received a formal answer from the Metropolitan of Moscow to that effect.^[27] He was annoyed to find that every one spoke of an Anglican clergyman as a Pastor,^[28] and confused Anglicans with Lutherans and Calvinists; also the Metropolitan had nothing good to say of the XXXIX Articles.^[29] At the two Union Conferences held at Bonn in 1874 and 1875 under the auspices of the Old Catholics, Anglicans met Orthodox. Anglican orders and the Filioque were discussed, but they did not arrive at any agreement.^[30]

It is during the last twenty years or so that the relations between these two Churches have become very friendly. It is easy to understand their mutual good feeling. Of course the ordinary Greek layman still calls Anglicans Protestants, and the average British tourist in the East is quite content to accept that respectable name. But the extreme High Churchmen represent their Church to the Orthodox authorities as something very different. Their ideal is Catholicism without Popery, which sounds exactly like that of the Eastern Churches. Diomedes Kyriakos tells us that "the Eastern Church rejects both the Roman Church because of her errors and the Protestant Churches because of their opposite errors; she holds a middle place between Catholicism and Protestantism."^[31] As this is just what High Churchmen want, no wonder that they think of union with her. And the Orthodox have reason to be friendly to Anglicans. We have seen how they hate proselytizing, and how they have long been harried by proselytizers, both Catholic and Protestant. The Anglicans arrive sounding a very different note. They protest that the last thing they would dream of doing would be to try to seduce any Orthodox Christian from the venerable and beautiful Church to which he belongs. On the contrary, their highest ambition is to be somehow recognized by that Church. They very piously attend her offices and liturgy, they are beside themselves with joy if they are allowed to stand inside the Ikonostasis, and they would give anything to receive a Sacrament. Naturally this tone is soothing to Eastern ears. Of course, also, these High Churchmen represent the Church of England as believing everything Orthodox—she has seven Sacraments, believes in the Metusiosis, if not in Transubstantiation, prays to Saints, honours the holy ikons, prays for the dead; they are generally willing to give up the Filioque.^[32] The Easterns know quite well, of course, that all Anglicans do not think like this, but if what the Patriarch of Constantinople a year or two ago called "the Ritualist sect" ever becomes the whole Church of England, then, indeed, in faith there would be little to choose between Anglicans and Orthodox.

