Christian East

CHRISTIAN EAST. - Besides the individual entries, to which reference is made, an overall view is necessary to serve as a general orientation on this vast subject matter.

I. GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SURVEY.

I. DEFINITION OF THE EASTERN CHURCHES AND THEIR ORIGINAL TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS

By Eastern Churches are meant the Churches of the eastern part of the Roman Empire and the communities that arose in dependence on them outside the borders of the Empire. The division of the Empire, inaugurated for administrative reasons by Diocletian, became definitive after the death of Theodosius (395). The border was marked by the rivers Sava and Drina. In the eastern part the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople were established. That of Jerusalem arose later, detaching itself from Antioch in 451 (Council of Chalcedon). For the history of the patriarchates, v. the individual entries. The first Churches founded outside the imperial borders at a time when the patriarchates were still in the process of formation are: the Church of Persia, with its capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, born in the 2nd century, dependent, it seems, on

Edessa; the Armenian Church, founded at the end of the 3rd century by St. Gregory the Illuminator in dependence on Caesarea in Cappadocia; the Church of Ethiopia, inaugurated in the 4th century through the work of the Alexandrian see. These five Churches: Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Seleucia-Ctesiphon and Armenia, are to be considered original, and all the Eastern Churches existing today derive from them. To these five original territorial divisions correspond the five rites: Alexandrian, West Syrian or Antiochene, Byzantine, East Syrian and Armenian. As for the faith, Eastern Christians are divided into Catholics and non-Catholics. The latter are distinguished into "Orthodox", Monophysites and Nestorians.

II. CURRENT SITUATION

In the following tables the division is given according to difference of faith, adding however, case by case, the original group of belonging, the rite of each Church and also, where it was not evident, the region where it exists today. To almost every separate Eastern community there corresponds a Catholic one, more or less numerous, which follows the same rite and which is noted alongside the corresponding non-Catholic group. The political state prior to the Second World War is taken as the point of reference.

DISSIDENTS

1. Nestorians

(Seleucia - Ctesiphon; Syro-Oriental rite),

Irāq, Irān, Syria and dispersed ca.

Malabar (western India)

Total

2. Monophysites

Syrians (Jacobites [Antioch] Syro-Western),

Near East and dispersed ca.

Jacobites in India (Seleucia - Ctesiphon [Syro-Western], 1931),

80,000

2,000

82,000

100,000

508,000

Copts in Egypt (Alexandria; Alexandrian) ca.

Ethiopians (Alexandria; Alexandrian) ca.

Armenians (today: Catholicates: Etchmiadzin [Soviet Armenia], Sis [Cilicia, today Syria]; Patriarchates: Jerusalem and Constantinople) and dispersed ca.

Total

900,000

4,000,000

2,500,000

8,008,000

3. "Orthodox" or Byzantine

(Constantinople, unless otherwise noted.

All of the Byzantine rite)

a) Greeks:

Patriarchate of Constantinople

Dodecanese, formerly Italian

Greece

Cyprus (Antioch)

America b) Melkites:

Patriarchate of Antioch (1935)

Patriarchate of Jerusalem

(Antioch) (1931)

Patr. of Alexandria

Sinai (Antioch)

c) Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians): in Russia ca.

dispersed ca.

"Orthodox" of Poland (1932)

Serbs (1936)

Bulgarians (1938)

"Orthodox" of Czechoslovakia (1930)

d) Romanians e) "Orthodox" of Hungary f) Albanians (1936)

g) Baltic Countries:

Lithuania (1923)

Latvia

Estonia (1922)

Finland h) Georgians (Antioch)

Total

Total dissidents:

110,000

170,000

6,000,000

300,000

200,000

180,000

60,000

110,000

100

95,000,000

1,500,000

3,954,500

6,785,000

5,350,000

145,600

13,067,000

40,000

200,700

55,000

180,000

209,000

70,000

2,500,000

136,186,900

144,276,900

CATHOLICS

The only entirely Catholic group are the Maronites (Antioch; West Syrian Rite) Near East and scattered (1932) 366,000

Total Catholics: 9,122,809

N. B. The figures are intended as approximate. Some, for example those for the Russians and the Armenians, are very problematic. Where a date is added, the figures are taken from an official statistic.

III. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISSIDENT CHURCHES IN THE CHRISTIAN EAST

What strikes one most today in the situation of the Christian East is the variety and diversity of rites, dogmas and jurisdictions. The main cause is the fact that in the East there did not exist a predominant ecclesiastical center, as Rome did in the West, but rather various centers of great authority, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, while Constantinople was added to them only later and never succeeded in unifying the Christian East as Rome did the West. The diversity in faith is the sad legacy of the Christological disputes, which led to the schism of several Churches. Nestorianism, condemned at the Council of Ephesus (431), was accepted, also for reasons of political opposition to the Roman Empire, by the Church of Persia at the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon of 486 (v. NESTORIO). This Church carried out a very remarkable missionary activity as far as India and China. Remains of those Churches founded by the Nestorians are still found today among the Eastern Christians of India, who in part, toward the middle of the 17th century, passed over to the opposite heresy of Monophysitism and to the West Syrian rite. Monophysitism, condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451), brought division into the patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria and detached from the universal Church the entire Churches of Armenia and Ethiopia. In the patriarchate of Antioch almost half of the people remained in the true faith. Toward the middle of the 6th century the Monophysite part of the patriarchate was organized into a separate Church by Jacob Baradaeus, whence the Syrian Monophysites are called "Jacobites" (v.). In Egypt almost the whole of the people accepted Monophysitism after orthodoxy had lost its support from Constantinople following the invasion of the Arabs (approx. 640). The Monophysites there are called "Copts" (v.), that is, "Egyptians." Those who remained in the true faith in the patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were called by their Monophysite adversaries "Melkites," that is, "imperials" (from malhā βασιλεύς, Byzantine emperor).

In the Churches detached from the Catholic Church because of the Christological disputes, the ancient rites remained, while in all the rest of the Christian East the Byzantine rite prevailed, which explains how today the vast majority of Eastern Christians follow that rite, given also the fact that the number of Nestorians and Monophysites diminished greatly because of the Islamic domination to which the Churches of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Persia and Armenia were subjected for fully 13 centuries. Constantinople, which as a second Rome became the most important ecclesiastical center of the Christian East, therefore succeeded to a large extent in unifying the Eastern Churches as regards rite, discipline and faith, but it could not, detached as it was from the 11th century onward from the center of the universal Church, that is, from Rome, maintain unity of jurisdiction in the Christian East, which instead crumbled into a considerable number of autocephalous Churches. Constantinople introduced its rite into the Churches founded by it among the Slavic peoples, but it did not succeed in keeping them under its jurisdiction, since they, basing themselves on the same principle that had given rise to the primacy of Constantinople, namely that the capital of a Christian kingdom has a right to a pre-eminence also in the ecclesiastical field (can. 28 of the Council of Chalcedon), demanded one after another independence from the mother Church; the Bulgarian Church first in 927 and definitively in 1870, the Serbian one first in 1346 and definitively in 1830, the Russian one in 1448. The Romanian Church, of Latin origin, was Byzantinized toward the end of the 9th century because of the political dependence on Bulgaria of the regions called today Romania. This Church obtained its independence in 1865.

The ancient patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were Byzantinized beginning in the 10th century. Weakened by the Christological controversies and by the Arab invasion, they sought the support of Byzantium. The Byzantine political expansion in the second half of the 10th century in Syria favored the Byzantinization of the Antiochene patriarchate. At the time of the Crusades the patriarchs of Antioch and of Jerusalem resided almost all in Constantinople and naturally became subjects of it. This dependence was complete at the time of the Turkish domination because of the policy of the sultans, who wanted the patriarch of Constantinople to be the head of all the "Orthodox" Christians of their Empire. Likewise Alexandria was subjected to Constantinople. Recently these patriarchates have again regained their independence.

