The Uniate Eastern Churches/Introductory Chapter

by Adrian Fortescue, edited by George Duncan Smith

THE
UNIATE EASTERN CHURCHES

 

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

CONCERNING UNIATES IN GENERAL

1. What is a Uniate?

The now commonly used word "Uniate"^[1] may be defined by taking the idea of "Eastern" as the genus and Catholicity as the species, or in the reverse order. So we may say that a Uniate is a member of any Eastern Church who is in communion with the Holy See, or that he is a Catholic of any Eastern rite. The name is not a very old one. Its use began insensibly. In Latin "Orientales uniti sanctæ sedi," or "Ecclesia unita ecclesiæ romanæ," would occur naturally as a description, before anyone thought of "Unitus" as a technical term. From "Unitus" the form "Uniat" was made, apparently first in Slav languages for the Ruthenians. So we got it in English. In French, German, and Italian it has hardly yet become a technical term. They say "les églises unies," "die unierten Kirchen," "le chiese unite," using the common word for "united";^[2] though when used thus alone without further qualification it always means "united with Rome."

We have, then, under the genus "Catholic," a first great division into "Roman" and "Uniate." It is hardly necessary to point out that this division in no way implies two or more separate Churches. There is only one Catholic Church; the test of membership in it is to be in communion with all the other members. In any society the test of unity is the mutual acknowledgement of all the members. Where there are separate groups, which do not recognize one another, we have not one, but several societies. In this way we speak of separate Churches, such as the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Nestorian Church, and so on. These are really separate Churches, because there is no mutual recognition between their members; they are not in communion with one another. When we distinguish between the Roman (or Latin) Church and the Uniate Churches, we make a distinction of quite another kind. Really these are all one Church. All Uniates are in full and perfect communion with us Latins, with the Pope, who is their visible head on earth just as much as he is ours. But it is an ancient use, and a convenient one to distinguish within this one Church several parts which, although really parts of the one society, nevertheless have certain customs, local laws, rites, which justify us in calling each a "Church," though really it is only a part of the one Church. So it was once common to speak of the Church of France, the Church of Spain, although the Catholics of these lands were in no way separated from their fellow-Catholics in other countries. The analogy of an army may make this idea clear. The French and British armies are really separate; they obey no common authority, they have even in the past made war on each other. But, on the other hand, the French army is one army; it works together and obeys one common authority. Yet in the time of Napoleon I it was usual to speak of the various portions of this one army, each in itself, as an army. Thus there was the army of Italy, the army of the Rhine, and so on. This, then, is the sense in which we may speak of various Catholic Churches. Really they are all branches of the one Church, real branches, in conscious communion with one another, all joined to the main stem at Rome and so to the one vine, Christ. Catholics have no room in their system for branches cut off from the main stem. A plant made up of such dissected fragments would not be one plant at all. To such branches as are cut off from us we can only apply, regretfully, our Lord's own word about them, that they shall wither.^[3] But the one vine has living branches which draw their life, by real visible communion, from the main stem: the one body of Christ has many members, not dissected members, but those which are joined to it, in whom life flows through the arteries from the one Head. These branches or members share the name of the whole. Each may be spoken of as a Church, though there is, of course, only one Church really.

What is the counterpart to the Uniate Churches? It might seem simplest to conceive this as the Roman Church, meaning all Catholics who use the Roman rite. That is, at any rate, an intelligible and reasonable use of the term "Roman Catholic." A Roman Catholic is a Catholic who uses the Roman rite, just as an Armenian Catholic is one who uses the Armenian rite. It would then seem obvious to call all Catholics who do not use the Roman rite Uniates. As far as liturgy goes, there is nothing to say against such a classification. In this sense the faithful of Milan and the Mozarabic families in Spain are Uniates. Their rite is not Roman; except for later Romanizing their rites have no more in common with that of the Roman mother-Church than have those of Eastern Catholics. So, also, the old Gallican Catholics, the people before the time of Charles the Great, who used the Gallican rite, were Uniates. But in this case we need not trouble much about them, since, except for its relics at Milan and Toledo, the Gallican rite disappeared long before anyone thought of the word Uniate as a special name.

Yet this is not common use. A Catholic of Milan knows quite well that he is Ambrosian in rite, but he would never think of calling himself a Uniate. He would probably, though foolishly, resent being put in the same category as the Eastern people. Practically in this classification all Western Catholics, all who use Latin as their liturgical language, are put in one class, Eastern Catholics in the other.

Language used in the liturgy is almost the worst possible basis of distinction; yet in this case it comes practically to that. The reason is that liturgy is not really the only, nor even the essential, basis of this distinction. We shall get it better by thinking of the old Patriarchates, which are the reason of the present distinction of rites among Catholics.

Once there were three Patriarchates in all Christendom, those of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. Now Catholic Canon Law recognises five: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. Putting the Roman Patriarchate on one side, we call a member of any of the other four a Uniate. So, since the faithful of Milan and Toledo belong to the Roman Patriarchate, we shall not call them Uniates. We arrive, instead, at the distinction between, not Romans (in the sense of rite), but Latins and Uniates. Latins include Ambrosians and Mozarabs, as well as the vast majority who have the Roman rite in any language. Uniates are Catholics of the old Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, who have other rites in other languages.

But why is this distinction made at all? Why do we have one name for members of one Patriarchate and classify all the others together under another name? Why should one not just as well put the Catholics of any other Patriarchate, for instance, Antioch, on one side and call all the others who are in union with them, Uniates? There is no special reason why we should not. The distinction between Latins and Uniates comes, first from a certain precedence that the Roman Patriarchate must have, still more perhaps from an accident of history. Certainly, since the Roman Patriarch is the chief of his brethren, it would be strange to begin by considering any other branch of the Church as the standard, and then putting him with all that remain in one group, as being in union with a lesser dignitary than himself. If the Pope is in union with another bishop, it is more natural to call the other bishop the Uniate than the Pope.

But, still more, this distinction between Latins and Uniates is the result of the development of Church History. In the old days when, for instance, the first Council of Nicæa maintained as an "ancient custom" that there should be three chief bishops having jurisdiction over others, those of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,^[4] then the Roman Pontiff had by no means the best share for his Patriarchate. Alexandria had all the fat land of Egypt, richest and most populous province of the Empire. Antioch had Syria, Asia Minor, Greece — all flourishing lands, full of great cities, the heart of the Empire since Constantine had brought the Eagles back near the Trojan mountains.^[5] Rome, besides the old Imperial City itself, had Italy, already threatened, soon to be overrun by barbarians. She had Africa, no mean province, but not to be compared with Egypt (and here, too, the Vandals would come). Then she had only the wild western lands, at that time the haunt of heathen savages, who then were of little use to any bishop. No one in the fourth century could foresee how great a change there would be. This change was mainly the work of the Roman Patriarchs themselves. As distinct from their place as Primates of the whole Church, they held the least enviable of Patriarchates. Without envying their brothers of Alexandria and Antioch the prosperous, civilized territories over which these ruled, the Popes set out to convert the barbarians of their own Patriarchate. So they sent their missionaries to Gaul, Germany, and Britain. Forests were cleared, monasteries and then cities arose, where once wild tribes had barely defended themselves against the wolves; the Western barbarians became the great Christian nations of Europe. So the centre of gravity of civilization gradually shifted to the West. For, while Rome was converting our Fathers, the East was sinking into stagnation.

The Eastern bishops must bear at least a part of the responsibility of this. Except for some late movement on the part of Russia, the East has never shown the missionary zeal which is characteristic of Rome and the West. The Eastern bishops, too, had savage pagans at their doors. There were the Arabs, for instance; but they allowed these to remain pagan, while they quarrelled over abstruse points of theology, and intrigued for the Emperor's favour at the court.^[6] That illusion about the unchangeable splendour of the Roman court on the Bosphorus, the typically Eastern idea that nothing could ever alter the position of their Empire as the centre of the world, the complacency with its own state which is so characteristic of Byzantine history, all these things were really mighty causes of the decay of the East, while the despised West was becoming stronger, was educating itself to become the dominant factor in Christian Europe. Then, just when the West had become strong enough to carry on the tradition of Europe, Islam came, and with it the final ruin of Eastern civilization.

Through such causes as these the Roman Patriarchate, from being the least splendid in Christendom, became enormously the most important. As far as Catholics are concerned, another cause greatly helped this development. First the Nestorians, then the various Monophysite sects, lastly the great mass of Christians of the Byzantine rite fell away from the unity of the Church. This fact alters nothing of the canonical position of those who remained; but it helped further to shift the centre of gravity. At one time, indeed, it must have seemed almost as if the Catholic Eastern Patriarchates had finally disappeared, leaving only Latins as the whole Catholic Church. Happily that never quite happened. There have always been a few, though sometimes very few, Catholics of Eastern rites left, and now there are many more. But it is not surprising that within the Catholic Church the vast and enormously more prosperous Latin Patriarchate eventually seemed, if not the whole Church, at least its normal part.

Further, the discovery of new countries added again to the size of the Western half of the Church. Naturally, those countries were added to the Patriarchate to which the men who first colonized them belonged. If Greeks or Egyptians had discovered America, Australia, South Africa, these would have been added to some Eastern Patriarchate. But the people who built up these new lands were, and are, Latins, even if most of them are the rebel Latins we call Protestants. So the Roman Patriarchate received all the new lands too. The final result of all this is then that, considering the gradual stagnation of the East while the West was growing, considering the flood of Islam, the schisms which cut so many Easterns away from the Catholic Church altogether, and the discovery of new countries, the Roman Patriarchate has become so enormously the most important part of the Church that our Canon Law has acquired the habit of considering it as the normal situation for a Catholic to be a Latin. The Eastern rites appear rather as exceptions. It would be a monstrous delusion and the gravest injustice to our fellow-Catholics in the East to look upon them as in any way less Catholic than we are in the West. Nor have we the slightest right to expect them to join our Patriarchate, to accept our specifically Latin ideas or ways of doing things. They are, in every way, on the same plane in the Church as we are. They have just as much right to their customs and liturgies as we have to ours. The chief object of this book will be to show this. But the development of history does now suggest a primary distinction between Catholics of the vastly greater Latin Patriarchate and those of all the Eastern ones put together. Within the Church the Latins alone are about forty times as numerous as all Catholics of Eastern rites together. And this is only part of the general state of things by which the West has prospered while the East has decayed; so that the descendants of the men who thought our fathers contemptible now look to us as their guides in progress, and send their children to schools kept by Latins, to be taught our languages and European civilization.

Thus we have our first main division of Catholics into Latins on the one hand, and Uniates on the other. It ought to be unnecessary to say that this division implies no distinction of faith or of essential Christian law. All Catholics of any rite believe exactly the same faith, all obey the same final authority, that of the united Catholic hierarchy, of which the chief of all is the Pope of Rome. The distinction implies a difference of rites, of points of local Canon Law, of certain customs.