Meanwhile a great step has been taken: in September, 1899, the Patriarch (Constantine V), in answering an exceedingly friendly and courteous letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared that he desired that a friendly and brotherly feeling should prevail between the members of both Churches. He is glad to hear that the Anglicans do not mean to proselytize, although he cannot spare the Archbishop a sharp passage about the Bible societies and their "scandalous pamphlets (σκανδαλώδη βιβλάρια)." However, he agrees to communicate any important news from his communion to the Archbishop, and also accepts the other proposal that on special feast-days the Orthodox clergy in London and the Anglican clergy in Constantinople should pay their respects to the authorities of the other Church.^[33] This brotherly feeling is not, as was carefully explained, inter-communion. Is a real communion between these Churches possible? It is with no prejudice against either that one realizes that, unless the Orthodox fundamentally change their whole system, it is not. The first and greatest objection is that they answer the question: What is the true Church? from their standpoint just as we do from ours. The Orthodox Communion is the whole and only legitimate Church of Christ. To be outside that communion is schism, to disagree with her faith is heresy (p. 365). Of course, any one may join their Church, and they have elaborate forms of reception for converts (p. 366); that would involve accepting all their faith and, at any rate hitherto invariably, their liturgy and rites too. But even Greek inconsistency cannot allow a religious body that holds that position to make an alliance on equal terms of inter-communion with another body. Secondly, they are very undecided about the validity of Anglican orders. On the whole their theologians are more inclined to reject them. They have, indeed, a special reason for doing so in their belief that the grace of Holy Orders dies a natural death in schismatical or heretical bodies (p. 423). At the Old Catholic Conference at Bonn in 1874 the Orthodox members refused to pass the § 9, b: "We acknowledge that the Church of England and the Churches derived through her have maintained unbroken the Episcopal succession." None of them absolutely denied the thesis, but they said that Anglican orders are doubtful, and appealed to the opinion of Philaret of Moscow (the chief dogmatic theologian of the 19th century in Russia) as supporting that view.^[34] Provost Alexis Maltzew, who is a great authority among the Orthodox on liturgical questions, says that union with the Anghcan Church is impossible, because she has neither the Apostolic succession, nor certainty about Dogmas, nor true teaching about the Holy Eucharist, nor valid orders.^[35] On the other hand Professor A. Bulgakoff of Kiev thinks that Anglicans have a succession of orders, but doubts whether heresy has not extinguished its effect.^[36] In any case, then, the Orthodox would have to make up their minds about this point, too, before there could be any question of corporate union between them and the Anglicans.^[37] But, indeed, the only idea these Easterns can conceive is simply conversion to the Orthodox Church; and the negotiations from which Anglicans hope so much for the general reunion of Christendom appear to them simply as first steps towards conversion. This is the way they look at the movement: "A few Englishmen, such as the Ritualists, went further and were ready to give up their teaching and principles for the sake of union between the Churches. Such English theologians were present at the Synod of Bonn (1874), in which representatives of the Orthodox, Anglican, and Old Catholic Churches assembled in the hope of union. They were prepared to renounce the word Filioque as being false;^[38] moreover, they acknowledged Tradition, as also Confession, Penance, the Eucharist as a sacrifice, and even prayer for the dead^[39] … (an account of the second Conference in 1875). But most of the theologians of England and America rejected these concessions of the genuine friends (he does not say of what) as being a return to Catholicism, and they held fast to the principles of Protestantism. Only a few Englishmen, such as the theologian Overbeck and his followers, eventually joined the Orthodox Church."^[40] So far the view of the chief Greek Church historian. Undoubtedly they would all welcome the conversion of any number of Anglicans to the Orthodox Church; short of that it is difficult to realize any further possibility. And if it is a question of being converted to anything, it would perhaps, on the whole, be more dignified as well as more natural for Anglicans to be (as a Russian theologian said to Mr. Palmer) "first reconciled to their own Patriarch" the Pope,^[41] than to become yet another (the seventeenth) of the very unequal and very quarrelsome bodies that make up the Orthodox Communion.^[42]

 