In the tables there is talk of the "Orthodox Churches" of central Europe and of the Baltic countries. The "Orthodox" of Czechoslovakia are in the majority Ruthenians who immigrated into the sub-Carpathian regions. The same may be said of a large part of the "Orthodox" of Hungary; the other part is of Romanian origin. The "Orthodox" of the Baltic countries derive from the "Orthodox" propaganda carried on in those countries by the Russians in the era of the tsars. The "Orthodox" Churches of the Baltic countries, except the Finnish one after the Second World War, were incorporated into the patriarchal Church of Moscow, to which the "Orthodox" of Czechoslovakia and of Hungary also submitted themselves.

IV. ORIGIN OF THE UNITED COMMUNITIES

On the Eastern schism, that is, of the patriarchate of Constantinople, v. this entry. The split that occurred in the 11th century tore the whole of the Christian East from the unity of the Church. Today at least 9 million people have found the way back. The various united groups have almost all been forming in modern times. The only Eastern community that is entirely Catholic is that of the Maronites (v.) of Lebanon, who united with Rome, according to the reliable testimony of William of Tyre, in 1181. At the time of the Crusades the union of the Armenians of Cilicia also took place (1198), but it lasted only until the collapse of that kingdom (1375). The unions of the Greeks, concluded at the Councils of Lyons ([v.] 1274) and of Florence ([v.] 1439), were not very long-lasting. The discussions of Florence were useful, however, since they served to clarify the dogmatic differences and thus to prepare the way for the subsequent unions.

The most important unions of the modern era in Europe were those of the Ruthenians (v.) and of the Romanians.

The western and southwestern part of the metropolis of Kiev from the 14th century onward was politically incorporated into the Lithuanian-Polish State, which favored its orientation toward Rome. The principal and immediate reason for the actual union was the decline of the "Orthodox" Church in those regions. The union was signed by two bishops delegated to Rome on 23 Dec. 1595 and then ratified by a synod held at Brest-Litovsk in Oct. 1596.

The union of the Romanians of Transylvania was favored by the conquest of that country by the emperor Leopold (1691) and prepared by the unionist work of the Jesuits. The union was concluded first in a synod held at Alba Julia in March 1697 and again in Oct. 1698. These two united Churches, which are by far the largest, find themselves today in the most distressing straits under the communist regime. In March 1946 in Galicia the union of the Ruthenians and in Dec. 1948 in Transylvania that of the Romanians were officially suppressed. In the spring of 1949 the Ruthenian Uniate Church of Subcarpathia, formerly belonging to Czechoslovakia and now incorporated into the U.S.S.R., was also suppressed. The same fate befell the Uniate Church in Slovakia in 1950.

In the nearby Asian and African East, relatively important Uniate communities have formed, so that 28% of the Christians of those regions are Catholics. It is true that the number of those Christians is not very large, because of the centuries-old oppression by the Muslims. The credit for the conversion of a considerable part of the Christianity of the nearby East belongs to the Latin missionaries. The conversion was favored by the fact that the Christians hoped for protection from the West, especially from France.

The first to be converted was a group of Nestorians, who became Catholic around the middle of the 16th century. The occasion was a double election. One of those elected, John Sulăqă, sought support from the Franciscans of the Holy Land, who sent him to Rome, where he became a Catholic. This first union lasted only a little more than a century. The patriarch Simon XIII (1667-1700) returned to Nestorianism. Today's Nestorians descend from the apostates of that time. With those who remained faithful, mainly at Diyarbekir, and those who remained Nestorians in 1552 and have now been converted, today's Chaldean Catholic Church was formed around 1800.

The Syrian Catholics converted from the beginning of the 17th century through the work of the missionaries at first had a patriarch of their own in the person of the bishop Andrew Akigian (1667-1677). The series of Melkite Catholic patriarchs begins with Cyril VI Tanas in 1724; that of the Armenian ones with the bishop Abraham of Aleppo in 1740. In Constantinople the Armenian Catholics have had a bishop of their own since 1758. The Coptic Catholic community was formed in the 19th century. Leo XIII gave it a hierarchy of its own in 1895.

In India, after the coming of the Portuguese, the union of the Nestorian Christians of Malabar was reached in the 16th century (v. MALABARESI). Toward the middle of the 17th century almost all those Christians, above all through lack of understanding on the part of the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, temporarily fell back into schism. The Italian Carmelites succeeded in bringing the majority of them back to union. The others found support with the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch and thus became Jacobites. Among them a very promising movement for union began recently, in 1930.

In Ethiopia the union brought about by the Jesuits in the first half of the 17th century did not last, also because of the errors committed by the missionaries. The missions were resumed with success only in 1839 through the work of the Lazarists under the guidance of Bl. Justin de Jacobis. Thus began the formation of an Ethiopian united community, which received its own bishop in 1930. Some minor groups of united faithful in Europe are still to be mentioned. Not a few Serbs emigrated toward the end of the 16th century from Turkey into the domains of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and in part became Catholics. For them the diocese of Križevci was founded in 1777, which since the end of the war of 1914 has comprised all the Eastern Catholics of Yugoslavia belonging to various peoples.

The Italo-Albanians (v.) of Calabria and Sicily derive from the Albanians who emigrated to Italy in the second half of the 15th century and there became Catholics. Their position was regulated by the constitution Etsi pastoralis of Benedict XIV (1742). Among the Bulgarians of Constantinople a movement toward union began around 1860. Later Catholic groups formed in Thrace and Macedonia. After the war of 1914 almost all of them sought refuge in Bulgaria itself. Since 1923 they have had an apostolic administrator. Among the Greeks, only toward the end of the last century did it prove possible to establish some Catholic communities in Thrace, which in 1911 received their own bishop in the person of the convert Isaia Papadopoulos. After the First World War many Greek Catholics emigrated with their bishop from Turkey to Athens. Since 1932 those who remained in Constantinople also have their own bishop. In the eastern territories of Poland a very promising work for union began in 1923 among the White Russians, who had already been united and had returned to schism only when forced by the pressure of the tsarist government. The war has damaged the work in the gravest manner. Small groups of Catholics are also found among the Russians who have emigrated to Europe, America and the Far East.

Thus the work for union has already had its considerable successes and has been able to regain for the unity of the Church 5-6% of the Eastern Christians. It is true, however, that even today the Eastern Churches separated from Rome form in their entirety a strong bloc, which opposes every unionistic effort with the most tenacious resistance. In vast regions, such as Russia, Bulgaria and Greece, the efforts have so far yielded only insignificant success. Indeed, in many "Orthodox" circles a dull hostility still reigns against everything that is Catholic, and every attempt at rapprochement is interpreted as a thirst for dominion and a design to subjugate and annihilate "Orthodoxy."

Humanly speaking, the gravest causes of this difficulty appear to derive from the Eastern system of the state Church, that is, from the identification of Church and nation. For the Eastern Churches, whose frontiers are common with those of the nation and which have led their autonomous life for centuries, the idea of submitting to a head who does not belong to their own nation is almost inconceivable. They have forgotten that they too obeyed him before the schism, although this submission would be felt more today than in the first centuries. Moreover, reunion would mean for the separated having to renounce a great part of their past, acknowledging the error and the heresy, or at least the schism, of their great men. Not to mention their fear, unjust in this case, of losing their ecclesiastical peculiarities, especially in the liturgies. Isolated and peripheral cases of latinization contrary to the norms of Rome have also hindered the unionistic work.

Guglielmo de Vries

II. CHARACTERISTICS.

I. JURIDICAL

The following may be indicated as general characteristics of Eastern canon law (especially the law of the dissidents): a) the multiplicity of juridical systems admitted within the same Church; b) its traditionalism; c) its particular attitude toward the State, different from that of Catholics and from that of Protestants; d) its practical character and the absence of systematic and scientific elaboration.

1. Anyone who has dealt with Latin canon law and begins to study the Eastern one is struck, at first, by the multiplicity of juridical systems comprised in it: not only among the Churches that consider one another heretical or schismatic (Nestorians, Monophysites, the so-called "Orthodox", the Eastern Catholics), but also among the different parts of the same Church there often exist profound differences.