But this distinction is not the final one. We may leave the Latins as one Patriarchate without further subdivision, though, of course, they might be divided again into their various ecclesiastical provinces. However, except for Milan and Toledo, all Latins now use the same rite, all have practically the same rules. But the Uniates must be further subdivided into their various groups. Although we think sometimes of Uniates as one class, distinct from Latins, so that we say of anyone shortly that he is a Uniate, they are not really one group in the sense in which Latins are one.

In the sense in which we speak of the Latin Church there are not one, but several Uniate Churches. A Latin is a Latin; but a Uniate may be a Byzantine, an Armenian, a Chaldean, or a Coptic Uniate. These various people have each their own rite and laws. There is no real unity between Uniates as distinct from Latins. There is always the one unity that really matters, which joins all Uniates, together with Latins, in one Church. Yet, as in the case of Eastern Churches in general, so in the case of the Uniates, we may conceive a kind of bond which joins them all together, as distinct from us. It is not a bond of Canon Law, but rather of habit, of many customs that all have more or less in common. In a word, it is just the bond which joins Eastern Christians together as distinct from those of the West. Even inside the unity of the one Catholic Church it is possible to note this. But now we must see exactly which these various Uniate Churches really are.

2. The Various Uniate Churches.

In this paragraph, besides drawing up a list of the Uniate Churches, we shall explain and justify the name we use for each of them. To anyone who has read the two former books of this series it will not be difficult to understand the grouping of the Uniates. The situation is simple. There is a Uniate Church corresponding to each of the schismatical Churches we have already described; and there is one Uniate Church, that of the Maronites, which has no schismatical counterpart. So we may take these in the same order as the schismatical Churches. There is no order of rank or dignity among them; but this order suggests itself naturally.

First, then, we have the Uniates who correspond to the great Orthodox Church, people who either remained faithful to Rome when the majority of Byzantine Christians went into schism at the time of Michael Cerularius, or who have been converted back from the Orthodox since. All these use the same Byzantine rite as the Orthodox; all have, except where some moral or really Catholic principle opposes, the same laws and customs as they. In short, this first group of Uniates represents what the Orthodox were before they went into schism. What shall we call these Uniates? They are less uniformly grouped than any other class; indeed, they are grouped in no one body at all, except in the one Catholic Church. This first set of Uniates has no common authority other than the supreme authority of the Pope. Nor is their origin from one source. They represent groups converted at different periods, in different countries, under different circumstances. A few of them have never been in schism, others have come back to the Catholic Church at various times, in countries distant from one another, as the result of different movements. The one connection between this group, separating them from the others, is that all these use the Byzantine rite in various languages. So far they do not seem to have had any common name. Some of them are Ruthenians, some Melkites, some Italo-Greeks.

It might seem convenient to call them all Melkites; but by universal custom, that name is used only for those who speak Arabic, in Syria and Egypt. No one ever calls a Ruthenian a Melkite. "Catholic Orthodox" suggests itself as a name. But this would lead to unnecessary confusion. From people who cannot grasp the principle of using technical terms as such, we should more than ever hear such questions as: "Are not all Catholics orthodox?" Moreover, this name does not proclaim what it means clearly, and it has never been used. It would also seem to suggest such absurdities as "Catholic Nestorians" and "Catholic Monophysites" for the others. Since then the use of the Byzantine rite is the one bond of union that connects these people among themselves and separates them from all others, the name Byzantine Uniates^[7] seems the most reasonable as a general one for the whole group. We shall then have to subdivide the Byzantine Uniates into further classes, the Melkites, Ruthenians, and so on.

Next in our order we take the Uniates who have been converted from the Nestorian Church. These form a homogeneous group under one Patriarch. For them we need not seek a new name. By friend and foe they are called universally the Chaldees. This name is not a very happy one really. "Chaldee" suggests rather the inhabitants of the second Babylonian Empire, which passed away centuries before there was any Christian Church at all. But here we have at least the advantage of universal use, and of the official language of Rome.

Next comes the small body of Copts who have returned to the Catholic Church. Since "Copt" is merely a national name connoting in itself no theological position, we need have no difficulty in using the common term Catholic Copts or Uniate Copts for these people. The few Abyssinian Catholics are hardly yet a Uniate Church at all. The converts from the Jacobite sect cannot be called "Catholic Jacobites." That is as absurd as "Catholic Nestorians." Nor is it ever used. These are generally called Catholic Syrians or Syrian Uniates. At Rome they distinguish between the "Ritus antiochenus Syrorum purus," the "Ritus antiochenus Maronitarum," "Ritus Syrorum Malabaricus." This is unnecessary; nor is the idea of a "pure" Syrian rite opposed to, apparently, impure ones, happy. This classification is the remnant of old days when the history of the Eastern rites was but little understood. One rite is not in any real sense more "pure" than another. We shall find simpler and more correct terms for each Uniate Church than these. "Syrian Uniate," then, means the body of Catholics converted from the Jacobites.

Nor is there any difficulty about the name Malabar Uniates." Armenian Uniate or Armenian Catholic is equally plain. Perhaps here the word "Uniate" is better than "Catholic," since there are a few Armenians (by blood) who are Latins.

Lastly, we have the Maronite Church. Here, too, there is no discussion about the use of a name applied to them by everyone. But in this case we do not need any further qualification as Uniate. The Maronites are the one Eastern Church which is entirely Uniate. For centuries, surrounded by schismatics and Moslems, they have been the one entirely faithful outpost of Catholic unity in the East. All are in union with Rome; there is no such thing as a schismatical Maronite.

The further organization of these Churches will be described in the course of this book. So far we have noted only the groups themselves in order to understand who they are, and the plan of our arrangement.

3. Religion, Patriarchate, Rite, Language, Place.

Now we come to exceedingly important distinctions, too often confused. These five qualities must be carefully distinguished. The religious body to which a Christian may belong, the Patriarchate of which he is a member, the rite used by him or by his clergy, the language in which that rite is used, and, lastly, the place where he happens to live, are all different ideas; most of them occur in all kinds of different combinations. A man's religion is not implied by the rite he uses. Rite is one thing, union in any given religious body is quite another. Within the Catholic Church all rites occur. It is an unpardonable error, which ought never to be made by educated people, to imagine that all Catholics are Latins, or that there is any inherent reason why a Catholic should use the Roman rite. Nor is there any superiority, any more Catholic quality in the use of the Roman rite than in the use of any other. In this matter we stand exactly where we always have stood. In the days of the great Fathers, would anyone suggest that St Athanasius, St John Chrysostom, St Augustine were imperfect Catholics? Yet none of these used the Roman rite. The ideal of the Catholic Church has always been perfect unity in the Faith. All Catholics believe exactly the same things, as far as the Faith is concerned. Her ideal has never been uniformity in rite. So little did the Popes care about this, that they were the only Patriarchs who allowed variety of rites within their own Patriarchate. While each Eastern Patriarch enforced uniformity by the use of his own rite throughout his Patriarchate, the Popes let the Gallican rite be used over far the greater part of theirs. When St Augustine wrote to St Gregory asking him what he was to do in the matter of rite in the English Church, it might seem a fine opportunity for the Pope to have the Roman rite adopted, at least by this new Church. Yet so little did St Gregory think this detail mattered that he simply told Augustine to adopt any liturgical customs that he thought suitable, whether from Rome or Gaul or anywhere.^[8]

That is always the attitude of the Holy See. The Popes understand very well that rite is not of the essence of religion. They tolerate no variety in the Faith, since there can be only one true revelation from God. But in the matter of rite they know that different customs suit different people; they know that God will judge men according to the lives they lead, not according to the rites they use.

So, not only does the Catholic Church allow diversities of rites; as a matter of fact, she is the only religious body that does so. In contemplating the absurd quarrels there have been among Eastern schismatics on the question of rite, in seeing the preposterous way they always seem to think the form of prayers used in a service, even the language in which these prayers are said, to be a vital matter of the Christian faith, in noticing the arrogant tyranny with which Eastern Patriarchs put down any other rite than their own in their spheres of authority, their ridiculous jealousy of foreign rites, in seeing all this, we are always impressed by the different attitude of the Holy See. Rome's calm tolerance, her dignified breadth of outlook in this matter are most significant. She knows how to distinguish between faith and rite; autocratic where she has Christ's commission to teach his faith without ambiguity, she is too secure in her own inapproachable dignity to be jealous if a group of her children prefer to say their prayers in Syriac, or to celebrate the holy mysteries with other ceremonies than hers. It is only the Protestant of the more ignorant kind who can commit so amazing a blunder as to represent the Pope as demanding uniformity of rite.^[9] He is the only Head of a Church who does not do so.^[10]

So Rite is not the same thing as Religion. These Eastern Catholics agree in rite with their schismatical cousins; on the other hand, they differ in this from us Latins. Yet in religion, in Faith, and all the essential ideas of Catholicity, they are absolutely one with us, and differ vitally from the schismatics. The situation is curious. A simple Catholic Armenian layman is in union with any Latin priest. He has the same faith, is a member of the same Church. He has no communion with an Armenian schismatic. Yet if he came into a Latin Church to hear Mass, he would understand little or nothing of what was going on. The whole rite and its language would be quite strange to him. But in a schismatical Armenian church every detail of the service would be perfectly familiar to him. Having disposed of this first and greatest confusion, let us consider others less fatal, but still to be avoided.

How does rite stand towards Patriarchate? We have already noted that the idea of Patriarchate is really the basis of that of rite. In the early Church people were divided into Patriarchates according to the geographical position of their races. Putting aside such obvious exceptions as a traveller staying for a time in a foreign country, an ambassador or Legate representing a foreign power, every Christian submitted to the rite of the place where he lived — that is, to the rite of his nation. At first there were diversities of local rite and custom in each country, almost in each diocese or local church. Then gradually, almost insensibly, came the ideal of uniformity throughout each Patriarchate. This is merely one special case of the general centralization, not so far under the one chief Patriarch at Rome (that is another matter), but under each Patriarch within his own Patriarchate. As each priest would naturally follow the rite of his bishop, so each bishop followed that of his Metropolitan, and each Metropolitan that of his Patriarch. The principle never went further than that. The Patriarchs themselves were too great, too distant, too much separated by language and custom from Rome, to follow it out to the end, by all adopting the rite of the first Patriarch. So liturgical uniformity throughout the whole Church did not become the ideal at any time. But liturgical uniformity throughout each Patriarchate did.

So we come to the principle that rite follows Patriarchate. This does not seem ever to have been laid down formally in so many words; but it became tacitly a principle. Each diocese adopted the rite of its Patriarchal city. The rite used by any bishop became a kind of symbol of his dependence on a certain Patriarch. We have already noted the one significant exception to this, in the case of the Roman Patriarchate. Otherwise, from the fifth or sixth centuries, we may take it that rite followed, was the outward sign of, Patriarchal allegiance.

Patriarchate followed geographical divisions. Each Patriarch had a geographical territory, over whose inhabitants he reigned. Thus the Christians of Egypt obeyed the Patriarch of Alexandria and used the Alexandrine rite; those of Syria obeyed him of Antioch and used his rite, and so on. The situation of strangers in such lands was of course abnormal. Foreign bishops or priests, residing for a time in the land of a Patriarch who was not their own, would continue to use the rite to which they were accustomed at home. A priest could not use various rites according to the land where he happened to be for a time; he would not know its prayers nor ceremonies.