4. Cyril Lukaris and the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

The great event of Orthodox Church history in the 17th century is the affair of Cyril Lukaris († 1638), some time Œcumenical Patriarch. He was a Protestantizer who formed a party of Calvinists in his Church, and his opinions were afterwards condemned by four synods. Constantine Lukaris (Λούκαρις, he took the name of Cyril when he became a monk) was born in Crete in 1572. He studied at Venice and Padua, then went to Alexandria, where he was ordained priest, made archimandrite of a monastery and an officer of the Patriarch's court. Meletios Pegas, the Patriarch (p. 247), sent Lukaris to Poland to comfort the Polish Protestants against Popery, and to see if they could be made Orthodox. It was during this journey that he became very friendly with Lutherans, and especially Calvinists, and began to adopt their ideas; he gradually wandered towards the West and is said to have been at both Wittenberg and Geneva. He also had relations with English Protestants. In 1603 Pegas died and Lukaris was made Patriarch of Alexandria. He now quite openly speaks of his conversion to the ideas of the Reformation: "Since it pleased the merciful God to enlighten me and to show me my errors, I began to seriously consider what I ought to do. And what did I do? For three years, having constantly prayed to the Holy Ghost, I read the books of certain Evangelical Doctors, which I had got by the kindness of my friends, but which our East had never yet seen nor even heard of, because of the bishops' censures; and I compared the teaching of the Reformed Church with that of the Greeks and Latins."^[43] He corresponded with many Protestants abroad, among others with George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (1610–1633), Hugo Grotius, De Dominis, &c. He was already known abroad as "a friend of the Reformed Church."^[44] His idea seems to have been, not to join any form of Protestantism already set up, but to bring about a reformation of the Orthodox Church, just as the Western Protestants had reformed the Catholic Church. In 1620 he was made Patriarch of Constantinople. His reign there is one of the very worst examples of the way in which the Porte deposes and reappoints patriarchs. He was Cyril I of Constantinople, was deposed and then reappointed no less than four times, so that there are five separate periods during which he was Patriarch, with other bishops in between (1620–1623, 1623–1630, 1630–1634, 1634–1635, 1637–1638: in 1630 one, and in 1634 two other patriarchs had a few months between). In 1628 Lukaris, still very friendly with Abbot of Canterbury, sent as a present to King Charles I of England what is now one of the chief treasures of the British Museum, the Codex Alexandrinus.^[45] While he was intermittently Patriarch the Catholic missions in the East were very flourishing, the Jesuits had great influence, protected by the French Ambassador, while Venice held Crete and other islands.^[46] At that time, then, great efforts were being made to convert the Orthodox to the Catholic Church, and there was a considerable Latinizing party among them. Of these Latinizers, of the Jesuits and France, Lukaris was the uncompromising enemy. His friends were the ambassadors of the two chief Protestant Powers,^[47] England and Holland. In 1628 Anton Leger arrived as preacher at the Hollandish Embassy, and then he and Lukaris spoilt everything by trying to go too fast. They wanted to make all the people Protestants straight away. They set up a Protestant school at Constantinople, and published a modern Greek Bible of an openly Protestant type, which was made and printed at Geneva. All the same, Lukaris as Patriarch had to canonize a Saint—St. Gerasimos the New († 1579). One wonders how he felt while he was doing it.

At last, in 1629, Lukaris published his famous Confession.^[48] This Confession is quite frankly Protestant and Calvinistic:—The Bible has more authority than the Church, God has absolutely predestined the Elect and rejected the Reprobate without any regard to their merits, Christ alone intercedes for us, the Church is the congregation of the faithful of Christ throughout the world, and only the Elect really belong to it, the Church can err, men are justified by faith alone, there is no free will, all the works of the unregenerate are sins, there are only two Sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, in which Christ is present by the spiritual apprehension of faith, without faith there is no Presence; there is no middle state between Heaven and Hell.^[49] Lukaris had now quite formed a Protestantizing party to oppose the Latinizers. But in 1638 his enemies persuaded the Sultan (Murad IV, 1623–1640) that he was stirring up rebellion among the Cossacks. He had already been deposed so often that this time Murad meant to make an end of him altogether. So he sent some Janissaries to throttle him and throw his body into the sea.^[50] His friends found it washed down far from Constantinople and gave him Orthodox burial with the repeated prayers for his soul that he would himself have abhorred when alive. But his party did not die with him. Meletios Pantogallos, Metropolitan of Ephesus, Sophronios of Athens, and Neophytos III of Constantinople (1636–1637), were his chief pupils. The Orthodox, however, in the enormous majority were true to the faith of their fathers, and in the years following the murder of poor Lukaris they held four synods, at Constantinople (1639), Iasion (Yassy in Moldavia, 1643), Jerusalem (1672), and again at Constantinople (1672), in which they drew up most uncompromising professions of the real Orthodox faith, and condemned and anathematized Lukaris's Confession and all his followers. It was Lukaris's successor, Cyril II (three times Patriarch, 1634, 1635–1636, 1638–1639), who held the Synod of Constantinople in 1639, his successor, Parthenios II (1644–1645, 1648–1651), that of Yassy, and Dionysios IV^[51] the other Synod of Constantinople (1672). It was also as a refutation of Lukaris's heresies that Peter Mogilas of Kiev (p. 364) and Dositheos of Jerusalem (1661–1669, p. 364)^[52] drew up their Confessions.

