By Rev. Constantine Callinikos
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Excerpts from the

"The History

Of the

Orthodox Church"

 

By Rev. Constantine Callinikos.

Introduction.

This book forms one of the series which was started by the Holy Metropolis of Thyateira with the publication of the Greek Orthodox Catechism. This brief sketch of Orthodox Church History is intended, as that work was, mainly for Orthodox Christians, who, being born in countries where their mother tongue is not spoken, of necessity have learned, and do more easily understand, the language of the country of their adoption. This book is not intended for use exclusively by children learning their catechism. It is hoped it will be of interest to Orthodox Christians, who desire to have a brief, but reliable, account of the evolution of the Orthodox Church throughout the centuries of the Christian Era. Furthermore, although now there exist some works in English dealing in a general way with the Orthodox Church, we think this is the first time that a short history of the Orthodox Church, the work of an Orthodox Scholar, has come into the hands of English readers. It is a work that touches upon all the periods of its history, and, above all, the latest period, which, for the most part, has not been studied by the non-Orthodox. The close relations, which, of late especially, have developed between the two Churches, the Orthodox and the Anglican, and the recent contact established between them at the Lambeth Conference, render the contents of a book dealing with the fortunes of the Orthodox Church interesting and timely.

   The compiling of this work was entrusted by the Holy Metropolis of Thyateira to the Vicar of the Greek Church in Manchester, the Rev. Constantine Callinicos, the author of many notable religious and theological writings. On the recent publication of an important Commentary on the “Psalms,” he received a signal honor at the hands of the Ecumenical Patriarchate which bestowed on him the title, of rare distinction in the Orthodox Church, “Great Oeconomos of the Great Church.” The Rev. Callinicos has fulfilled the task entrusted to him with great skill. Not only has he refrained from dwelling upon questions which, while included in the life and history of the Church, have no immediate relation to its essential nature; he has also refused merely to collate material which is easily obtainable in the historical writings of other Churches. His deep-rooted love for, and devotion to, the Orthodox Church, his insistence on historical truth and accuracy, and, finally, the polished style of writing are characteristic of the author's present work, as of all his works.

   The translation into English has been zealously carried out by Miss Natzio. The fact that this lady was born and bred in England, and had a successful career at an English University (B. A. and B. Utt. Oxford), has, in itself, a guarantee of the translating accuracy and perfection.

To both the author and the translator, therefore, we express our warmest thanks and give our blessing.

   It is our earnest hope that this book, in fulfilling the purpose with which it was written, may help to make the Orthodox Church more widely known; — a Church which, in the past, watered the tree of Christianity when first it was planted on this earth, with the blood of its martyrs, and even today has martyrs to show in its struggle against the powers which plot against its very existence.

 +The Metropolitan of Thyateira, GERMANOS

London, Palm Sunday, 1931.

 

 

Part I.

Ancient Times (A.D. 33-700).

The First Preachers of the Gospel.

 

Stephen, the First Martyr.

   Thus the first followers of the crucified Christ increased in numbers by leaps and bounds, and formed the first Christian community in Jerusalem. Bound together by ties of mutual love, such as had never before been seen, they ate at common tables, and under the general supervision of the Apostles had all their possessions in common. Soon, however, the Apostles were no longer able to watch over both the material and spiritual needs of so many thousand souls; so, keeping for themselves the spiritual ministry, they appointed seven deacons to organize the provisioning of the community. Foremost among them for wisdom and holiness was Stephen. Filled with holy zeal, he denounced the Jews for their deafness to the voice of the Lord, and so enraged them that, accusing him of blasphemy, they condemned him to death by stoning. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” were his dying words.

 

The Conversion of Saul.