The simple faithful must, no doubt, in default of a priest of their own rite, have received sacraments according to the use of the place where they happened to be. But in cases of a more or less stable colony of foreigners, there was generally provision made that they should have clergy of their own rite to minister to them. Thus there were, long before the great schism, priests of the Byzantine rite in Southern Italy for the Greeks who had settled there.^[11] There were Latin churches at Constantinople for the Western soldiers; the Roman Apocrisarius^[12] at the Emperor's court had his own chapel, in which he celebrated according to the Roman rite.

In the case of such fixed colonies of foreigners, the question soon arose which Patriarch they were to obey. Now the reasonable answer to this would seem to be that, if they have settled in a foreign country, they should obey the Patriarch of that country; but that he should provide clergy (brought from their own land) to minister to them.^[13] On the one hand, a large group of Christians who disregard the general law of the place where they live will be a cause of disorder and confusion to their neighbours. On the other hand, it would be hard on people, accustomed to attend services to them full of meaning, to make them suddenly forsake these for others, of which they could understand nothing. Nor is there any real difficulty in such an arrangement. The local Patriarch can easily appoint priests, even bishops, for the foreign colony. These will see to the rites, while treating with the local Patriarch about matters of discipline for their own people.^[14]

Yet this arrangement did eventually lead to difficulties, caused, as usual, by the arrogant intolerance of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. First these, and their masters the Emperors, constantly demanded that the South of Italy should belong to the Byzantine Patriarchate, on the strength of the fact that so many people there used the Byzantine rite. So we have the beginning of a new principle. It is no longer that normally rite follows Patriarchate, with exceptions for foreigners, but that in every case Patriarchate is to follow rite. Whoever uses a certain rite is to obey the Patriarch of the city where that rite has its original home. This is just a reversal of the old relation of cause and effect. Instead of the lesser, the mere outward symbol, following the thing of prime importance, the primary thing was proposed as a consequence of its natural effect.

But this Byzantine idea was not applied to the East. According to their new principle, the Patriarchs of Constantinople should have ceased to claim any jurisdiction over the Latins in their own Patriarchate. They found, however, a simpler way out of the difficulty.

Michael Cerularius in 1053 opened his campaign against the West by suddenly shutting up all the Latin chapels at Constantinople, and telling the Latins in his power to cease being Azymites and adopt the Byzantine rite. He even had the insolence to do so in the case of the Papal Apocrisarius. Again the contrast between this insolent person and the tolerant Popes is significant. At that time the Popes had Byzantine churches throughout Italy. They claimed the people who used these churches as members of their Patriarchate, since they lived in the heart of it. There was a Byzantine monastery, Grottaferrata, at the very gates of Rome. Yet never once in all that bitter controversy did they think of retorting on Constantinople by shutting up these churches; never once did they suggest to their Byzantine subjects that these should give up being Fermentites and turn Latin.^[15]

However, eventually the situation has produced very much the effect desired then by the Greeks. No longer can we say that rite follows Patriarchate so much as that, inversely, Patriarchate follows rite. The cause of this is, first, the breaking up of Eastern Christendom into schismatical sects. In the old days, when East and West were one Church, the situation was different. People then were separated by no difference of faith nor of final obedience. It was easy then to group Patriarchates geographically, and to maintain the principle that, as far as the normal inhabitants of each land were concerned, they should use the rite of the ecclesiastical Head of the land.

But when there were groups of Christians, living mixed together in one city, yet in schism with one another, this could no longer be the case. Each sect or Church naturally still claimed the allegiance of its members, wherever they might live. Already in the fifth century Egyptian Christendom broke up into the rival Churches of Copts and Orthodox; in Syria were Nestorians, Jacobites, and Orthodox.

Since the Moslem conquests of the seventh century the idea of separate communities living side by side in one place has been accentuated. People in the East are accustomed to see groups of Moslems, Jews, and Christians of various kinds in the same town. So the old geographical idea of Patriarchate has broken down completely. Now a man belongs to a certain "nation," in the Turkish sense. He belongs to this by birth and heredity, except in the rare cases of conversion from one "nation" to another. He keeps his membership of his "nation" wherever he may live. The sign of his "nation," at least among Christians, is the rite it uses. The rite has become much more important as a mark of membership than any point of faith. And he is subject ecclesiastically to the Head of his nation, even when that Head lives in a remote land. So the various Patriarchs organize hierarchies for their own people, wherever these people may live. In one town you will find an Orthodox community with an Orthodox priest, dependent ultimately on one of the Orthodox Patriarchs or holy Synods; in another quarter of the same town you will find an Armenian group dependent remotely on Etshmiadzin, a Jacobite group dependent on the Jacobite Patriarch, perhaps a handful of Copts who look to Alexandria as the source of authority to them; then a group of Jews with their Rabbi, and one of Moslems with their Mullah. The geographical distribution exists only as a memory, and as the remote source of the present state of things. There is now an intricate network of various religious bodies interlaced throughout the Levant.

This situation is reflected curiously inside the Catholic Church, in the case of the Uniates.

It would seem most reasonable on the basis of preserving the constitution of Catholic antiquity, that there should be four Catholic Eastern Patriarchs, those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, under the supreme authority of the Chief Patriarch at Rome. Each of these Eastern Patriarchs would then have his own territory and his own rite. Every Catholic native of the territory of a given Patriarch would obey him and follow his rite.

If Eastern Christendom had developed normally without schisms, no doubt this is what would now be the case. It might still be held up as the theoretical ideal. But practical reasons have prevented this ideal from being carried out. Instead we have an involved system, which reflects the state of things among the schismatics. Namely, at various periods certain members of schismatical Churches have returned to the Catholic Church. In each case there was a group coming out of certain surroundings, used to certain rites and customs. These groups, even in becoming Catholic, brought with them their old feeling of being a special "nation." Often they could not easily do away with their inherited prejudices against their old rival "nations."^[16] What, then, was the central authority of the Church at Rome to do? What they did was this: they reformed anything in the rite or custom of the converts which seemed really opposed to any essential point of Catholic faith or practice, otherwise they left them, as far as possible, as they were. In particular, they left the members of each "nation," however little justification there may have been for its original formation, as a special group, forming a Catholic "nation" in each case, to correspond to the schismatical one from which it came. Each of these Catholic groups was given a Catholic Patriarch corresponding to the schismatical Patriarch whose allegiance the converts had thrown off.

This produced a number of Patriarchs within the Catholic Church for which there was no precedent in antiquity. But already, long before the conversion of the Uniate bodies, the old ideal of one Patriarch for each see in the East had disappeared. So we have, as we have seen, a Catholic group or "nation" corresponding to each schismatical group. The many Catholic Patriarchs in the East do not correspond to the old four Eastern Patriarchs, but rather the number of Patriarchs, and alleged Patriarchs, who arose through later schisms and heresies.

So there are now two Catholic Patriarchs of Alexandria. There is a Coptic one for the converted Copts, and a Melkite Patriarch who rules the converts from the Orthodox Church. Antioch is represented by three Catholic Eastern Patriarchs. There is one for the Melkites of the Byzantine rite, one for the Syrian Uniates, corresponding to the Jacobite Patriarch, and one for the Maronites.

This last case is an interesting example of the way Rome, as far as possible, changes nothing of the individuality of Churches in the East which return to her communion. The Maronite Patriarchate began as one more schismatical line. It represents the Monothelete schism of the seventh century. When a body of formerly Orthodox Christians in the Lebanon became a Monothelete sect, it set up a Patriarch for itself. This Patriarch of Antioch had, by common Catholic law, no right to exist. When these Monotheletes came back to the Catholic Church at the time of the Crusades, in theory they should have become Melkites; their Patriarch should have been deposed. But for centuries they were already a "nation" with their own Head. So Rome left them such and recognized the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch as their Head, under the Pope.

So also a Chaldean Patriarch is theoretically an anomaly. When some Nestorians came back to Catholic unity, in theory they should have submitted to the (supposed) one Catholic Patriarch of Antioch. But they had forgotten almost that there was such a person as a Patriarch of Antioch. For many centuries the Nestorians had called their Katholikos Patriarch; so the Uniates from that sect were given a Uniate Patriarch of Babylon, to balance the Nestorian Patriarch and Katholikos of the East.

Then occurs a further complication. Not only are the old Patriarchates divided to correspond to the rival lines outside the Church; portions of them are grouped together, for practical reasons. We have mentioned above the Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria and of Antioch. There is also one of Jerusalem. But these are, for the present, all one and the same person. Namely, there are not at present enough Melkites to justify the appointment of three Patriarchs for their three chief sees. So, until their number grows, the same Prelate is Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and all the East.

Thus we have a new grouping of Catholics of Eastern rites, cutting right across the old simple arrangement of Patriarchate by geographical position. One old Patriarchate is divided into several, and members of several are now joined under one. The geographical idea is completely lost. A Maronite remains a Maronite, is still subject to the Maronite hierarchy, wherever he may dwell. Even in America immigration of Catholics of Eastern rites has led to the formation of groups there, corresponding to those in their original homes.

In the Levant the various Uniate groups are interlaced all over the various countries. There are Maronite communities in Egypt and Cyprus. In Syria especially, you may find representatives of nearly all the Uniate Churches, often in the same town. Each has its own hierarchy. The Patriarchs provide priests, and, where necessary, bishops for their own people, wherever there are enough of these people to make it necessary. So we find, not only bishops of the various sects as rivals in one town (that is not surprising), but, what at first does seem strange, several Catholic bishops bearing the same local title, residing in the same town. Yet these Catholic sharers of one title are, of course, not rivals. There is no case of cross-jurisdiction. No man can be subject to several claimants for his allegiance at the same time. Each hierarchy exists only for, rules only, its own "nation." The only modification of the ancient principle is that the various Patriarchates are no longer divided geographically. Now, as before, there are various groups of Catholics, each subject to its own Patriarch. Only the groups live together in the same cities. It is true that the groups themselves are no longer quite the same as they were. The ancient Church, for instance, knew nothing of such distinctions as those between a Copt and a Melkite, a Syrian Uniate and a Maronite. We have already explained how these came about.

In view of the controversial capital which people sometimes make out of the presence of several Catholic bishops in one place, it is important to member that these do not involve any kind of cross-jurisdiction or rivalry. Each rules his own people, as do our bishops in the West. The only difference is that the subjects of different bishops live side by side in the same towns.

So, in the Catholic Church too, as far as the East is concerned, we must reverse the old principle, at any rate as a practical expedient. Instead of saying that rite follows Patriarchate (with the idea that you obey and use the rite of the Patriarch in whose territory you live), we must now conceive the situation that Patriarchate follows rite. A man belongs to a certain rite, wherever he may live. His rite is determined by his birth and heredity. He obeys the Head of the people of his rite.

Probably the first thing that would strike a stranger who goes into a church would be the language in which the prayers are said and the various chants are sung. Because this is so noticeable a point in the service, it is often given an importance which it by no means deserves.