The Synod of Jerusalem was by far the most important of all, and its Acts are the last official pronouncement of the Orthodox Church. Dositheos was Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1669 to 1707. At the consecration of a church at Bethlehem in 1672 he announced his intention of summoning a synod;^[53] it met in the same year at Jerusalem. About seventy members attended, among others, Nektarios, ex-Patriarch of Constantinople, six metropolitans and two representatives of the Russian Church; Dositheos presided. The synod, of course, in the first place insists on all the Orthodox doctrines denied by Lukaris's Confession—free will, the seven Sacraments, "adoration (προσκύνησις)" of images, &c.; Protestants are "patently heretics and leaders of heresy" (Kimmel, p. 330). The Fathers, however, are anxious to save Lukaris's reputation. So they draw up a history of the wicked attempts made by the Calvinists to poison the Orthodox Church with their heresy, of which history the chief feature is that they absolutely deny that Lukaris wrote the Confession, quote sentences which they say various people had heard him speak in his sermons, and which are Orthodox on the points on which the Confession is Protestant, and anathematize any one who shall ever say that he was its author.^[54] The Acts of the synod were published under the heading: "Christ guides. A Shield of the Orthodox Faith, or an Apology and confutation against those who slanderously say that the Eastern Church thinks heretically concerning God and Divine things, as the Calvinists falsely state, drawn up by the synod held at Jerusalem under Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem."^[55] As an appendix to the Acts follows a long "Confession of Dositheos." The Acts of Jerusalem and Dositheos's Confession are printed by the Orthodox in all their collections of Symbols, and are considered one of the most important as well as the last of the official pronouncements of their Church. And in all the proceedings of this synod there is not a single word against the Azymite Creed-tampering Latins. They were so busy with these new enemies, the Calvinists, that they quite forgot us. As this is the only occasion in history on which Greek bishops met without letting us know what they think of us, the fact deserves to be noted. After the Synod of Jerusalem one hears no more of Protestantism within the Orthodox Church.

 

Summary.

There was, then, a certain amount of theological activity among the Orthodox after the fall of Constantinople, although it chiefly took the form of polemics against the Latins. The chief theologians are Maximos III of Constantinople in the 15th century, Meletios Pegas in the 16th, Cyril Lukaris, Metrophanes Kritopoulos, Peter Mogilas, and Eugenios Bulgaris in the 18th. Meanwhile the German Protestants had made overtures to the Orthodox which came to nothing. The correspondence between the Patriarch Jeremias II and the Tübingen theologians is the most famous case. The English Non- jurors made equally futile proposals. But of late years especially the Orthodox authorities have been very friendly towards Anglicans, who alone do not try to proselytize in the East. On the other hand, the belief that they are the whole Church held by the Easterns seems to make any hope of corporate reunion between them and Anglicans impossible. Cyril Lukaris of Alexandria and Constantinople caused the greatest trouble during this period. He was a Protestantizer who wrote a purely Calvinist Confession. After the Sultan had killed him four councils, of which the most important was that at Jerusalem in 1672 under Dositheos, condemned his heresies.

 