This is true in the first place for the Greek-Russian Church. Compare, for example, the law of the Russian Church with its voluminous collections of ordinances, decrees, decisions and the archaic law of a patriarchate of Antioch or of Jerusalem. This difference is the fruit of the so-called principle of autocephaly, according to which all particular Churches are independent of one another and subject only to the ecumenical council, of which the last recognized by all is the Second of Nicaea (787). On the other hand, however, among all these Churches, especially those united in one ecclesial body, but also among the others, there exists a certain kinship and certain common principles and traits that distinguish them from Western juridical systems. There is a common basis of laws and canons, and for many a common history lived under the same external conditions, which has exerted an influence in the sense of a common assimilation.

2. Common, for example, to the various laws of the Eastern Churches is traditionalism. The so-called apostolic canons, those of the ecumenical and regional councils of the 4th century and following, still constitute law in force. It was a strange spectacle for a Latin to see, in the years 1926-27, Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev and Metropolitan Eulogius of Paris fighting the legitimacy of mutual claims with citations of the apostolic canons, the canons of Antioch, of Sardica, etc. In several of the minor Churches the principal nucleus of the law is constituted by sources from the 4th to the 10th century; after the 14th century the law has remained unchanged, with the exception of certain customs whose authority is not known.

3. While the Catholic Church, especially after the 11th century (but also before [v. GELASIO 1]), strongly insisted on its own independence in the face of the State, the Eastern Church has considered the ideal of its relations with the State to lie in concord and mutual harmony, to the point that, in compensation for the protection granted it by the State, the Church is ready to concede to it broad authority in ecclesiastical matters. In this manner, until recent times, the task of legislating on the constitution of the Church, on the administration of property, on matrimonial law, etc. in States with an "Orthodox" majority is in general the task of the state authority; excluding only what concerned faith and worship.

4. The canons of the ecumenical and regional councils, the decrees of the patriarchs, the canonical decisions of bishops or jurists, of which the canonical collections (v.) and the nomocanons are composed, owe their origin to practical needs, and were issued without systematic regard. Only in recent times have partial codifications been made and ordinances of a more general character been promulgated. Especially the Russian Church had set out on this path; the Pan-Russian Council of Moscow (1917-18) had undertaken the codification, if not total, at least of a great part of canon law.

Canonistic science has also produced some valuable systematic exposition of canon law, among the Russians, Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, etc. The best-known authors are Bishop Nikodim (Milasch), Suvorov, Pavlov, Berdnikov, Zankov, Constantine Rhallis.

Emilio Herman

II. LITURGICHE

Despite differences in faith and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Easterners and Westerners have in common one and the same Christian liturgy, that is, a single Sacrifice in bread and wine mixed with water, seven sacramental rites (although in some Churches one or another has fallen into disuse), the consecration of the altar, of chrism, of monks, of virgins, the blessing of water, of a new house, etc., the funeral rites; furthermore the liturgical year with the cycle of Christmas and Epiphany, with the Easter cycle preceded by Lent and prolonged until Pentecost; also the cult of the cross, of the Most Holy Mary and of the saints; then, the use of a place of worship comprising two main parts, the nave and the raised sanctuary, the use of incense, candles, sacred vestments, etc.; finally the great Christian dogmas expressed through word and action or symbolized figuratively in liturgical rites and customs.

The characteristics of the Eastern rites fall under three headings:

1. External elements: in the church the sanctuary is separated from the nave by a wall with doors (if the wall is adorned with images, it is called an iconostasis), or by a veil: the altar has retained the form of a table; among the sacred vestments the phelonion of the Byzantines or the cope of the others differs in its form from the Latin chasuble; maniples tighten the ends of the sleeves of the priest's inner garment; the orarion of the deacon hangs from his left shoulder; in some rites the sign of the Cross is made from right to left; in all of them the priest blesses with a hand Cross; besides kneeling on both knees they know the bowed prostration (not extended as with the Latins) during which the forehead touches the ground; the chant is monodic (like Gregorian chant) except among the Slavs and Armenians who also use polyphony: however, at least during the holy Sacrifice, the chant accompanies the actions of the celebrants, nor is it performed for its own sake; the deacon is not only the minister of the celebrant, but also directs the collective prayer of the faithful; as for concelebration, it should be noted that true and full concelebration exists among the Catholics of the Byzantine rite and of the Maronite rite and among the dissidents of the Russian Church; among the others there is an imperfect, decorative, honorific concelebration, because only the celebrant says the words of consecration. The eucharistic bread is leavened, except in the Armenian rite and among the Maronites and the Malabarese.

2. Each Eastern rite has some ceremony and custom that is particular to it; much rarer are the ceremonies found in all the rites in contrast with the Western rites; to this category belongs the rite of kneeling which is performed among all Easterners on the day of Pentecost. Thus also, in the manner of ordering an office, especially in beginning and ending it, each Eastern rite uses determined elements (prayers, invocations, dialogues, salutations, readings, blessings, etc.) and arranges them in a very stable order; one could discover some resemblance among the ritual structures of the Byzantine, Armenian and West Syrian rites.

However, for all of them the most evident case is that of the anaphora, which is a logical literary composition, quite homogeneous and, with the exception of some anomaly, composed in all the rites of the same prayers in the same order: dialogue of the preface, the theological prayer, the Sanctus, the christological prayer, the anamnesis, the epiclesis, the intercessions, the final doxology.

3. The religious thought expressed in the texts. Since what is at issue here is nuances and accentuations, one must be careful to avoid any exaggeration and even more any exclusions. Some study on the matter has been done for the Byzantine rite alone and not without preconceived ideas.

It can be said that in Christ the accent is placed on the divinity; through his Incarnation humanity has been saved, and there is less talk of individual salvation to be won through one's own collaboration and through suitable means; not only humanity but the whole cosmos participates in the renewal brought about by the Incarnation of the Word, in the triumph of life over death of Christ's Resurrection, and awaits with deep longing his second coming in glory. From their misery the suppliant cries of the faithful rise frequently toward a merciful God, as the celebrant often confesses his unworthiness and asks the Spirit to supply for his spiritual infirmity: these are words that Western liturgical prayer does not ignore, but places less often on the lips of its priests and faithful.

The Eastern rites are distinguished from the Latin negatively, in that they lack certain Latin customs to which it would be wrong to want to attribute necessarily a dogmatic value, in such a way that their absence would denote an error in the faith; e.g., the Filioque, unknown in the singing of the Creed even in Rome before the 10th century, the simple kneeling on one knee, which is a feudal custom, the kneeling at the Incarnatus est of the Creed, the elevation after each consecration with the related genuflections, the prescriptions as to the manner of holding the hands joined or extended, of keeping the thumb joined to the index finger after the consecration, the well-established rubrics for the so-called read Mass: all this is foreign to the Eastern rites. They also do not know the use of the organ, of statues, of confessionals, as well as certain feasts of the Lord and of the Madonna, introduced during the last centuries. The so-called extra-liturgical cult, such as the exposition of the Most Holy Sacrament, the Way of the Cross, the Month of May, did not arise there where the liturgy, still sufficiently understood by the people, sufficiently nourishes the piety of the faithful. However, under the influence of various causes which it is not appropriate to determine here, Eastern Catholics and sometimes dissidents have adopted according to circumstances some or many of the aforementioned Latin customs, such as, e.g., also the episcopal mitre.

It is therefore not always easy at first glance to determine which customs are characteristic of the Eastern rites.

Alfonso Raes

III. SPIRITUALITY

To attempt to enclose Eastern spirituality and its centuries-long history in a few lines, one is necessarily condemned to formulas either too rigid or too vague. The reader of this summary will have to nuance or sharpen it as he goes along.