Really this question of language is the least important note of any rite. In theory any rite may be used in any language, without ceasing to be exactly the same rite. If the Pope were to tell us in England to use our present rite in English, the difference thus made would seem enormous to most people; yet it would still be just as much the Roman rite — that is, in origin, the local rite of the city of Rome — as it is now that we use it in Latin. As a matter of fact, the Roman rite is used in old Slavonic in Dalmatia, and there are a few cases of its use in Greek in Italy; but in both cases it is simply the Roman rite in another language.

It is in no way the language which determines the rite, but the complex of prayers, the order of the service, the ceremonies and so on, which, as long as they remain the same, form the same rite. So all kinds of combinations of these two things, rite and language, have taken place, and still do take place, all over Christendom. The same rite occurs in different languages; on the other hand, totally different rites occur in the same language. In general, we may note that in the West it is rare for a rite to be used in different languages. Rome has no principle of uniformity in rite; the Holy See gladly tolerates a great diversity of rites in the Catholic Church. But she does, as a rule, appear to desire that each rite (at any rate in the West) should be used uniformly in the same language.

The Orthodox Church, on the contrary, has shown herself extremely intolerant of different rites. She has crushed the old rite of Alexandria among her members altogether, and has nearly crushed that of Antioch. Everywhere she imposes the much later and far less venerable rite of Constantinople. But she does not seem to mind in what language that rite is used. The Byzantine rite is now used among the Orthodox in about fourteen different languages. But in each of these it is just as much the Byzantine rite as it is in its original Greek.

From this we see that we can never distinguish rites by the languages in which they are used. We should never talk about a Latin rite, a Greek rite, a Syriac rite. There are now three Latin rites, those of Rome, Milan, and the Mozarabic rite; there are at least three Greek rites, those of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople. Once there were more. These are totally different, they represent the first main distinctions of Eastern rites; yet they are all Greek. The equally different Nestorian and Jacobite rites, to say nothing of those of the Maronites and Malabar Christians, are all in the same language — Syriac. Yet in such absolutely different languages as Arabic and Rumanian we find the same rite of Constantinople. So language is no test of rite. The only real test of a rite is its order, forms, and arrangements; and the note of each is the place of its origin. If people would realize this there would be less confusion of ideas on the subject. We should speak of the Roman, Byzantine, Alexandrine, Antiochene rites. Then it is clear what we are talking about; and it remains a very small detail in what language any of these may be used.

Lastly, in the East at any rate, it makes very little difference in what place a man may live, as far as his rite or the branch of the Church to which he belongs is concerned. Certainly, originally all depended on this. A man was not asked to which Patriarchate he would like to belong. That was settled for him by his birth as a native of some land, just as in the West the Ordinary you must obey is the bishop of the place in which you were born or now live. But the dismemberment of the old Patriarchates by later schisms, the wandering of people from one place to another, have changed all that in the Catholic Church too. There are communities of many different rites living now side by side in the same towns, each having its own parish church, sometimes its own bishop. In Beyrut there are a Catholic Maronite Archbishop, a Catholic Syrian bishop, and a Catholic Melkite bishop each ruling his own flock; while the Latins there obey none of these, but the Latin Delegate.

A man belongs to his "nation" — that is, to his rite — wherever he may dwell. His children inherit this quality from him, to whatever new city their business may take them. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult for a man to change the rite he has inherited, both from the point of view of Catholic Canon Law and that of Turkish State Law. It clings to him, like his family name. So we cannot now adequately define the flocks ruled by the various Patriarchs of the Catholic Church by showing maps. It was so once; it should be so in theory. In practice we must try to give a statement of the chief places where members of the various Eastern Churches now happen to dwell, and in the case of some of them this will include so distant a land as America. There is no reason why there should not be a portion of the Maronite Church, with a Maronite bishop under the Maronite Patriarch, in London. It would be so if a sufficient number of Maronite merchants found it convenient to settle there.

4. Prejudices against the Uniates.

It is now time to say something about that unjust prejudice against the Uniate Churches which one finds, not only among Protestants, but, most strangely, among Western Catholics, who owe them rather the greatest honour and love.

This prejudice seems ingrained in many people who ought to know better. Protestants of all sects constantly make the most absurd statements about them, even otherwise educated Protestants.

The grossest form of error is not even to know that there are any Uniate Churches in the East. One sometimes still hears even this. One reads books in which the writer shows that he really thinks that the only people in union with Rome, the only people who obey the Pope, are those who use the Roman rite in the West.^[17] One finds the "East" quoted solidly as a witness against the Roman claims. To such people as those who think this, we can only point out that in no part of the world are there so loyal subjects of the Pope, nowhere are his claims so eagerly defended, as among the most intelligent, the most advanced and civilized portions of Eastern Christendom.

Then, when the Protestant has at last found out that there are such things as Uniate Churches in the East, he often changes his tactics, and now represents them as a contemptible little handful of people who, not very willingly, more or less accept the Papal claims.

They are by no means a handful. There are over 6½ million Uniates. This is a small number compared with the total number of Catholics (over 292 millions),^[18] but the Uniates alone often outnumber the whole religious body of the man who speaks of them as a handful.

As for their loyalty to Rome, it is, of course, true that in the past there have been disputes and regrettable incidents among some of them.

Such things have happened in the West too. A man is no more guaranteed against temptation to personal ambition, quarrelling, discontent with the authorities and uncatholic spirit by being a Uniate, than if he were a Latin. We shall, unfortunately, see several examples of such things in our story. But it is absurd to quote one or two regrettable cases, and then to assume that all Uniates groan under the yoke of Rome. Once more, such things happen everywhere. The other Uniates are no more responsible for disloyal conduct on the part of some one bishop than we Latins are all responsible for the shocking behaviour of that Latin bishop who went wrong, Thomas Cranmer.

Let each man bear the responsibility of his own deeds, and do not blame the whole body of Melkite Uniates if an Armenian Uniate bishop is insubordinate. It is true that many Uniates have shown great anxiety about their special organization, their rites, their corporate existence. In view of the inevitable predominance of the Latin part of the Catholic Church, of the fact that the common chief of all, the Pope, is a Latin, in view also of the excessively strong attraction of all Easterns to their particular group or nation, this is not surprising. Nor can we wonder that sometimes the local patriotism of the Easterns, together with the want of appreciation of their point of view among Italian Cardinals, has sometimes produced discussions, protests, and friction. All things considered, it is rather wonderful that there has not been more friction. We must remember that in some points the way in which the West treats the East is galling to the East. We send out missionaries to educate them, we regulate their affairs, tell them what they may do and what they may not do, often teach them their own business,^[19] and in general, assume a patronizing attitude towards them. And they are a proud people.

Such considerations as these will account amply for whatever friction there has been in the past, friction that will cease with a better appreciation of their ideas and attitude (for in as far as the Roman Congregations have ever offended their susceptibilities, it has been from ignorance rather than from malice).

But there is another side to all this. The really wonderful thing about the Uniates is not that occasionally they have grumbled; it is, in spite of that, in spite of blunders made by the West towards them, their magnificent loyalty to the Catholic ideal. It is the right sort of loyalty, to an ideal, not to persons. They have no more personal devotion towards Italian Cardinals and the Monsignori of the Roman congregations than we have in the North. What they care for is the one united Church of Christ throughout the world, and the Holy See as guarding that unity. They see around them the same process of erosion among the schismatics as we see among the Protestants; and they, too, understand that the bond of union among Catholics is our common loyalty to the primate-see. This idea so dominates that, in spite of the occasional friction, the Pope has no more loyal subjects in the world than his brothers and children of Eastern rites. The very fact that they keep and cherish their union with Rome, although the schismatics are never tired of calling them slaves, of boasting of their own liberty, shows how real this ideal must be to the Uniates. It requires some strength of conviction to acknowledge as your chief a bishop of a foreign rite, to submit the rules of your own liturgy to the supervision of men who themselves use another. They draw this strength from their unswerving belief in the Catholic ideal of one universal, united Church of God. It is for the sake of that that they obey a Latin authority, for the sake of that, and because they know that the bishop who holds the succession of Peter rises above all rites and is a foreigner to none of his brethren.

Indeed, from my experience I am inclined to think that the pride of the Uniates in their communion with Rome is sometimes even excessive, that they look with too much scorn on their non-uniate neighbours. Any Latin in the Levant will see with what pride the Uniates he meets remember that they belong to the same body as he does, that they have a right to the same consciousness of citizenship in the great Church as he. They are conscious, too, that they are better educated, more strict in their laws, more edifying in the lives of their clergy than the other Eastern Christians. They feel themselves, as they are, an aristocracy among the others. As the soldiers whom Agricola led in Scotland were conscious of the might of Rome behind them, as they looked to the Imperial City on the Tiber as the centre of their allegiance, and despised the barbarians who had no share in Rome, so do the Uniates look across the Mediterranean to the Patriarchal throne by the Tiber, so do they realize themselves as citizens of no mean kingdom, and rather despise the isolated schismatics who have no share in the great Church.

Lastly, anyone who knows those lands at all will admit that the Uniates are, morally and intellectually, the best of Eastern Christians. The Catholic will not be surprised at this. But even apart from supernatural considerations, the fact can easily be explained. The Uniates are the only Easterns who enjoy what, in this case, is the real advantage of Western ideas. No one will deny that for many centuries the Christian East (except to some extent Russia) has been stagnant. This is not the fault of the Christians. Crushed under the horrible weight of Islam, they could not be expected to live a very active intellectual life; surrounded by the contempt of their barbarous conquerors, with Moslem morals all round them, it is not wonderful that they have not reached very high ethical standards. They learned to cringe, to deceive, to sacrifice principle for money, after the manner of the bribe-taking Turkish Pasha. Who shall blame them if subjection under the Turk has in some points Turkified their manners? It is enough that, in spite of all, they have kept their faith in Christ, Uniates and schismatics alike. For that they deserve all honour from us. But the fact remains that intellectually those poor persecuted Christians have not risen to any great height, and that morally they have become slack in some points.

The lack of education among the schismatical Eastern clergy is the invariable reproach of Western travellers; and the schismatical bishop has too often learned to take bribes, to sell honours and offices, nowhere more scandalously than in the case of the Church of Constantinople. To-day no one would cite a Jacobite parish-priest, a Coptic monk, as a shining example of learning, or as the exponent of a high moral ideal; though often he is sincerely pious. But in these matters the Uniates have the advantage of Western education. There are no theological works produced by modern schismatical Copts or Jacobites; generally, their clergy can hardly read, and do not understand their own liturgical language. Nor is much in this way produced by the Armenians or the Orthodox. What they do produce is generally a rather naïve reproduction of Western ideas at second-hand.^[20]

But the Uniates are taught by Western Latins; their schools and seminaries are conducted on the same lines as ours; they learn their theology from the same textbooks as are used in our colleges in the West. There is no question that the Uniate clergy have had an immeasurably better education than the others. In this matter they have every advantage from their union with the more highly developed West. Even in the detail of language the Uniates have the advantage. Most of them know at least some Latin, many can talk quite good French. This opens to them vast fields of knowledge, closed to the schismatics who know nothing but Arabic. It would be an exaggeration to say that the average Uniate priest is quite up to the level of the average Latin priest. But, at least, he is far in advance of the schismatic. He has received at any rate a fair general education on Western lines,^[21] and has gone through a course of theology from Western books. The schismatic generally has had no education, and has learned no theology at all. As a simple test of this, ask priests in the Levant about the great questions which lie beneath their differences, about Nestorianism, Monophysism, the idea of the Church and the Papacy. You will not find one Uniate who is not able to give you a general, fairly accurate, if perhaps rather old-fashioned statement on these points, and a defence of what he believes. You will find few schismatics who know anything about them at all, who even know what these questions mean.