1. Μαξίμου τοῦ Πελοποννησίου Ἀπολόγοι ἢ ἀνατροπὴ τῶν ζ' κεφαλαίων ἄπερ ἕπεμψε τις τῶν δυτικῶν φρατόρων. Φρατώρ is an engaging word, meaning Frater. Of course he is not going to call a Latin Ἱερομόναχος.
2. Meyer, o.c. pp. 53–69. Kyriakos, iii. p. 136.
3. Printed in the Τόμος χαρᾶς of Dositheos of Jerusalem, 1705, pp. 553–604.
4. The title "Judge of the Universe" is borne by the Patriarch of Alexandria (see p. 349).
5. In his second letter (to the Orthodox Russians in Poland, 1597), printed at Constantinople in 1627; see Leo Allatius, de perp. cons., p. 996, and Meyer, o.c. p. 64.
6. Πρίγκηω τῶν κλεινῶν Βενετίων. I do not know why he calls the Serenissima "Little Venice," unless it is just rudeness.
7. Meyer, pp. 69–78. He doubts the authenticity of the Dialogue.
8. Kyriakos's statement that the Inquisition threatened him, and that he had to flee for his life (iii. p. 137) is a mistake; the Serenissima gave him a safe-conduct, which was scrupulously observed (Meyer, p. 71).
9. Printed in M. Crusius: Turcogræcia (Basel, 1584), pp. 107–184.
10. Gerlach in Meyer, p. 162.
11. Kyriakos, iii. p. 138.
12. For a very long time, and even now to some extent, Latin is the learned language in Russia. See Palmer's Visit, p. 299, &c.
13. Meyer in the Realenz. s.v. Mogilas (1903, vol. xiii. pp. 249–253).
14. Kyriakos, iii. pp. 137–139.
15. He is said to have spoken fluently Greek, Latin, German, Italian, French, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, and Russian—which is a very good record.
16. Modern Greek has gradually lost very many of the old inflections (future, optative, all duals, &c.); has made many forms regular (μεγάλος, μεγάλη, μεγάλου, εἶμαι, εἶσαι, εἶναι, κ.τ.λ.); has adopted any number of Turkish and Italian words (τουρέκι, a gun, λουλουδάκι, flower, σοφᾶς, sofa, κατσαρύλα, saucepan, &c.); and has recklessly simplified the grammar (nearly all prepositions with accusatives, &c.). The question still hugely agitated all over the Greek world is what to do with this tongue. There are three schools: (1) To restore Attic Greek and make classical compound words for new things (σιδηρόδρομος, railway, ἀτμόπλοιον, steamer); (2) to cast out the foreign words and leave the rest alone; (3) to leave it all alone, and use this modern dialect as a literary language. The Phanar has a tradition of very respectable Byzantine Greek, which may be compared to our Church Latin. So in Greece the porter talks to you in a language you must learn anew just as much as Turkish, the bishop talks like St. John Chrysostom, and the schoolmaster like Demosthenes. The parish priest wavers, but greatly tends to gravitate towards the porter. The classical work on new Greek philology is Hatzidakis: Einleitung in die neugriech. Gramm. Leipzig, 1892. For Bulgaris, see Kyriakos, iii. p. 143, seq.
17. All the acts of this history in Acta theologorum Vitenb. See also the article Jeremias II in the Realenz. (1900, viii. p. 660, seq), and Renaudin: Luthériens et Grecs-Orthodoxes.
18. See Kyriakos, iii. p. 87.
19. These two causes always went together:—

    Γιὰ τῆς πατρίδος τὴν ἐλευθερίαν,
    Γιὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ τὴν πίστιν τὴν ἁγιαν,
    Γὶ αὐτὰ τὰ δύο πολεμῶ,
    Μ’ αὐτὰ νὰ ζήσω ἐπιθυμῶ,
    Κί ἂν δὲν τὰ ἀποκτήσω
    Τί μ’ ὠφελεῖ νὰ ζήσω;