The term spirituality has two senses: a) in the broad sense it comprises all theology, insofar as it is the principle and foundation of the Christian life; b) in the strict sense it is the sum of the practical consequences of this theology upon life. Many discussions fall into the void because this distinction is not taken into account. Moreover, the bond between the two fields is not so tight that any dogmatic difference immediately entails a divergence of spiritual character. The East and the West lived for a long time in a spiritual communion too deep for scholastic controversies, in the 9th or the 14th century, to be able to have notable repercussions on the spirit of the Christian people. The controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit in the time of Photius, or that over the nature of Grace in the time of Gregory Palamas, did not destroy the ancient fundamental spiritual unity, nor did they prevent the Greeks and the Russians of more recent centuries from slaking their religiosity at Latin and Italian sources. Only in the present day have certain Eastern theorists attempted to carry speculative differences over into practical spirituality. This indeed presents, despite the fundamental unity, particularities that distinguish it from the West (there are also nuances among the different parts of the East as of the Christian West).

Generally it may be said that Eastern spirituality is dominated on the one hand by a very profound sense of the divine transcendence (St. Ephrem, the anti-Eunomians, pseudo-Dionysius, the liturgy) and on the other by a keen sense of sin and of the struggle that must be sustained against it (Origen, the Fathers of the desert, John Chrysostom, monasticism, etc.). Between this vertiginous theology and this tragic anthropology, the economy or christology appears in all its theoretical splendor and in all its practical importance. It has been said that the Christian East sees in Christ the Logos with such a preference as to end by excluding devotion to his holy Humanity or to his Passion. It is an error against which bear witness the writings and the life of the most illustrious Easterners, from St. Ignatius of Antioch, through Origen and St. Maximus the Confessor, down to Nicholas Cabasilas and the most recent Russian saints. Especially the imitation of Christ is a traditional theme. With Christ, moreover, the East honors the Theotokos Mary and the saints, especially with the cult of the icons, so violently fought against and so heroically defended from the 7th to the 9th century. All these different elements come together in a vast theocentric synthesis: man having been created in the image and likeness of God, but having lost this likeness through sin, the Word of God became man in order to deify man (St. Gregory of Nazianzus): «becoming himself what was his image, he restored the likeness and made man like the invisible Father through the Word (become) visible» (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., 5, 16 [ed. W. Harvey, II, Cambridge 1857, p. 368]). As for the means used to obtain the salvation wrought by the Incarnation and the Redemption, these are, together with the Sacraments (at times held in little account, by Messalianism, or neglected by certain excesses of anchoritism), the various ascetic practices, from rigorous mortification, above all of one's own will, up to prayer, in all its forms, which constitutes their summit. The tendency to contemplation, less in its Evagrian or Dionysian speculative structure than in its simpler varieties, charismatic and «neptic», asserts itself everywhere: «remembrance of God», continuous prayer, «compunction», «spiritual feeling», «theology» in the sense of mystical perception. The great manifestation of this quest for salvation and of this desire for union with God is monasticism (v.), whose importance and influence throughout the whole East it is impossible to exaggerate. The order given to St. Arsenius by a heavenly voice: «Flee, be silent, live in quiet (ἡσύχαζε)» represents an ideal for the ascetics of all times, to such a degree that the last great explosion of mysticism, in the 14th century, bears the name of hesychasm (v.), because there culminate the teachings, the examples and the aspirations of all the earlier hesychasts. There are nevertheless in this movement two novelties that earn it the name of neo-hesychasm: on the practical side a method of prayer «physical and scientific», suited to hastening the attainment of contemplation; on the theoretical side, the Palamite doctrine of Grace with its theological presuppositions. The saints and doctors were not, however, all equally favorable to this contemplative tendency; some among the greatest, such as St. Basil and St. Theodore Studites, and in general the partisans of cenobitism, insist by preference on asceticism and on the social virtues: they attach themselves in a more direct line to primitive Christian spirituality, where, however, the martyrdom of conscience or of submission takes the place of bloody martyrdom; the contemplatives or hesychasts depend, then, in a more or less conscious manner and in varying measure, on Christian Alexandrianism. Moreover all are agreed, in theory, in seeking perfection in charity toward God and toward neighbor. The difference lies in the way of considering charity: more in its subjective demands or more in its objective unfolding. The subjective and personal point of view predominates in the anchoritic and hesychast tendency (already St. Basil reproaches it for this: Reg. fus., 7: PG 31, 928-33): there is insistence in particular on apathia, without however falling, save for exceptions, into those excesses that would justify the suspicions of St. Jerome or of Gerson; there much, at times too much, importance is given to experimentation and to feeling, and if one does not go so far as to declare them necessary (thus the Messalians, pseudo-Macarius, Symeon the New Theologian), at least their normality and their sweetnesses are insistently preached: for this reason a Vladimir Soloviev believed he had to accuse the East of easily growing torpid under the guise of contemplation in a lazy passivity. An unjust reproach if it concerned the Church or even cenobitic monasticism; indeed there have been many charitable institutions and magnificent examples of life dedicated to neighbor (as, for example, St. John the Almsgiver [619]). Hermitism itself, if it devoted itself less to the works of exterior charity, nevertheless effectively cultivated among its adherents and in the Christian people the purity of that charity, its disinterestedness and its exquisite delicacy characteristic of Eastern hagiography.

Ireneo Hausherr

III. THE PROBLEM OF UNION.

I. NORMS OF THE HOLY SEE

The schism of the 11th century tore the whole Christian East away from Rome, except for the Greek-rite communities of southern Italy. When, a century and a half later, the Fourth Crusade subjected a vast part of the Byzantine Empire to Latin domination, the question arose of how to treat these hitherto schismatic Christians and how to judge their rites. After some hesitation, at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) it was decided that such rites and customs would be tolerated provided they created no danger for souls and were not contrary to good ecclesiastical custom. With this decree begins the long series of pontifical declarations (Honorius III, Innocent IV, Nicholas III, Eugene IV, Leo X, Clement VII, Clement VIII, Paul V, Benedict XIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII and others: cf. A. Petrani, De relatione iuridica inter diversos ritus, Rome 1930, pp. 14-25), which have given the Easterners solemn assurances for the preservation of their particular rites, at first in a more reserved manner, later with spontaneous and generous zeal, but always making such an understanding the basis of their reunion with the Roman Church.

The decretal Sub catholicae fidei of Innocent IV (1254) endeavored to give more concrete norms for the application of the principles established in the case of the Greeks of Cyprus and the archipelago. There was no lack, however, of conflicts over the interpretation of the criteria laid down, even when, for nearly two centuries, the Armenians of the kingdom of Lesser Armenia were united to the Catholic Church. The modern era marks a new epoch for the apostolate among the separated of the Christian East. The same zeal for souls that drove the religious of the ancient and recent Orders to the spiritual conquest of the new world gave new ardor also to the apostolate among dissident Christians. Of the unions obtained in the 16th century, mention has been made above.