So also in morals. The Uniate clergy have been brought up under the rigorously moral eye of Western missionaries; they have had years of the stern discipline of a seminary, in which the standard is the same as in ours. The schismatics have grown up anyhow in villages, in which there was little of any standard, and have been taken and ordained without any preparation at all.

Again, among the bishops and authorities of the Uniates, their union with Rome forces them to apply very much the same principles of conduct as obtain among us in the West. Tho Canon Law is revised and enforced by the Holy See. Among the others there are but the loosest principles, and Canon Law which is often a mere joke.

The disorders among the schismatics are the constant subject of regret or humour to travellers. You will not find so great disorders among the Uniates. The state of things which is almost a matter of course in great parts of the East, which Eastern people themselves admit and excuse as the result of their centuries of bondage (quite a fair excuse), is impossible among those who are in union with Rome. Their bishops would put it down ruthlessly and at once. If the bishop did not do so, he would hear from Propaganda. Whatever you may say about Rome, you cannot say that her discipline is slack.

Again, we must not exaggerate this. It is true that Uniate morals, as well as Uniate scholarship, are not always quite up to the Western standard. In remote parts of the Church abuses do go on for some time before they are found out and suppressed. But the point is that such abuses are always liable to be found out, and that then they certainly will be suppressed by the authorities at Rome. Among the schismatics there is no further authority beyond that of the Eastern people themselves, the very people whom long bondage under the Turk has made less scrupulous. There is no one to find out and no one to put down the abuses. So in morals, too, we may claim safely that the Uniates are the best among Eastern Christians. They have at least that salutary fear of Rome and what Rome will say, to repress the animalis homo.

I think any traveller in those parts will confirm this. As with the clergy, so it is with the laity. Go into the house of a Uniate, especially of a Uniate priest. It will perhaps not be quite as nice as our houses in Western Europe; but it will probably be reasonably clean. You will find in it Western books; your host will be a not altogether uneducated man. He will probably talk French to you. If he is a layman, he will have read papers, and will show an intelligent interest in what is going on in the world, particularly in that West for which he will have an overwhelming secret respect, even if his national loyalty makes him affect to think his own "nation" every bit as good. If he is a priest, he will ask news of Rome, and will discuss theology, liturgy, and the affairs of the Church. In any case, you will feel nothing like that sense of being among a completely different and lower race of people that you cannot help feeling among the other Eastern Christians. I repeat, from every point of view the Uniates are the aristocracy of Eastern Christians. It may not be a very splendid aristocracy, but, compared with the others, it is a real aristocracy, intellectual and moral.

It is much stranger to find sometimes even Catholics who do real injustice to their fellow-Catholics of Eastern rites. One can understand that Protestants are unjust to them. The existence and particularly the superiority of the Uniate Churches is a fact most damaging to their theories of the Papacy as only recognized in the West, to that identification of "Roman Catholic" with "Latin," which is the great point of their branch theory. But of all people we Western Catholics should glory in the Uniate Churches. They are an exceedingly important factor in our concept of the universal Church; they are our great palpable argument that the primacy of Rome is more than Patriarchal rights over part of the Church. Indeed, in some ways, it is just the Uniates who save the whole situation, from our point of view.

To be obliged to reduce the whole Church of Christ to one Patriarchate would be difficult; it would suggest that perhaps our concept is mistaken, that when Patriarchate is divided against Patriarchate there is an internal schism in the Church, which leaves both sides part of the Church, though no longer united.

But this is not the case. On the contrary, within the one united Church all the Patriarchates remain as they did in early days. The fact that vast numbers of the members of the Eastern Patriarchates have gone out of the Church altogether, distressing as it is, does not affect the legal position. In the same way the Latin Patriarchate lost vast quantities of its subjects at the Reformation. In spite of this, in spite of the many heresies and schisms which at various times have robbed each Patriarchate of its members, the constitution of the Catholic Church remains what it has always been, not one Patriarchate with one rite, but the union of East and West, differing in rites, having in many cases different details of Canon Law, but united in the profession of the same faith and in conscious inter-communion. It is just the Uniates who safeguard this position.

Yet so little do many Catholics in the West realize this position, so little conscious have they been of their fellow-Catholics in the East, that one still finds people who make the fatal mistake of confusing our one Patriarchate with the whole Church. When one hears Catholics say that no Catholic priest may be married, that all Catholics have exactly the same Mass all over the world, one sees to what blunders this confusion between our Western Patriarchate and the whole Church of Christ may lead. It is only from ignorance, because in the West we so rarely see a Catholic of an Eastern rite, that our people when they go to the East sometimes make that most injurious mistake of treating the Uniates as if they were in some way rather less perfect Catholics than we are.

Western people get so used to look upon our Roman rite as the only correct one that they are inclined to think a man who does not use it a kind of half-Catholic, better than the schismatics, but not quite so good as we are. Or when they meet a married Catholic priest they look upon his state as a temporary toleration which had better be done away with. Really he is obeying the Canon Law of his Patriarchate, to which he has just as much right as we have to our laws.

Does anyone think St Athanasius, St Basil, St John Chrysostom imperfect Catholics? The modern Uniate stands exactly where they stood. Like them he is in communion with the chief of all Patriarchs at Rome; like them he acknowledges the primacy of the Pope and obeys him as Primate. But like them he is not bound by local Western Patriarchal laws; like them he thinks his laws and rite and customs just as good as ours. It is really as absurd for us Latins to think our own Patriarchate the whole Church as it would be for a Melkite to think us imperfect Catholics because we do not use the Byzantine rite.

And from every point of view we Latins owe all possible honour to our brothers the Uniates. They not only save the situation canonically, they are the most splendid example of Catholic loyalty in the world. For the Pope's cause is in some measure our cause. He is a Western bishop, a Latin as we are, and our own Patriarch. It is not difficult for us to be loyal. The fact that the constitution of the Church gives the first place to our Patriarch is no doubt an honour for us; but it would ill beseem us to boast of this before Uniates. Let us rather understand that their loyalty is all the more splendid just because it is less easy for them. We take up the long quarrel between East and West, on the Western side, without difficulty, because we are Westerns. The Uniates are on our side, although they themselves are Easterns. They honour us, and are in communion with us, rather than with their schismatical countrymen, although externally we are further from them than the schismatics. They do this because of their loyalty to the Catholic ideal. Of all people, we who profit by their loyalty should be the first to appreciate it.

So let this be clear. We have no reason to reproach the Uniates, no right to the faintest sense of superiority over them, no right to suggest that they would be in any way better or more Catholic if they turned Latin. They might just as well invite us to turn Uniate of some rite. Let us realize that we all stand on exactly the same footing as fellow-citizens of the same kingdom of God on earth, and let us revere with special honour those who stand by this ideal under the greatest difficulties.

5. The Holy See and the Uniates.

In order now to show that if there has been any prejudice against the Uniates among Latins it is not the fault of the Holy See, in order to establish that the ideas described above are those of the chief authority of the Catholic Church, we will quote some general pronouncements of Popes about the Uniate Churches.

That our fellow-Catholics of Eastern rites deserve all honour; that their position is absolutely correct and unassailable; that all Latins have to do is to honour, and, if necessary, protect their venerable rites, this has been declared in the plainest language, over and over again, by the Popes.

The attitude of the Holy See that nothing need be, nothing should be, changed in the rites which Eastern Christians inherit from their fathers, so long as in all essential points of faith and morals they agree with the Catholic Church, is shown at the very outset of the great schism. Before the schism of Photius, during the Iconoclast persecution in the East (eighth and ninth centuries), a great number of image-worshippers, particularly monks, fled to Italy. Here they were received with all honour as confessors of the faith, and no one dreamed of suggesting that their Byzantine rite was in any way inferior, or that it would be an advantage to them to become Latins.^[22]

Just when the trouble began, in 862, Pope Nicholas I (858-867) writes to Photius to explain that he has no kind of objection to the fact that the people have different rites, as long as there be nothing in these opposed to the holy canons.^[23]

Then, in the next quarrel, when Michael Cerularius was cursing Latins because we use unleavened bread for the holy Eucharist, and with characteristic Byzantine indecency was calling the Blessed Sacrament, as consecrated by Latins, "dry mud,"^[24] Dominic, Patriarch of Gradus and Aquileia,^[25] wrote to Peter of Antioch in a way which is equally typical of the Latin attitude in this deplorable quarrel. He not only recognizes entirely that either use, of azyme or fermented bread, is in itself lawful; he tries to find parallel reasons to justify both customs. "We have heard that the holy Roman Church is abused by the clergy of Constantinople. They blame the most holy azyme which we sanctify and receive in the Body of Christ, and they say that because of this we are deprived of that Body, and they judge us to be separated from the unity of the Church because we offer the sacrifice without the mixture of leaven. But we, wishing to keep the unity of the Church without any kind of schism, hold the custom of azyme by the tradition, not only of the Apostles, but of the Lord himself. Yet since we know that the sacred mixture of leaven is accepted and lawfully used by the most holy and orthodox fathers of the Eastern Churches, we understand both customs faithfully, and confirm both by a spiritual meaning. For the mixture of leaven and flour, which the Churches of the East use, shows forth the substance of the Incarnate Word; but the simple azyme kept by the Roman Church, without controversy, may represent the purity of the human flesh which it pleased the Divinity to unite with itself."^[26]

It would be impossible to urge too strongly that this discussion represents exactly the invariable habit of the two sides in this controversy. The Byzantine Christians have never ceased impudently to quarrel with our customs, have never ceased calling us offensive names because of mere trifles of rite in which we differ from them; on our side there has always been the most complete, the most generous recognition that custom and rite are not in themselves essential things; that it is quite natural that East and West should each have their own practices; that both are equally lawful, both may be defended equally well by mystical interpretations; that the only duty on either side is to keep its own uses, and not to quarrel with the other, not to call other people silly rude names, because they differ in such a matter as this.

The idea that the Popes have demanded uniformity is about as gross a misrepresentation as an ignorant controversialist could make. They have never done so. It is always the other side, the insolent Patriarchs of Constantinople, who cannot tolerate any custom different from their own, who curse us for being Latins (we have never cursed them for being Byzantine), call us heretics, and deny the validity of our sacraments because of differences of mere ritual; who have forced their own late derived rite on the whole Orthodox Church, and destroyed the far more venerable uses of Alexandria and Antioch.