20. They will not translate this word, but they spell it out in Greek letters, ἡ προπαγάνδα, which, for some unaccountable reason, looks perfectly fiendish.
21. New Testament in modern Greek, London (British and Foreign Bible Society), 1810, Bible in Russian, 1821, and then continually reprinted.
22. The LXX has always been the official version of the Byzantine Church, as the Vulgate is ours. Protestants, on the other hand, make quite a fetish of the Massora. But to print a Greek Bible without using the LXX is an almost incredible piece of arrogance and absurdity. Two Englishmen made this new version and thought they could do better than the LXX!
23. For the story of the Bible societies, see Kyriakos, iii. pp. 97–103, and for Russia, Palmer, p. 521.
24. It is just such a proposition as would naturally be made by Protestants who know a great deal about the Bible, but have no knowledge at all of the history and development of the hierarchy. How utterly opposed their idea is to the whole of Christian antiquity will be seen from Chapter I, pp. 25–27.
25. See for this story G. Williams, The Orthodox and the Non-jurors; G. B. Howard, The Schism between the Orthodox and Western Churches, and the Échos d'Orient, viii. pp. 321–328.
26. There is another Anglican Bishopric "in" Jerusalem now, of quite a different type, which gives no offence to anyone.
27. W. Palmer, Visit to the Russian Church, p. 415.
28. Ibid. p. 44.
29. Ibid. p. 395.
30. Berichte über die Unions-Conferenzen, Bonn, 1874, 1875.
31. Kyriakos, iii. p. 89.
32. See the Bonn Conferences, 1874, Langdon, p. 12; 1875, Howson, p. 42; May, p. 66; Plunkett, p. 69, &c. See also G. F. Browne, (then) Bishop of Stepney: The Contintuty of the Holy Catholic Church in England (S.F.C.K. 1897), p. 7: "I regret that the Church of England was dragged into that addition (the Filioque) by its union with a Church from which we afterwards had to break." The last attempt to persuade the Orthodox that Anglicans agree with their faith was one whose good faith it would be difficult to defend. In September and October, 1903, Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac (in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America) paid a visit to Russia. He left a document for the consideration of the Russian Holy Synod purporting to describe the faith and practice of his own communion. Of course he does everything possible to make it look Orthodox and he explains away the Articles in the usual Ritualistic manner, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas in support of Art. XXVIII! As a specimen of the way in which he represents things, he admits that Anglican bishops confirm by the laying on of hands, but he says that priests may also anoint with chrism blessed by a bishop, and "we believe that grace is equally conferred by either way." One wonders how many members of the Church of England would admit that the grace of Confirmation may be given by a priest with chrism, and how many of their bishops would accept that. The whole document is the extremest example of advanced Ritualism, described without qualification as the belief of "our Church." How many Anglican bishops would acknowledge it as a fair description of the Church of England? The text is published in E. d'Or., viii. pp. 143–148.
33. See Gelzer: Geistl. u. Weltl., p. 67, seq., who also notices the curious haughtiness of the Patriarch in his address to the Archbishop.
34. Bericht (1874), pp. 35–37. Canon Liddon said that Philaret had told him that his doubts were only derived from Roman theologians (ibid. 37). Professor Rhossis of Athens ended by saying that in the Greek Church the question has not yet been decided, but that it is to be hoped that it will soon be so.
35. Maltzew: Oktoichos (Berlin, 1904), vol. ii. p. xxviii. seq.
36. Bulgakoff: The Question of Anglican Orders (S.P.C.K., Church Historical Society publication No. LV, 1899), pp. 44, 45.
37. Quite lately there has been a case which shows how little they have made up their minds to acknowledge Anglican orders. In October, 1905, a certain Dr. Irvine, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, got into trouble with his own bishop (Bishop Talbot of Central Pennsylvania). He then turned Orthodox, and was of course received by Archbishop Tykhon of Alaska (p. 297), who proceeded to reordain him. But Anglicans need not feel really hurt at this sort of thing; the Orthodox have reordained Latin priests and bishops too (p. 423): The case of Dr. Irvine in E. d'Or. ix. pp. 124–125. On the other hand, the Deacon Hierotheos Teknopoulos, who was sent by the Patriarch Constantine V to study at Oxford, came back having joined the Church of England, made a great deal of trouble in Cyprus for a year, and eventually went away to England in 1901. He was, of course, excommunicated and degraded by the Orthodox Church E. d'Or. iv. pp. 60–62, 243–244).