In Rome, colleges for Easterners were begun and the printing of Eastern liturgical books was undertaken. But it was especially the establishment of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (1622) that united and coordinated these initiatives. There began an apostolate quite different from that of the Middle Ages, in which the Holy See had sought to proceed mainly by diplomatic means, winning over the patriarchs and the civil leaders of nations. Now the general front was set in motion. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide directed everything with its instructions, rescripts, and replies. In the Collectanea S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide (2 vols., Rome 1907), the numerous sources concerning this apostolate are gathered. There are, however, few documents of general scope; it is rather the continuity in the application of the norms that gradually creates a uniform discipline with regard to the Christian East. These norms received solemn and further confirmation through the work of that great canonist on the chair of Peter, Benedict XIV. In a series of constitutions that have remained classic, he fixed Eastern law in its relations with Catholic tradition; such are the constitutions: Etsi pastoralis (1742), issued for the Italo-Greeks; Demandatum (1734), addressed to the hierarchy of the Melkite Church; Eo quamvis tempore (1745) and Anno vertente (1750), which concern the Copts; Ex quo primum (1756), published on the occasion of the second edition of the Greek Euchologion. But especially the constitution Allatae sunt (1755), addressed to the missionaries of the East, touches on the fundamental questions of their apostolate. Subsequently the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, on the basis of these pontifical documents, created a body of norms and rules that constituted almost a code for missionary work among the Catholics and the dissidents of the East. Among the most important documents for relations between missionaries and Easterners are to be cited, for example, the replies given to the apostolic delegate of Egypt on 11 Dec. 1838 (Collectanea, I, no. 879, p. 500). Numerous also are the replies and instructions concerning communicatio in sacris (cf. I. J. Szal, The communication of catholics with schismatics, Washington 1948). Pius IX, in the constitution In suprema (1848) and again in the Arcano divinae providentiae, on the occasion of the Vatican Council (1869), had renewed the invitation to the separated Easterners to return to the Church. Leo XIII did the same in the Orientalium dignitas (1894). This solemn act, together with the other testimonies given by the distinguished Pontiff in favor of the Christian East, aroused new hope and new fervor. Among other initiatives, an apostolate among the educated classes was also considered, with the erection of a college of Greek culture, preferably at Constantinople. The matter did not succeed at that time. But the Assumptionists, who, at the invitation of the Supreme Pontiff, had dedicated themselves in a particular way to the apostolate for the East, began at that time the well-known journal Echos d'Orient in their house at Kadiköy. A measure of exceptional importance was taken by Benedict XV when, in 1917, he erected a new Sacred Congregation destined solely for the affairs of the Christian East, at the same time suppressing the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide pro negotiis ritus orientalis, founded by Pius IX in 1862. In the same year the Pontifical Oriental Institute was opened in Rome, destined for advanced studies concerning the Christian East, and open, according to the motu proprio of its foundation, also to dissident Easterners. Benedict's successor, Pius XI, placed even clearer emphasis on the requirements necessary for obtaining the return of the separated brethren to the Church. In the encyclical Ecclesiam Dei, published on the occasion of the third centenary of the death of St. Josaphat (1923), he invited all Catholics to collaborate with him, understanding well "that such unity is to be promoted better by examples and works of a holy life, especially by charity toward the Slavic brethren and toward the other Easterners, than by discussions and other stimuli... As the dissident Easterners must, laying aside ancient prejudices, endeavor to know the true life of the Church, so the Latins must understand better and more profoundly the history and customs of the Easterners...". On the importance of Eastern studies for the reunion of the dissidents the whole encyclical Rerum Orientalium (1928) treats, which warmly recommends the Pontifical Oriental Institute to the hierarchy of the entire Catholic world. The Holy Father Pius XII, finally, has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. While in the encyclical letters Orientalis Ecclesiae (1944), in honor of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Orientales omnes (1945), published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the union of the Ruthenian Church with Rome, and Sempiternus Rex (1951) commemorating the 15th centenary of the Council of Chalcedon, he has reaffirmed that the dissidents must not fear to see their traditional rites and customs diminished, with the promulgation of the "motu proprio": Crebrae allatae sunt (on matrimonial law) and Sollicitudinem nostram (on trials) he has given the first fruits of the new Code of Eastern canon law, a work long in preparation and which shows the effective interest that the Holy See has for the spiritual well-being of the Christian East. (cf.; v. COMMISSIONI PONTIFICIE).

Emilio Herman

II. CATHOLIC WORKS FOR UNION

1. Prayer for union

The most important prayer is undoubtedly the votive Mass ad tollendum schisma, formerly called ad unitatem Ecclesiae, which, although composed to remove the great Western Schism, is now directed especially to imploring the return of the separated, « ut omnes unum sint ». Next comes the Pentecost novena, ordered by Leo XIII in the encyclical Divinum illud munus (9 May 1897) for all Catholic Churches, and accepted also by not a few Anglicans, Old Catholics and « Orthodox ». Greater diffusion has been obtained by the Octave of union from the feast of the Chair of St. Peter to the Conversion of St. Paul (18-25 Jan.), the work of the Episcopal minister Paul Watson and accepted in the Catholic Church by Pius X. The Dies Orientis, or day of prayer for the East, is recommended by the Holy See particularly to seminaries and Catholic colleges.

In 1851 there is found at Brussels the Union of prayers for the conversion of Russia and for the extinction of the schism among the Slavic peoples; and in 1855 another at Bourges established in order to obtain « through Mary Immaculate the conversion of the schismatic Greeks ». Better known and more important is the Association of prayers in honor of Mary Immaculate for the return of the Greek-Russian Church to Catholic unity, founded before 1862 by the Barnabite Father Cesare Tondini de' Quarenghi, also called the Work of Father Schuvalov. In 1887 there arose the Archconfraternity primary of prayers and good works for the return to Catholic unity of the dissident Churches of the Eastern rite, placed under the patronage of Our Lady of the Assumption, through the work of the Augustinians of the Assumption, who rapidly propagated it through the various nations of Europe and the Near East. Other initiatives of this kind could be recalled here, such as the League of sacrifices for Russia, which, as soon as it was founded by the apostolic administrator of Lugano, on 9 Jan. 1929, gathered the adherence of more than 700 religious houses.

2. Associations

Besides prayer for the East there are associations to promote union. One may enumerate: the Association of Sts. Cyril and Methodius for the return of the separated brethren to the bosom of the Catholic Church, founded in 1851 by the bishop of Marburg Anton Martin Stanfek, later called the Apostolate of Sts. Cyril and Methodius under the protection of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, which has been and continues to be the most fruitful in unionist works and publications; the Catholica Unio of the Benedictine Father Augustine von Galen, established at Vienna in the year 1923; the Society of St. John Chrysostom of the English Catholics, born in 1926; the Catholic Near East welfare Association, founded in the United States by the Jesuit Father Walsh; the Het apostolat der Hereiniging, center of the powerful unionist movement in Holland; the flourishing missionary Obra of the Christian East in Spain, definitively established in 1947, under the protection of the cardinal primate of Spain.

In Italy there arose in 1930 two unionist associations, namely the Pious Association of St. Nicholas of Bari, in Rome, and in Palermo the Italian Catholic Association for the Christian East, which, under the direction of Card. L. Lavitrano, exercises a true and profound unionist apostolate, chiefly by means of the Oriental Weeks, organized in the principal Italian cities.

While the upheaval of the last world war noticeably diminished the activity of these two associations, Father C. Boyer, professor of the Gregorian University, gave life in 1945 to Unitas, which, however, deals with dissidents in general, whether they be « Orthodox » or Protestant.

These associations have procured the celebration of unionist congresses, sometimes even with the participation of the separated Easterners: among these the most important have been the Conventus Velehradenses, now suspended, which were celebrated periodically at Velehrad (Moravia-Czechoslovakia) from 1910 until the outbreak of the war.

3. Centers of study

In the desire to prepare a select clergy for work in the East, Gregory XIII already opened in Rome the Greek College of St. Athanasius, which was followed by others, mainly under the pontificates of Leo XIII and Pius XI. At present there exist in Rome the Greek College of St. Athanasius, the Ruthenian College of St. Josaphat, the Maronite College (momentarily closed), the Armenian College, the Romanian College, the Russian College, the Ethiopian College and the Institute of St. John Damascene, intended for the priests of the various Eastern rites who perfect their studies.

These institutes aim at the formation of the clergy. Benedict XV on 15 Oct. 1917 established the Pontifical Institute for Oriental Studies, open indiscriminately to Latins and Easterners, to Catholics and dissidents, to cultivate Eastern ecclesiastical studies, with the faculty of conferring academic degrees. Other Oriental institutes, although without university character, arose in other places, such as the Seminary of St. Basil and the student residence « Istina » of Lille, the Benedictine priory of Amay-sur-Meuse, later transferred to Chevetogne, the missionary Institute of Lublin, the Seminary of Dubno; to which could be added the Catholic schools of the East, among which the University St. Joseph of the Jesuits of Beirut stands foremost.

4. Press

Flowering of these works is the unionist press, with not a few reviews printed in various languages, such as Apostolat Sv. Cyrilla a Metodije of Olomouc (Moravia), Der christliche Orient of Munich, Apostolat der Hereinigung in Holland, L'unité de l'Eglise (until 1937) and Russie et chrétienté in France, Oriens in Poland, The eastern Churches quarterly of the Benedictines of Ramsgate in England, Cirillometodzki of Zagreb, Oriente of Madrid, Irénikon of Chevetogne (Amay) in Belgium, and in Italy the Bollettino della badia greca di Grottaferrata, L'O. c. e la unità della Chiesa of Mons. Cesare Spallanzani in Reggio Emilia (until 1943), and Unitas, organ of the Association of the same name, which comes out in Rome in Italian, French and English.