The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) assured the Greeks that it intends "to cherish and honour them, maintaining their customs and rites, as much as, with the help of the Lord, we are able."^[27]

In 1222 Pope Honorius III writes to the King of Cyprus (Henry I de'Lusignan, 1218-1253): "We wish to favour and honour the Greeks who come back to the obedience of the Apostolic See, maintaining the customs and rites of the Greeks as much as we can, with God's help."^[28]

In 1247 Basilicus, King of Lodomeria, wrote to the Pope, asking to be restored to communion with him. Innocent IV (1243-1254) answers: "We admit that the bishops and priests of Russia shall be allowed to consecrate in leavened bread, according to their use, and that they shall observe their other rites which are not opposed to the Catholic faith, which the Roman Church holds."^[29]

After the union of Lyons, in 1278, Nicholas III writes to Bartholomew, Bishop of Grosseto, then his legate at Constantinople, that the now united Greeks are to say the Filioque in the Creed;^[30] "but concerning the other rites of the Greeks, you are to answer that the Roman Church intends the Greeks to follow them, as far as they can under the favour of God; and that they are to keep these rites, concerning which it appears to the Apostolic See that the Catholic faith is not offended, nor the laws of the sacred canons disobeyed."^[31]

Our next example shall be the Council of Florence (1439). It is significant that this Council, after centuries of wild abuse of our Latin use of azyme on the part of the Byzantines, so far from any attempt to retort, should again solemnly defend the equal rights of either custom, and disclaim any idea of imposing one only on the whole Church. "So also, whether in azyme or in leavened bread, the Body of Christ is truly present; and priests must consecrate the Body of the Lord in either, each according to the use of his Church, whether Western or Eastern."^[32] At the time of the fall of Constantinople many Greeks fled to Italy. Here they were received with the most generous hospitality; the Popes again never thought of changing or blaming the rites they used, as we shall see when we come to the Italo-Greeks (p. 136).

From this time, we have a large number of documents, Bulls and Briefs, by which one Pope after another defends the use of the Byzantine rite in Italy, and forbids any attempt at latinizing the Greek colonies there.

Leo X (1513-1521) and Clement VII (1523-1574) blame Latins who despise the Byzantine rite. Pius IV (1555-1559) proclaims the inviolability of that rite; Gregory XIII (1572-1585) founds the Greek college at Rome in 1577, and orders that its students shall be carefully instructed in their own rite. Clement VIII (1592-1605) and Paul V (1605-1621) defend the Ruthenians of Poland against the Latin government. Benedict XIII (1724-1730), in approving the Synod of Zamoisk, inserted a special clause that nothing was to be allowed which could injure the rite of the Ruthenians.^[33] Most of all, the great Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) stands out as the champion of the Eastern rites. A great part of his legislation is concerned with their defence. We shall often have to refer to it. Meanwhile we may note his laws that the Byzantine monks in Italy are to know the Greek language and observe their rite exactly, that no Latin is to attack this.^[34] His three chief Bulls on the subject are Etsi pastoralis, Demandatam cælitus, and especially Allatæ sunt.

All these contain much Canon Law for Uniates of various rites. As specimens of the attitude of the Holy See towards Catholics of other rites, these quotations will serve here.

In Etsi pastoralis^[35] the Pope says that many Christians of the Byzantine rite have come to live in Italy; that "they and their children are to keep studiously and carefully the habits, institutions, rites, and customs which they have received from their Greek fathers, only to show to the Roman Church due obedience and reverence."^[36] He says that before God there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor Barbarian nor Scythian, for all are one in Christ; so the Pope, too, wishes rather to grant special favours and graces to these strangers, as his predecessors have always done. He renews all privileges, immunities, exemptions, indults, and so on, which the Greeks have ever enjoyed.^[37] Then he lays down careful rules for the Byzantine rite in Italy, to which we shall return, always with the greatest care not to modify or latinize any of its ancient principles. "Our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, considered it more proper to approve and permit these rites, which in no way are opposed to the Catholic faith, nor cause danger to souls, nor diminish the honour of the Church, rather than to bring them to the standard of the Roman ceremonies."^[38] "Nor do we allow any Latin Ordinary to molest or to disturb these or any of them. And we inhibit all and any prelates or persons from blaspheming, reproving, or blaming the rites of the Greeks, which were approved in the Council of Florence or elsewhere."^[39]

So anxious is the Pope that there should be no idea of superiority on the part of the Latins, that he draws up elaborate rules of precedence between the clergy of both rites in public functions. In this there is to be no question of the rite either follows, but only of their dignity in their own rite; and among those of equal rank, precedence is to go by date of ordination.^[40]

It is sometimes said that all the Roman legislation in favour of the Eastern rites is not sincere, that it is really only a trap to attract the schismatics, and make them believe that Rome does not want to destroy their rites.

At any rate, in the case of these Italo-Greeks, there can be no such idea. They were absolutely helpless in the midst of a solidly Latin population. They had not even their own bishops. The Pope had only to let things alone, and they would all have turned Latin centuries ago, automatically. But the Pope did not want this. It is a childish idea that the mighty Roman rite could be jealous of any other. Benedict XIV, and many other Popes, had a genuine desire that the other ancient rites of the Church should not die out; so, at considerable trouble to themselves, by constant severe legislation, they kept them alive; in some cases, as we shall see, almost in spite of the people of these rites themselves.

On December 24, 1743, Benedict XIV published the decree Demandatam cælitus.^[41] This is addressed to the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, Cyril VI,^[42] and the bishops of his Patriarchate. In this he answers various questions that had arisen regarding rites and customs of the Melkites, always with the idea of preserving their rite in its purity, of restoring genuine Byzantine practices, abolishing later abuses, especially insisting on uniformity within each rite, and forbidding either a mixture of rites or attempts to persuade the faithful of one rite to leave it for another. "Concerning rites and customs of the Greek Church in general, we decree in the first place that no one, whatever his rank may be, even Patriarchal or episcopal, may innovate or introduce anything that diminishes their complete and exact observance."^[43] But bishops may allow harmless practices within the limits of what is essential to the rite. Certain obvious abuses and superstitious ideas are forbidden, as, for instance, the absurd idea that, if a priest uses vestments already used by someone else that day, he thereby breaks his fast.^[44] The Pope forbids Maronites to mix themselves in the affairs of Melkites, or to try to persuade Melkites to turn Maronite.^[45] The same law, even more severely, applies to Latin missionaries. "Moreover, we expressly forbid all and each of the Catholic Melkites who use the Greek rite, to pass over to the Latin rite. We command severely that all missionaries, under pains named below, and under others to be inflicted according to our pleasure, shall not dare to persuade anyone of these to pass from the Greek to the Latin rite, or shall even allow them to do so, if they wish it, without having first consulted the Apostolic See."^[46] The pains are deprivation of active and passive voice in elections, and inability for any office or degree in their Order or Congregation.^[47]

There were, then, ambiguous people, who followed both rites, Roman and Byzantine, on various occasions. This must stop. Such persons are to make a final statement as to the rite to which they wish to belong, without further delay, and then to keep to it exclusively as long as they live.^[48] The decree contains many other wise and tolerant rules about the children of mixed marriages,^[49] children of Melkite parents who by accident have been baptized by a Latin priest, and so on. The Pope ends: "We do not doubt but that you will recognize that we have no other intention but that the venerable rites of the Greek Church and its customs shall persist in all their force; and that the due obedience of your people and your authority and jurisdiction over them shall be kept whole and entire."^[50] And again: "We wish all the rights, privileges, and free jurisdiction of your Fraternities^[51] to remain intact, that you may rule the sheep committed to your care, and may direct them by the paths of the laws of God, with the help of his grace, to the goal of eternal salvation."^[52]

But the most important legislation of Benedict XIV on this subject is contained in the Encyclical Allatæ sunt of July 26, 1755.^[53]

This is addressed to missionaries in the "East," meaning chiefly in Syria and Asia Minor. It is a long document. First, the Pope explains at length the care his predecessors have always had to preserve the Eastern rites unchanged and unhurt.

He sums this up accurately by saying that hitherto union with the Eastern Churches has always been arranged so that "errors opposed to the Catholic faith were rooted out; but it has never been attempted to do any injury to the venerable Eastern rite."^[54] Examples and proofs of this follow, beginning with the tolerance of Leo IX towards Byzantine churches in Italy, at the very time when Cerularius was shutting up Latin churches at Constantinople. Then comes a long list of Popes who, in various ways, have protected Eastern rites; so that from this Bull alone a good idea of the position may be obtained.^[55]

The missionaries are to convert Eastern schismatics to the Catholic faith; to fight against errors; but in no way to try to make their converts Latins. In order to show the respect which the Holy See has for Eastern rites, the Pope quotes a number of cases in which liturgical practices from the East have been introduced into the Roman rite, such as the use of the Nicene Creed at Mass, and so on.^[56]

There are sharp laws against mixing rites; priests of Eastern rites may celebrate in Latin churches, but they must, in that case too, follow their own rite exactly.

The Pope sees that there is a greater advantage for the Catholic faith in maintaining Eastern rites than in abolishing them: "As for the arguments that missionaries should use, since Eastern people greatly adhere to their own ancient fathers, the works of the diligent Leo Allatius and of other illustrious theologians should be studied carefully, in which it is shown that the ancient and venerable Greek Fathers and those of the Western Church agree entirely among themselves in all things that affect dogma, and that they confute equally the errors in which the Eastern people, and particularly the Greeks, are now unhappily involved. Hence without doubt the study of their works will be of the greatest use."^[57]

So he concludes: "We have explained these things in this our Encyclical letter, not only to make the principles clear by which we have answered the questions of the missionaries, but also that all may see the goodwill with which the Apostolic See embraces Eastern Catholics, since it orders that by all means their ancient rites are to be preserved, as opposed neither to the Catholic faith nor to morals. Nor do we demand that schismatics who return to Catholic unity should forsake their rites; but only that they should renounce and detest their heresies. We desire vehemently that their various nations should be preserved, not destroyed; that, to say all in one word, they should be Catholics, not that they should become Latins."^[58]

This Encyclical contains full details about all the points of Canon Law which affect the Uniates, so that it has become the standard precedent for Papal legislation ever since. Here, so far, we are only concerned with the attitude of the Holy See in general. This attitude could not be better expressed than it is by the closing words of Allatæ sunt, quoted above: "Exoptans vehementer ut omnes Catholici sint, non ut omnes Latini fiant."

The great mind of Benedict XIV, the Canonist-Pope, hereby set a standard which his successors have observed faithfully. He made many other rules about details of Eastern rites, always in the same spirit.^[59] Indeed, the tone of the Holy See towards the Uniates is set by the laws and declarations of Benedict XIV. His successors have taken back nothing of his large-minded toleration; they have only urged the same principles more strongly.