38. This is quite untrue. They all argued about the Filioque without end. The Old Catholics did not mind giving it up, but it was the Anglicans who would not do so; see the Berichte, passim.
39. This, too, is quite a distorted account. The Anglicans would only agree to a sort of compromise on each of these points. Indeed, the only occasions on which the whole Conference agreed were when Döllinger read out some denunciation of Popery.
40. Kyriakos, iii. pp. 104–105. The philologist will be interested to notice in Kyriakos's History that the Greek for Ritualist is τελετόφιλος. They can form words for anything.
41. Palmer, p. 230.
42. There is another point that deserves mention. Have the pious and irreproachable English gentlemen who go to the East, and there flatter the Orthodox bishops they meet, any idea what sort of people they are honouring? If one may believe eye-witnesses like Mr. Brailsford (Macedonia, pp. 192–194, 217, &c.), the official Green Book just published by the Roumanian Government (Echos d'Orient, pp, 109–115), or even the most moderate of the endless Bulgarian accusations (C, Bojan, Les Bulgares et le patriarche œcuménique, passim), the Greek metropolitans in Macedonia are directly and formally guilty of murder, massacre, and unspeakable atrocities in their campaign against the Bulgars, Vlachs, and non-Hellenic people generally (cf. infra, pp. 275, &c.). "It would be well," says Brailsford, after a hideous account of torture in monasteries (on lunatics), "if the excellent Anglican Churchmen who are trying to promote a union with the Eastern Church would use their influence to reform such abuses as this, instead of perpetuating by their ludicrous flatteries the complacency which explains them" (Macedonia, p. 68).
43. Letter to Mark Anthony de Dominis, quoted by Ph. Meyer, Lukaris, in the Realenzyklopädie (1902), xi. p. 686.
44. Sandy, quoted ibid.
45. The Codex Alexandrinus is an uncial Greek Bible of the 5th century, the third oldest Bible known (the Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are 4th century). Lukaris took it from the Patriarchal library at Alexandria. A volume of it is exhibited in the British Museum MS. Department, Case G. 1.
46. Venice had held Crete ever since 1204; the Turks took it in 1641–1669—their last conquest.
47. In spite of ail the German Protestants the Empire was always a Catholic Power.
48. Oriental Confession of the Christian Faith, Latin version in the same year, and French, English and German versions almost at once. Printed in Greek and Latin in Kimmel, pp. 25–44.
49. D. Kyriakos (iii. p. 94), who is anxious to minimize this quarrel and to represent the whole story as a Jesuit intrigue, denies that this Confession is authentic, and thinks it was a forgery of the Jesuits to bring Lukaris into disgrace. It is the worst thing in his History. There is no sort of doubt that Lukaris wrote the Confession; he speaks of it with pride as his own work continually. See Meyer, l.c. p. 688.
50. June 27, 1638. Naturally the Jesuits have been accused of having him killed. They had nothing whatever to do with his death really. The enemies who accused him to the Sultan were Cyril, Metropolitan of Berrhœa, and his party. Cyril of Berrhœa was the rival Patriarch. Cf. E. d'Or. vi. pp. 97–107: Les dernières années du Patriarche Cyrille Lucar.
51. Five times Patriarch, 1671–1673, 1676–1679, 1683–1684, 1686–1687, 1693–1694.
52. Kimmel, pp. 45-52.
53. Because the summons was made at Bethlehem, this synod is often, although quite incorrectly, called the Synod of Bethlehem.
54. This denial of his authorship is a piece of palpable bad faith. In spite of the anathema of Jerusalem every Western scholar at least now knows for certain that Lukaris did write it. R. Hofmann (art. Jerusalem Synode, in the Realenz. viii. p. 704, 1900) says: "Although the falsehood of this statement is quite obvious, it is repeated by the latest Greek dogmatist, Prof. Mesoloras of Athens." We have seen that it is also repeated by Prof. Kyriakos of Athens.
55. The Acts in Kimmel, pp. 325–488, Michalcescu, pp. 123–182.