Maurizio Gordillo

III. THE CHRISTIAN EAST AND NON-CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS, ESPECIALLY ANGLICANS

1. Up to 1800

In 1574 the German Lutherans sent a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession to the patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah II; a correspondence followed. From 1624 the archdeacon Critopoulos, who had studied for seven years at Oxford, in England, spent three years among the German and Swiss theologians, for whom he wrote a Confession of faith. Meanwhile, in Poland, Orthodox and Protestants temporarily joined forces to oppose the recently formed Ruthenian Uniate Church (1596), and in Constantinople Catholics and Protestants, supported by the diplomatic action of their co-religionist ambassadors, tried to win over the "Orthodox," already much weakened in the Ottoman Empire. The culminating moment came when Cyril Lukaris, then patriarch, issued a profession of faith (1629) that was almost entirely Calvinist. The Protestants used it in propaganda to demonstrate the orthodoxy of their doctrine; the Catholics to demonstrate the necessity of a union with Rome; the "Orthodox" reacted by condemning it in no fewer than six synods during the 17th century and by approving (Jerusalem 1672; Constantinople 1691) a refutation carried out point by point in the Confession of Dositheus. Between 1716 and 1727 some of the English Nonjurors, prompted by the visit to England of the delegates of the patriarchate of Alexandria to collect money, held a long correspondence with the four patriarchs of the East with the intermediary and approval of Peter the Great of Russia, with the aim of realizing a union with the "Orthodox." This correspondence came to an end only when the archbishop of Canterbury, Wake, explained at Constantinople the schismatic situation, with respect to the Anglican Church, of his correspondents.

2. From 1800 to 1916

The Oxford movement in the Anglican Church, with its partial return to Catholic doctrine and its characteristic Branch theory of the universal Church, gave new impetus to Anglo-Orthodox relations. An Oxford professor, William Palmer, visited Russia (1840-51) and then Greece, but did not succeed in persuading these Churches of the orthodoxy of the Anglican position and finally (1855) became a Catholic. Between 1860 and 1870, first the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and then the Church of England set up committees for the purpose of promoting relations with the "Orthodox," and there was some exchange of letters. In 1874 and 1875 official conferences took place at Bonn between the "Orthodox" (Russians and Greeks, and in 1875 also Romanians and Serbs), the English and the American Anglicans, and the "Old Catholics"; in these meetings all the parties found themselves in agreement on certain declarations concerning the canons of Scripture, of tradition, of the Confession, of the Eucharist and of the doctrine of the Trinity, with a compromise on the Filioque, in part prudently vague; but nevertheless the agreement did not receive the complete approval of the Holy Synod of Russia nor that of some Anglicans. From then on, all the Lambeth Conferences made references to Anglican relations with the "Orthodox," and no occasion that presented itself for official contact and courteous cooperation was lost. In 1897 the Anglican response to the papal Apostolicae curae was sent to all the "Orthodox" Churches, where it provoked great interest and a large number of Russian and Greek studies on the validity of Anglican ordinations, studies that criticized the 39 Articles and called for doctrinal reforms in the Anglican Church as a premise for any exchange. In 1901 the Anglicans circulated among the "Orthodox" an explanation of their teaching, favorably received by some Greeks. In 1902 Joachim III of Constantinople wished to learn the opinions of eight "Orthodox" Churches on union with the West. The longest response came from Russia which, in reality, asked that all Anglicans, not only those of the High Church, desire it and embrace the "Orthodox" faith in every particular. In 1906 the Association of Anglican and Western "Orthodox" Churches was founded, still effective today. Shortly afterward, the patriarch of Constantinople consented that Anglicans and Greeks might administer certain Sacraments to the members of the respective Churches, when no minister of one's own Church was available. In 1912 the Holy Synod of Russia invited an Anglican clergyman to give courses on Anglicanism in Russia. In this period, however, the initiative always came from the Anglicans, whose efforts were directed toward the Russian Church rather than toward the Greek one, and, although their spokesmen always surpassed the Protestant elements in emphasizing concord with Catholic doctrine (at times reaching the point of dishonesty), yet no tangible result was obtained: they were always urged to repudiate the 39 Articles and to amend their other formularies in favor of "orthodoxy."

3. From 1916 onward

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Anglicans turned more toward Constantinople. Indeed events followed one another rapidly. In 1918 the archbishop Meletius of Athens, while he was in America and England on business, held conferences with the Anglicans. In 1919 in Constantinople, Athens, London and America permanent committees were set up for the study of union. In Jan. 1920 Constantinople issued an encyclical letter "to all the Churches of Christ wherever they may be" for the purpose of encouraging relations of friendship and especially cooperation on practical questions. "Orthodox" delegates were invited to the Lambeth Conference of 1920 and Meletius, then patriarch of Constantinople, sent one who reported that the Anglicans ardently desired an intercommunion, but that their conception of the Church allowed diversity of opinion even on essential doctrines, and advised prudence especially because the Anglicans were at the same time attempting to conclude a union with the non-conformist sects. Nevertheless the visit bore some fruit.

One of the patriarch's delegates, Prof. Comnenos, he wrote a pamphlet (1921) in favor of the Anglican Orders, and in 1922 the patriarch, in a letter to Canterbury and in an encyclical to all the "Orthodox" Churches, announced that the Anglican Orders could "administratively," "by economy," be considered valid by the "Orthodox" in the same way as the Catholic and Armenian Orders. Only Jerusalem and Cyprus immediately followed Constantinople. From then on the signs of friendship multiplied. In America and in Australia the Anglicans were permitted to administer Baptism and Matrimony to individual "Orthodox." There was an exchange of "enthronement" letters between Canterbury and Constantinople concerning the new appointments to these sees. In 1925 all the "Orthodox" Churches (except, for the occasion, Yugoslavia and, naturally, Russia) were represented at the Nicene celebrations in Westminster Abbey. In 1928 the Association of Sts. Alban and Sergius was founded with the aim of promoting friendly relations between the Anglicans and the Russians in exile.

The experiment of 1920 was repeated at the Lambeth Conference of 1930, when a numerous "Orthodox" delegation visited London, headed by Meletius, then patriarch of Alexandria. Discussions were held with a committee of Anglican bishops, in which the "Orthodox" again received the assurance that the Anglican Communion admits a real presence in the Eucharist which is a mysterion, and that Ordination confers the Grace peculiar to each Order and that this too is a mysterion. To satisfy the "Orthodox" doubts, these and other declarations were submitted to a plenary session of the Conference, and were declared "a sufficient account of the doctrine and practice" of the Anglican Communion. On Dec. 25, 1930, Alexandria extended recognition "by administration" to the Anglican Orders. In 1931 "Orthodox" and Anglicans met in conference for further doctrinal discussions, which however had no immediate result. The "Orthodox" delegates, on their way back, met with the "Old Catholics" at Bonn, but having only the authorization to report to their respective Churches, although they reached a verbal agreement on doctrine, they could not arrive at conclusive decisions. The "Orthodox" had hoped to convoke a pan-"Orthodox" synod in which the Anglican Orders and union would have been discussed and settled in common, but this was prevented by the opposition of the Turkish government. Thus in 1936 the Romanian Church invited an Anglican delegation to Bucharest, and this reached an agreement with the Romanian delegates on a formula comprising "apostolic succession, holy Order, the Sacraments in general, Tradition and Justification," which, subsequently accepted by the Holy

Synod of Romania and by both English convocations (as "a legitimate interpretation of the Anglican faith"), although not without opposition in both countries, figured in a Romanian recognition of the Anglican Orders. In 1938 the Greek Church, albeit with ample reservation, admitted that "the Church, after examination of the special circumstances, can administratively recognize the Orders of an Anglican who enters the 'Orthodox' Church."