Pius VI and Clement XII fostered the Byzantine rite in lower Italy and Sicily.^[60]

Pius IX (1846-1878) distinguished himself as a Pope who favoured Uniates. In his Encyclical of the Epiphany, 1848,^[61] while inviting Eastern Christians to come back to unity with Rome, he repeats that the universal Church will always respect the rites and customs of her Eastern parts. He says: "We will consider your special Catholic liturgies as entirely safe and protected; we think much of them, although in some points they differ from the liturgies of the Latin Churches. Indeed, your liturgies were valued by our predecessors, as recommended by the venerable antiquity of their origin, written in languages which the Apostles and Fathers used, containing rites celebrated with splendid and magnificent pomp, so that the piety and reverence of the faithful towards the divine mysteries are thereby fostered."^[62]

In his allocution of December 19, 1853, Pius IX said: "Our predecessors declared not only that nothing is to be blamed in the sacred rites of the Eastern Church, that nothing in them is opposed to the true faith; but also that these rites must be kept and reverenced, being worthy of all respect by the antiquity of their origin, coming as they do, in great part, from the holy fathers. Particular constitutions have forbidden those who follow these rites to abandon them without special permission of the Supreme Pontiff. Our predecessors knew that the spotless bride of Christ presents in these external notes an admirable variety, which in no way alters her unity. The Church, spreading beyond the frontiers of States, embraces all peoples and all nations, which she unites in the profession of the same faith, in spite of diversity of customs, language, and rites; these differences being approved by the Roman Church, mother and chief of all."^[63]

So, on the Epiphany, 1862, Pius IX founded a special Congregation for Eastern rites. It was perhaps less happy that this was made a subdivision of Propaganda, with the title "S. Congregatio de propaganda Fide pro ritibus orientalibus"; but in founding it the Pope used again the same language of respect for the Eastern rites, made again the same assurances that he had no wish to destroy these:

"Our predecessors not only never had the intention to bring Eastern people to the Latin rite, but, every time they thought it expedient, they have declared in clear and precise terms that the Holy See does not ask Eastern Christians to abandon their own rites, venerable by their antiquity and by the witness of the holy fathers. The Holy See demands one thing only, that in these rites nothing be introduced which would be contrary to the Catholic faith, dangerous for souls, or opposed to virtue; as one of our predecessors, Benedict XIV of happy memory, shows in his Encyclical Allatæ sunt, of July 5, 1755, addressed to missionaries in the East. If, then, any harm has ever been done to the rites of the East, it is not to the Holy See that it can be ascribed."^[64]

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) was perhaps even more eager in his zeal for the Eastern Churches and their rites. Almost as soon as he became Pope, on April 1, 1879, he said: "How dear to us are the Churches of the East! How we admire their ancient glories, and how happy we should be to see them return to the splendour of their first greatness!"

In September, 1880, he published the Encyclical Grande Munus, whereby he extended the cult of the Apostles of the Slavs, St. Cyril and St. Methodius, to the whole Church.^[65]

In a Consistory of December 13, 1880, he said: "At the beginning of our Pontificate we hastened to occupy ourselves with the people of the East. There, indeed, was the cradle of the salvation of the whole human race, and the first fruits of Christianity; thence, as a mighty river, all the blessings of the Gospel came to the West."^[66]

In 1882 Leo XIII did a graceful and friendly thing towards the schismatical Eastern Christians. Till then it had been the custom to give to Latin auxiliary bishops titles of old dioceses in the East, which no longer had Catholic Ordinaries. There are many such which have fallen into the hands of the Moslems; in some there were no longer any Christians at all. Since a bishop must have some title, the titles of these were used for non-diocesan bishops in the West. To these titles was added the form "in partibus infidelium." But during the nineteenth century many of these places have been restored to Christian hands, though not to those of Catholics. Still, there is a great difference between Christians of any Church and people who are not Christians at all. It would naturally be offensive to Greeks, for instance, to know that we spoke of the cities of their kingdom as being "in partibus infidelium." So the Pope abolished this form altogether, and substituted for it the harmless description "sedes titulares."

In August, 1892, Leo XIII sent Cardinal Langénieux as his legate to the Eucharistic Congress at Jerusalem. The Cardinal says in his letter on this occasion: "Shall not the Greeks, our brothers, be met by a glance of Jesus, whom they love, as was the Apostle Peter?" And in his inaugural address: "I come as a pacifier; I come in the name of him whom history calls the chief pacifier of modern times. It is he who sends me, to give a new proof of his sympathy and admiration for the Eastern Churches, which are the first-born daughters of the Church of God."

In 1894 Leo instituted at the Vatican conferences for the union of Churches. The Uniate Patriarchs were invited to attend these as well as theologians and others who would be interested in the question. It is true that not much came of the conferences; but their foundation again shows the Pope's zeal for the Christian East. It was also during his Pontificate that a number of journals and reviews were founded by Catholics, under his auspices, for the study of Eastern Christendom.^[67]

On November 30, 1894, Leo XIII published his famous Constitution Orientalium Dignitas,^[68] which takes a place second only to those of Benedict XIV.

In this he enforces even more strongly the old principles of the Holy See; that Latins are in no way to disparage Eastern rites, nor to try to persuade Eastern Christians to become Latins. He begins by explaining again that the ancient Eastern rites are a witness to the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church, that their diversity, consistent with unity of the faith, is itself a witness to the unity of the Church, that they add to her dignity and honour. He says that the Catholic Church does not possess one rite only, but that she embraces all the ancient rites of Christendom; her unity consists not in a mechanical uniformity of all her parts, but on the contrary, in their variety, according in one principle and vivified by it.

So he continues: "It is therefore more than ever the duty of our office to watch strictly that no injury be done to them (Eastern rites) by the imprudence of ministers of the Gospel from Western lands, whom zeal for the teaching of Christ sends towards Eastern nations." He repeats the statement of Benedict XIV, that Western missionaries are sent to the East only to be helpers and supports to the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs and bishops, not in any way to prejudice the rights of Eastern Churches. He sanctions this principle by a penalty: "Any Latin missionary, whether regular or secular, who by his advice or influence shall have persuaded an Eastern Christian to adopt the Latin rite, shall incur ipso facto suspension a diuinis and all other pains threatened in the Constitution Demandatam."^[69]

In order to give greater force to this penalty the Pope orders that it shall be put up publicly in the sacristy of all Latin Churches in the East. It may still be seen there. I have found it in sacristies of Latin Churches in the Levant. When I went to say Mass the first time in the Latin church at Damascus, I saw this clause from Orientalium dignitas, framed over the place where I was to vest. It was further pointed out to me by the rector of the church; I shuddered to think of what would happen to me if I hinted to one of my Uniate friends that I consider it better to be a Latin than a Melkite.

This Constitution contains laws in protection of the Eastern rites which go further than any Pope had gone before. For instance, in spite of the dislike which the Roman authorities have for any vagueness or change of rite, a Uniate who has adopted the Latin rite because of the impossibility of finding clergy of his own where he lives, must return to it as soon as the cause of his latinization is removed. A woman who has followed the Latin rite after marrying a Latin husband, may return to her own use after the husband's death. Any Eastern Catholic who has turned Latin, even by virtue of a Papal rescript, is now free to go back to his original rite. Schismatics who become Catholics are not to become Latins, but are to keep their rite. The greatest possible difficulties against their turning Latin are made.

In colleges where students of the Roman and Eastern rites study together, the Pope abolishes all privileges by which, for the time of their studies, the Easterns are allowed to follow the Roman rite. On the contrary, the superiors of such colleges are bound to make provision that each may follow his own. Eastern students are to be taught the use of their rites carefully, because, says the Pope: "There is more importance in the conservation of the Eastern rites than might appear at first sight."

Two years later, in March, 1896, he returns to the same subject, and enforces again all the rules of Orientalium dignitas.^[70]

Moreover, Leo XIII showed practically his care for Eastern rites. In 1883 he founded the Armenian college at Rome; in 1897 he established a Coptic Uniate college at Cairo. In 1895 he sent the French Assumptionists to Chalcedon, with the mission to study the Greeks, and he founded through them colleges at Philippopolis and Adrianople for the Bulgars. He opened the college of St. Anne at Jerusalem, under the White Fathers, for the Melkites. He founded a Greek Catholic Lyceum at Athens in 1889. He separated the Ruthenians from the Greek college at Rome, and gave them a college of their own in 1896; then he reorganized the Greek college, introducing a number of obvious improvements. He reformed the famous Greek monastery of Grottaferrata, and insisted that in it the Byzantine rite should be followed in a more correct form; at the monastery he founded a college for the Italo-Greeks. During the Turkish-Greek War of 1897 the Turkish Government ordered that all Greeks in the Empire should be expelled. It was Leo XIII who intervened and prevented this harsh order from being carried out, thereby saving both Uniates and Orthodox from misery.

Lastly, towards the end of his long reign, this great Pope, who had already given so many proofs of his care for Eastern Christians of all rites, wrote his Encyclical Præclara gratulationis (June 29, 1894).^[71] In this he addresses first Catholics, then other Christians. So he comes to the Orthodox:^[72] "First of all," he says, "we turn a look of great affection to the East whence came salvation to the world. We have glad hope that the Eastern Churches, illustrious by their ancient faith and glories, will return whence they have departed. This we hope especially because of the no great distance which separates them from us; so that, when little is removed, in the rest they agree with us; so much that for the defence of Catholic doctrines we take arguments and proofs from the rites, the teaching and practices of Eastern Christians." And he assures them again that "for all their rites and practices we will provide without narrowness."^[73] He did not expect to see reunion with the Eastern Churches in his own lifetime. "Because of our great age," he said, in 1893, "we do not expect that it will be granted to us to see the happy event; but we salute it from afar and try to hasten it by our prayers."^[74]

Pope Pius X followed in the steps of his predecessors. To show this it may be enough to remember the thirteenth centenary of the death of St. John Chrysostom at Rome. The chief ceremony of this was the Byzantine liturgy, sung with every possible solemnity in the Hall of Beatifications of the Vatican on February 12, 1908. The liturgy was celebrated by the Melkite Patriarch, Lord Cyril VIII, with a great number of con-celebrants in the presence of twenty-four Cardinals, the Syrian Catholic Patriarch, Ignatius Ephrem II, and the Pope himself. Pius X assisted in state, and as a compliment to his fellow-Catholics of Eastern rites, pronounced certain blessings, chanting them in Greek. It must have been a long time since a Roman Pope publicly officiated according to any other rite than his own.^[75]

So we see that, down to our own day, the attitude of the Holy See has not varied in this point. That attitude is always one of entire approval of and respect for those other rites, which have just as legitimate a place in the Catholic Church as the Roman rite. No Pope has ever wanted to force the Roman rite on all Catholics. In faith and morals we all have one standard; in rites, different races have their own customs.

It is true that not all Papal legislation for the Uniates has been happy; moreover, it has varied occasionally in detail. But, as a general principle, no greater mistake could be made than to think that Rome has anything against other rites. She always acknowledges their complete justification in the Catholic Church, she respects and honours them sincerely, and wishes them to be maintained and carried out correctly, just as much as she wishes this in the case of her own rite.

The Catholic who desires to conform his ideal to that of the Holy See will find in this matter, too, that he has a very definite standard set by the Popes. To disparage Eastern rites, to think them less Catholic than ours, to look upon Uniates as a kind of compromise between us and schismatical sects, is not only a gross injustice to them, it is also in clear contradiction to the attitude of the Holy See.