Throughout all this time there were many friendly contacts and exchanges of visits. The "Orthodox" Churches (except the Russian Church) took part in various ecumenical congresses (v. ECUMENISM), although at Lausanne (1927) and at Edinburgh (1937) they dissociated themselves from the concluding communications. At Amsterdam (1948) only Constantinople and Greece were fully represented, and the majority of the delegates again wished to make a special declaration, but was thwarted by the minority. In the Greek Church, after Amsterdam, there is a strong divergence of opinion on the advisability of still participating in all the subjects of these conferences. The Russian Church, and with it all the other Slavic "Orthodox" Churches, by a resolution approved at the centenary celebrations of 1948, refused to cooperate and condemned such movements, and at the same time expressed their aversion to recognizing the Anglican Orders. On the central and permanent committees of the World Council of Churches and of Movements, which resulted from it, the "Orthodox" were regularly represented by members, among whom are worthy of note Archbishop Germanos, apocrisiary of Constantinople at Canterbury, Prof. Alivisatos of Greece, and Fr. Florovsky of the exiled Russians, but it appears that there are ever greater doubts about that advisability, and the desire is gaining ground to limit cooperation to practical questions, omitting all doctrinal discussion.

Giuseppe Gill

IV. DOGMATIC DIVERGENCES

1. General character of the divergences between Catholics and dissident Orientals

For a century now there has been a tendency to make the dogmatic divergences between Catholics and separated Orientals almost disappear.

In 1858 A. Ritschl, followed by numerous Protestant authors and by some Catholics, reduced the contrast to simple liturgical differences. The importance that the Orientals attach to these is not denied, whether in their internal disputes among themselves (let the treatise of Dionysius Bar Salibi against the Armenians serve as an example) or in regard to the Latin Church. But it is undeniable that the principal struggle took place in the field of dogmatic truths. Thus the history of Catholic and Oriental relations attests; although in modern times attention is paid, more than to individual truths, to the different mentality of the East and the West, so much so that, according to the metropolitan of Lviv, A. Sceptyckyj, the Orientals differ from the Westerners even when they are in agreement in affirming a doctrine. Indeed, A. Harnack in 1913 insisted on the different spirit of Eastern Christianity, which sets it apart from Western Christianity. Rightly A. de Ivanka in the article Orient et Occident (in Irénikon, 9 [1932], pp. 409-21) warns against the exaggeration of this contrast.

It is a fact that the doctrinal divergences have crystallized into very precise dogmatic formulas, over which there has been long dispute and there is still dispute today. These will be treated briefly, restricting attention to the Churches of the Byzantine-Slavic East and setting aside the Nestorian and Monophysite Churches, for whose doctrines v. ARMENIA; COPTI; ETIOPIA; GIACOBITI; MONOFISITI; NESTORIO E NESTORIANESIMO, V. La Chiesa nestoriana.

2. First lists.
- In the second half of the 9th century there is found a first list of divergences between Latins and Byzantines in the encyclical epistle of Photius to the Orientals written in 867 (PG 102, 721-41), where, alongside the fasting on Saturday, the celibacy of the Latin clergy, and other disciplinary and liturgical customs, the doctrine of the Latins on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is denounced. Neither in this document nor in his other writings (setting aside the pamphlet Contro quelli che dicono essere Roma il primo trono, which seems to be of a fairly later period) is there open speech against the primacy. Nevertheless it is certain that Photius took aim at it, as appears from the letter of St. Nicholas I to Hincmar of Reims (PL 119, 1152-61), from which Ratramnus of Corbie and the other Latin polemicists against Photius take the list of Byzantine accusations.

Two centuries later, the patriarch Michael Cerularius, writing to Peter III of Antioch (PG 120, 789-96), enumerates 22 errors of the Latins, concerning however almost exclusively liturgical and canonical discipline. On the ground of dogma, Cerularius reaffirms the opposition against the Filioque (v.) and against the Roman primacy, already wholly fallen away, since the Pope had admitted « the heresy of the Filioque ». Moreover he inveighs against the azymes (v.), opening a new polemic that gave rise to countless treatises on the eucharistic bread. The accusations of Cerularius are collected and increased in number, as regards Latin customs, by the famous Opuscolo contro i Franchi, attributed by Hergenröther to Photius, but in reality written at the end of the 11th century and widely diffused in the Byzantine and Slavic East. The Byzantine polemicists, such as Matthew Angelos Panaretos and many others, seek new points of divergence (A. Palmieri collected as many as 62 of them), for the most part liturgical. As regards doctrine, two new divergences appear: the question of Purgatory, raised in 1231 and already contemplated in the pamphlet of the Constantinopolitan Dominicans of 1250, and that of the Epiclesis, which is found for the first time, at least among the Byzantines, in Nicholas Cabasilas and Symeon of Thessalonica around the middle of the 14th century.

3. The five Florentine differences

Thus in 1438, at the opening of the Council of Ferrara-Florence, it was already common to speak of the five differences between Greeks and Latins, namely: 1) the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; 2) the insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed; 3) Purgatory, a dispute that also broadens into the general question of the Last Things; 4) the matter and form of the Most Holy Eucharist, for which the Byzantines required leavened bread and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, called the Epiclesis; 5) the primacy of the Roman pontiff. These are the five topics discussed at the assemblies of Ferrara and Florence and defined in the bull of union of the Greeks, which however passes over in silence the question of the Epiclesis, on which a full agreement had easily been reached.

These five divergences are found again in the writings of the supporters and opponents of the Council of Florence, such as Joseph Methonensis, Cardinal Bessarion, Mark Eugenikos, George Scholarios, and after them in the polemical works of Gabriel Severus, Maximus Peloponnesiacus, Elias Miniates and many others.

4. New points of contrast

These latter writers also speak of Baptism by infusion and of Communion under one kind. The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis of 8 Dec. 1854 and the Vatican definition on the infallibility of the Roman pontiff gave rise to new discrepancies, so that the patriarch of Constantinople Anthimos VII, in his encyclical of 1895, presents the following list of "Latin errors": 1) the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; 2) the addition of the Filioque to the Creed; 3) Baptism by aspersion or infusion; 4) unleavened bread; 5) the Epiclesis; 6) Communion under one kind; 7) Purgatory, Indulgences and immediate retribution before the Last Judgment; 8) the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God; 9) the Roman primacy; 10) pontifical infallibility.

5. Present state

It is quite clear that through the nine centuries of separation these doctrines have been proposed in somewhat different forms, which cannot be explained in a very brief summary (v. AZIMI; BATTESIMO; EPICLESI; FILIOQUE; IMMACOLATA CONCEZIONE; PRIMATO DI S. PIETRO; PURGATORIO). It must only be added that, despite the numerous disputes, the differences have rather widened and deepened; first with the affirmation of Palamism (v.), whose influence is so strong in the doctrine of Grace and in that of the Last Things; later with the contribution of ancient and recent Protestantism, whose influence is manifested in not a few points of sacramental theology, in the dogma of the Redemption and principally in the field of ecclesiology. If for long centuries the predominant controversy was that of the Filioque, today, principally after the predominance of the Slavophile school of Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov, one can well say that the most serious divergence lies, even more than in the doctrine on the primacy, in the very concept of the Church and of its unity and catholicity.

Maurizio Gordillo

# IV. CHRISTIAN ART.

It was well observed by J. von Schlosser how the political-administrative reform of the Roman Empire carried out by Diocletian, with a system of coordinates delineated by the spheres of influence of the two Augusti and the two Caesars, determined the framework of the entire development of the countries around the Mediterranean; and how the north-south axis, separating the Latin West from the Greek East, having become ever more marked during the Middle Ages, generated that detachment of the Western world from the Eastern which persists to this day. But to the east of that axis conditions are not uniform and, from the archaeological point of view, two territories with peculiar characteristics and in many respects discordant are determined from the earliest Christian times. In the north, that which has Byzantium as its center, which occupies the entire Balkan peninsula, which then aggregates the Slavic countries and dominates a fringe of territory more or less deep along the northern, western and in part southern coasts of the Anatolian peninsula, where that neo-Hellenism which is called Byzantine art develops and lives: to the south and to the east of this, all the regions where the Hellenism that had already firmly established itself must struggle against the resurgence of native traditions, which have deep historical roots, which penetrate it and little by little dominate it. This is what truly and alone must be called the East, and its entire archaeological history from the 3rd century, one may say, until the 8th lies precisely in this struggle between a purely Asiatic way of thinking that seeks to impose itself and the existence of a Hellenistic tradition too great to die quickly. Indeed it always winds hidden and has truly unexpected returns.

But if the Byzantine part knew how and was able to maintain for no brief period its unity under the hegemony of an art of the capital (Reichhunst) that imposed itself, the East demonstrated from the beginning centrifugal forces and the great theological disputes many times masked ancient political rivalries and irreconcilable economic divergences. On one side therefore an artistic unity that was also linguistic unity (the two things in a certain sense are one), on the other the rise of artistic schools with a well-delimited territorial character simultaneously with the formation of national languages. And these languages rise to literary significance precisely through the work of groups opposed to the central power and which religiously are classified as heretical: Coptic with the Gnostic writings, the Manichaean texts, Hierakas, Syriac with Bardaisan, the original of the Acts of St. Thomas, etc. Index and at the same time effect of the separatist force and of nationalist tendencies. Therefore the Christian art of Egypt, that of Syria, of Mesopotamia, of Anatolia, of Armenia are determined very soon with their peculiar and unmistakable characteristics, which, on close inspection, were already revealing themselves, though not so marked, in the preceding Hellenism. This Eastern Hellenism at bottom is known rather poorly (and this is one of the weakest points of the archaeological studies of the East in the first Christian centuries), inasmuch as the complete destruction of the great Hellenistic cities has deprived us of the fundamental documents. The great architectural monuments of Alexandria, of Antioch, of Gaza and so on have disappeared, and nothing is known of them except the little that the literary sources say: one is reduced to the knowledge of the monuments of the interior of the country in secondary centers, monuments which, except perhaps for some cases in Syria, were not the most significant. Knowledge is based above all on secondary constructions or on works of decorative art that do not tell the essential even if among them are productions of the very first order, such as the floor mosaics recently brought to light by the excavations of Antioch.

The existence or the lack of a Hellenistic tradition clearly marks the formation and development of the various territorial arts listed above; it is very clear between those that arose within the ancient boundaries of the Empire and that of Mesopotamia which was always outside them (the ephemeral Trajanic conquest is of no importance) and where Hellenism was limited to a few Seleucid póleis which, if they preserved their structure under the Parthians, certainly lost it with the Sāsānids. A probative example is that if in Egypt, in Syria, in Anatolia, in the first Armenian monuments, the church has, albeit with variants and new characteristics, derived its forms from the Hellenistic basilica, in Mesopotamia it is modeled on the great halls of the Oriental palaces. And other examples can be cited.

Among the various artistic schools into which the art of the Christian East was divided, one holds absolute predominance for its creative force and its power of expansion: the architecture of Syria. It elaborated all the possible transformations of the basilica that the East conceived and exported them not only to Asia but also to Egypt and Abyssinia, and, toward the West, into the Byzantine milieu and, through it, into Italy. But, one should bear in mind, it was unable to go beyond the sphere of variations on the basilical motif and to rise to a new conception of architectural space: this would be reserved for the Byzantines. Thus Syrian architecture was able to elaborate a great many variations on the ground plan of central buildings, round or polygonal, from the Constantinian "Great Church" of Antioch onward, but it was unable to complete the architectural thought with the perfect solution of the roofing, that is, the dome joined to the polygonal base. Although it had before its eyes examples of the pendentive join (already attempted in early Egyptian architecture) known to Syrian Hellenism (baths of Gerasa, tomb of Samaria, etc.), although it knew the squinch join of Asian invention and diffused by the Sasanians, it was unable to go beyond the drum covered with a pyramidal wooden roof. The problem of the dome too would mark a triumph of the Byzantine architects. This proves the limitation of the thought of the Christian architects of the East, which would develop only in Armenia, but after that 8th century which marks the limit of the period dealt with here.

Where, on the other hand, the Christian East fully developed its intrinsic vision, its characteristics and its genius, was in the decoration of monuments and in what are called the minor arts. Not in the floor mosaics, of which a very rich series is available, especially in Palestine, exactly datable up to the 8th century. If one starts from the rich series of Hellenistic floor mosaics of Antioch (where one observes only the inclusion of some not abundant specifically Oriental and especially Sasanian motif), one sees that this art lives and evolves while nevertheless always remaining within the vision of the Hellenistic picturesque, with fantastic and complicated architectures, genre scenes, representations of animals, outside the true Oriental spirit, and it continues still in the first century of Muslim domination, when indeed one observes a curious return of pure Hellenism with the mosaics (wall mosaics but only decorative) of the mosque of Damascus, which lead us back to the art of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Evidently these are works of workshops that handed down technique and spirit from father to son and, while evolving, remained outside the true Oriental spirit. Where this reveals itself in full is in figured wall painting and in miniatures, with its characteristics already fully developed in the paintings of Dura-Europos. First, the purely Asian concept of continuous narration, which had already been made to triumph in Rome itself by the great architect of Hadrian, Apollodorus of Damascus; the love of portraiture and of historical composition; the abstraction of the human figure from its setting, which is many times eliminated or only hinted at rather than represented, and above all the organization of the scene according to a principle of frontality, in such a way that the spectator is introduced into it, which develops the transcendent and invigorates the meaning of the subjects drawn almost entirely from religious history. In the language more properly of forms, an intense love of polychromy, a continuous need for rich color that reveals itself in every production (down to jewels, cloisonné goldsmithing) and a need to cover the whole surface (horror vacui), even, if necessary, with series of scenes simply set side by side (already at the synagogue of Dura) or with a complex of ornaments, as if the wall were covered by a carpet, a principle that would develop to the point of absurdity in the subsequent Islamic era. These last tendencies also hold for sculpted decoration, which tends to cover every part of the building, superimposing itself on what should be the expression of its constructive function: a Syrian door architrave is decorated as if it were a revetment slab, and interlacements and meanders cover the shafts of columns from Egypt to Mesopotamia (columns reused in the courtyard of the mosque of Diyarbakır). Few examples remain from which one can see the result of the application of such principles: perhaps the best is given by the apses of the great triconch cella of the Red Monastery near Sohag, with the rich sculpted decoration of the framing of the niches, while all the rest of the walls and the columns were covered with painted decoration.

The Christian East made little use of figural sculpture whether in low relief or in high relief or in the round. Egypt is the region that has preserved the most numerous and important examples of it, with a series of sculptures which, from the place of origin of the most peculiar examples, was called the "school of Ahnās" but which was also widespread in other localities of Middle Egypt, especially at Bahnasa. The origin of its sculptural language is probably to be sought in a Nabataean milieu: one may compare the reliefs of Hirbet at-Tannur. It certainly lasted until the 6th century, and a curious return of its forms occurs, in the 8th century, in the figural stuccoes of the Umayyad Palace of Hirbet al-Mefger. But the fact that the greatest part of the subjects treated by it are taken from Hellenic mythology and very few are Christian, suggests that it was the creation of one of those residual groups of paganism that had a long life in Egypt down to the Justinianic period. All the rest that has come down to us of figural sculpture in the Christian East has nothing to do with art. The same very late persistence of Hellenic motifs and subjects is documented in Egypt also in the art of weaving: but here it is probably a matter, as has been observed for the Palestinian floor mosaics, of the handing down of workshop formulas within a guild that was as strongly organized as that of the weavers. Ivory sculpture too, which has produced wonderful works such as the cathedra of Maximian now at Ravenna, shows the persistence of a Hellenistic content and artistic language united with, but not fused with, Oriental forms and spirit.

And it is in this dualism that the Christian East was unable to overcome, between a powerful Hellenistic tradition and a clearly Oriental spirit, that its tragedy lies, and the impossibility of rising to a high sphere of expression.

Perhaps it lacked the time, since in the middle of the 7th century the Islamic conquest cut short its possibilities of development. - See pl. XX.

Ugo Monneret de Villard