Summary.

In this chapter we have seen what a Uniate is. The name is used for a Catholic of any other rite than the Roman rite, or, rather, in practice, for a Catholic of some Eastern rite. There is no essential reason why all Catholics except those of one rite should be classed under a general name; yet the preponderance of the Roman rite, and certain qualities common to Eastern Christians, and special to them, are no doubt sufficient justification for the usual term.

However, Uniates are in no sense one body as distinct from Latins. They are, of course, all members of the one Catholic Church, together with us Westerns; but under that genus there is no one Uniate species. Each Uniate Church is independent of the others; all are equally dependent on the central authority of the whole Church at Rome.

All the old rites of Christendom are still represented within the Catholic Church; there is a Uniate Church corresponding to each schismatical body, and one entirely Uniate Church, that of the Maronites.

The connecting link in each is now, practically, the rite. Originally, and still, in theory, it is their common obedience to their Patriarch. From this obedience follows the common use of his rite. Yet now it is perhaps more according to the circumstances to say that each Church obeys a certain Patriarch because it uses his rite, rather than to say that it uses its rite because it obeys him.

In any case, language makes no difference to rite. Nor does the place where a man may be born or live.

Nothing is more to be denounced than any attitude of superiority on the part of Latins towards their Uniate fellow-Catholics. The Uniates have exactly as much right to their venerable liturgies and customs as we have to ours. They are in no sense a compromise or an accidental adjunct to the Catholic Church. They form integral and important parts of it. They represent the old Catholic Eastern Churches, as they were before later schisms cut off so many of their members. Their position is exactly that of the great Eastern Fathers, Catholic, but not Roman. Indeed, in principle, they are the people who save the situation of a universal Church, for which we too stand.

We have no more right to think less of them than they have to despise us. This has always been most clearly the attitude of the Holy See, best summed up in the immortal words of Benedict XIV: "Eastern Christians should be Catholics; they have no need to become Latins." For our Lord gave his followers most explicit commands that they should belong to the one Catholic Church he founded; he never commanded them all to say their prayers in Latin or to use the Roman rite.

1. I prefer "Uniate" to "Uniat" (which sometimes occurs in English) because it corresponds to the usual English form of such words ("cognate," "delegate," etc.). "Uniat" looks odd and foreign in English. There is, of course, no Latin word "Uniatus"; our form comes from the Russian Uniyatu.
2. German Uniert is almost a technical term; in ordinary speech we say Vereinigt.
3. John xiv 6.
4. Can. 6.
5. "Paradiso," vi, 1-6.
6. How different the history of the world might have been if the Eastern bishops had built up a strong Christian Church among the Arabs before Mohammed was born, as the Popes had built up churches in Gaul, England, Germany!
7. The rite is called Byzantine because it was originally the local rite of the city of Constantinople. For an exactly similar reason our rite, wherever used, is called Roman. A Ruthenian or a Melkite is not, of course, Byzantine by blood or place of dwelling, any more than a German or a Pole is Roman in that sense. Yet each, when we classify ecclesiastical species, takes the name of the rite he uses.
8. Greg. I, Ep. xi, 64 (P.L. lxxvii, col. 1187).
9. E.g., Mr. P. Dearmer, "Rome and Reunion" (2nd edition, Mowbray, 1911), p. 37: "The Roman Church has rushed to her decline ... by enforcing uniformity in her borders with an iron hand."
10. The only other case that could be quoted is a partial toleration now of some of the "Old-Believer" rites within the Russian State Church.
11. See p. 71, seq.
12. Legate.
13. The fourth Lateran Council (1215) made very sensible provisions for this case. There are never to be two Catholic Ordinaries in the same city; that would be like a monster with two heads (for a long time this was considered an axiom of Canon Law; it is abolished now). But the Ordinary is to provide priests of other rites, who minister to their own people, but obey him. If necessary he is to appoint Vicars General for the other rites (Cap. ix; Mansi, xxii, col. 998). These provisions are still observed in the case of the Italo-Greeks (see p. 177).
14. To obey the local Patriarch does not necessarily mean to submit in all things to his normal Canon Law. He can, by his authority, dispense the foreign colonists from special points, and allow them in these to follow their own customs. A reasonable Patriarch would naturally do so. The Italo-Greeks, subject not only to Roman Patriarchal authority, but even to the jurisdiction of Latin Ordinaries, yet keeping (by authority of these Ordinaries) their own Byzantine rules, are an example of this. See p. 76, seq.
15. See, e.g., Leo IX's letter to Cerularius, § 29 (Will, "Acta et Scripta de Controversiis eccl. græcæ et latinæ," Leipzig, 1861), p. 81.
16. For instance, in Syria there is still a good deal of rivalry between Melkites and Maronites, though they are in communion with each other. See p. 202.
17. So in Mr. Dearmer's little book. See p. 11, n. 1.
18. H. A. Krose, "Kirchliches Handbuch," vol. iii (Freiburg i. B. 1911), p. 204, arrives at the total 292,787,085 for all Catholics in the world. His authorities may be seen there. But it should be remembered that the great difficulty against all such figures is that it is almost impossible to define exactly who are members of the Catholic Church or of any religious body. Where exactly can we draw the line between a bad Catholic who neglects all his religious duties, never goes to church, and cares little or nothing about the faith, and a man who has ceased to be a Catholic at all? At any rate, friend and foe admit that the Catholic Church is the largest religious body in the world. That does not prevent the fact that it is still only a small minority of the whole human race.
19. As when the Latin missionary teaches students of Eastern rites how to celebrate their own liturgies.
20. There are, of course, degrees in this, and qualifications to be made in so general a statement. The Russian Church has good theological schools and many excellent scholars. Perhaps Greeks and Armenians come second, inasmuch as they have a few scholars who have been to foreign (generally German Protestant) universities. But the average level of their clergy is not high. That of the Jacobites, Copts, Abyssinians, is very low indeed.
21. It is becoming a commonplace to decry the idea of giving Western education to Eastern people. There is undoubtedly much truth in this protest. A mechanical, unintelligent reproduction of our schools in the East would do more harm than good. On the other hand, there are many things that our schools have, and native Eastern schools lack, which are unmixed advantages in any school. A discipline which is both firm and kind, above all, uniform systematic teaching from well-arranged textbooks, a high tone about truthfulness, honesty, and chastity — these are Western notes; yet they are good for any school. To defend slackness of tone, a discipline which is the arbitrary whim of masters, alternately lax and cruel, desultory teaching with bad textbooks or none in Eastern schools because these things are "Eastern," would be to overdo a principle which has some truth in it. The ideal is to adapt our methods intelligently, being always ready to see and allow for Eastern qualities; and this is what is done in all good Western schools in the Levant, both Catholic and Protestant.
22. So Leo IX writes to Cerularius in 1053: "Since both in and outside Rome many monasteries and churches of the Greeks are found, none of them has been disturbed or hindered in the tradition of their fathers, or their customs; but rather, they are advised and encouraged to keep these" (Will, op. cit., p. 81).
23. Nic. I ep. ad Photium, Ep. xii (P.L. cxix, 789).
24. Will, op. cit., p. 105.
25. The Patriarchs of Gradus and Aquileia were not finally merged into the title Patriarch of Venice till 1751. See the article "Patriarch, Patriarchate," in the Cath. Encycl.
26. Dominici Ptr. Veneti ep. ad Petrum Antiochen. (in Will, op. cit., p. 207)
27. Cap. iv; Mansi, xxii, 989.
28. Raynaldus, "Annales eccl.," i (Baronius, xx), p. 501.
29. Raynaldus, ii (Baronius, xxi), p. 378.
30. Concerning this Roman legislation has varied considerably at different times.
31. Raynaldus, iii (Baronius, xxii), p. 447.
32. Mansi, xxxi, 1031.
33. For all these see Benedict XIV, Allatæ sunt, §§ 13-16 (Bullarium Benedicti XIV, ed. Venet., 1778, t. iv, pp. 12-1363, No. xlvii).
34. Constit. Etsi persuasum, April 20, 1751 (op. cit., t. iii, p. 163, No. xliv).
35. May 26, 1742, for the Italo-Greeks (op. cit., t. i, p p. 75-83, No. lvii).
36. In the introduction.
37. Ibid.
38. § ix, n. 1.
39. Ibid.
40. § ix, n. 17.
41. Op. cit., t. i, p. 129, No. lxxxvii.
42. See p. 197 for this Patriarch.
43. § 3.
44. § 8.
45. § 12.
46. § xv.
47. § xix.
48. § xvi.
49. Mixed, that is, between Catholics of different rites.
50. § xxvi.
51. The Uniate Patriarchs and bishops.
52. § xxvi.
53. Bullarium Bened. XIV, ed. cit., t. iv, pp. 123-136, No. xlvii.
54. § vi.
55. §§ vii-xviii.
56. § xxviii.
57. § xix.
58. § xlviii.
59. Besides these three Constitutions, the Bullarium of Benedict XIV contains a mass of legislation about Uniates.
60. See pp. 161-162.
61. In suprema (Pii. XI, P.M. Acta — Typ. Bon. Art.), part i, p. 78.
62. Ibid., p. 81: "Omnino autem sartas tectas habebimus peculiares uestras Liturgias; quas plurimi sane facimus, licet illæ nonnullis in rebus a Liturgia Ecclesiarum Latinarum diuersæ sint. Enimuero Liturgiæ ipsæ uestræ in pretio pariter habitæ fuerunt a Prædecessoribus nostris; utpote quæ et commendantur uenerabili antiquitate suæ originis, et conscriptæ sunt linguis, quas Apostoli aut Patres adhibuerant, et ritus continent splendido quodam ac magnifico apparatu celebrandos, quibus fidelium erga diuina mysteria pietas et reuerentia foueantur."
63. Acta loc. cit., p. 553.
64. Constit.: Romani Pontifices, Acta, iii, p. 402. But see "Codex Iuris Canonici," Can. 257. The Pope himself is now the head of this Congregation, which was separated from that of Propaganda by Bened. XV, motu proprio, Dei Prouidentis, May 1, 1917. [Editor's note.]
65. Leonis XIII, P.M. Acta (Rome, Vat., 1882), vol. ii, p. 125.
66. Ibid., p. 179.
67. Revue de l'Orient chrétien, Revue des Églises d'Orient, Echos d'Orient, Bessarione, Oriens christianus, Ἁρμονία, Χριστιανιχὴ Ἀνατολή, Καθολιχὴ ἐπιθεώρησις, etc.
68. Leonis XIII, Acta, vol. xiv, p. 358.
69. See above, p. 35.
70. Motu proprio, Auspicia rerum secunda, March 19, 1896; op. cit., vol. xvi, p. 74.
71. Op. cit., vol. xiv, p. 195.
72. Ibid., p. 199.
73. Ibid., p. 201.
74. P. de Meester, "Leone XIII e la chiesa greca" (Rome, 1904), pp. 53-54.
75. See the full account of this liturgy in the Echos d'Orient, xi, 131.