   The death of Stephen the Martyr was the signal for a great outbreak of persecution against the newly-established Church, which was intolerable to the Jewish authorities as an apostate from the law of Moses. But this local, persecution turned to the advantage of the new faith, because its effect was to scatter the brethren from Jerusalem, where they had hitherto been confined, sending them to carry the seeds of the Gospel not only to other towns of Judaea, but to Samaria, Phenice and Cyprus, and even to Antioch, where for the first time the believers in Christ were given the name of Christians. It was the death of Stephen, too, that first brought into prominence Saul, then still a fanatical Pharisee, savagely attacking the Christian Church, but divinely appointed to become the most ardent and fruitful of the Lord's Apostles. His conversion to Christianity took place in the year A.D. 35 outside Damascus. A great light shone suddenly around him, and the voice of the Savior sounded in his ears: “Saoul, Saoul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Thereupon he was baptized, changing his name from Saoul to Paul; the Apostles received him into their brotherhood, and, beset by dangers and persecutions, he embarked on those great missionary journeys that were to make Christianity a universal creed.

 

The Apostle Peter.

   Paul, who devoted nearly all his energies to the conversion of the heathen, has been called the “Apostle to the Gentiles”; Peter, on the other hand, focused his whole attention on the Jews, and is therefore known as the “Apostle of the Circumcision.” His baptism of the half-Gentile centurion Cornelius, after receiving in a vision the divine injunction not to call common that which the Lord had cleansed, was a mere episode in the career of a man whose life was devoted exclusively to his fellow-Jews. At first Peter stayed in Jerusalem with the other Apostles, and played an important part in the early stages of Christianity. His life was threatened by Herod Agrippa, to the great satisfaction of the Jews, but after his miraculous escape from prison he soon left Jerusalem and journeyed through Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, and other parts of Asia Minor. For many years he watched over the Christians of Antioch as their first Bishop; but, like Paul, he came at last to Rome, where, according to tradition, he was crucified in the reign of Nero, head downwards, since he considered himself, even in death, unworthy to be set on a level with his Savior. The story of Peter's martyrdom may be taken as an established fact, being supported both by our Lord's prediction (cf. John 21:18) and by the evidence of ancient writers; that he flourished as Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years is, however, only a myth. In A.D. 51 he was present at the Apostolic Synod at Jerusalem. In A.D. 58 Paul, writing his Epistle to the Romans, does not mention his name, although he sends greetings to many of the faithful in Rome. In A.D. 62 when Paul came to Rome as a prisoner, Peter did not come to greet him, and though Paul wrote various epistles during his stay, not once does he mention him. The historian Eusebius, moreover, speaks of Linus as the first Bishop of Rome.

 

The Other Apostles.

   Like Peter and Paul, the rest of the Apostles also sealed their message with their blood. James the Elder, the brother of John, was beheaded in Jerusalem under Herod Agrippa, according to the indisputable testimony of the Acts. James the Younger, or “Adelphotheos,” who became first Bishop of Jerusalem after the departure of the other Apostles, was precipitated from the pinnacle of the temple, according to Hegisippus, and stoned by the Jews as he confessed Jesus Christ the Son of God. Andrew, who journeyed through Scythia and founded the first Christian Church in Byzantium, was crucified at Patras, so tradition says, on the chi-shaped cross (X) which ever since has borne his name; while Thomas had his side pierced with a spear after a fruitful missionary career in Persia, Ethiopia and India. Indeed, practically all the Apostles crowned their life's work with a martyr's death, although on many points their story is obscure and confused, having been handed down to us not by authenticated histories but by popular traditions.

 

The Apostle John.

   A single exception was John, the Beloved Disciple, the youngest of them all, who died peacefully in the closing year of the first century of the Christian era. After the dispersal of his fellow-disciples, John made Ephesus the center of his activities, and directed from there all the missionary work in Asia Minor, especially after the death of the other Apostles. During the reign of the Emperor Domitian he was banished for a while to the island of Patmos, where, after the manner of the ancient prophets, he wrote the Book of Revelation. But he was restored again to his flock, and lived on among them to such a green aid age that at the close of his life he would be carried to the place of worship, where, too weak to deliver a lengthy discourse, he confined his whole teaching to these simple words: “Little children, love one another.” For to John the epitome of all Christian morality was love. It is related of this Apostle that he was greatly attracted by a handsome and gifted youth and adopted him as his son. But the youth, during the Apostle's absence, was led astray by evil companions and became a brigand chief. The old Apostle went up into the mountains and searched until he found this wandering sheep, when laying him on his shoulders he brought him back repentant to the Christian fold.

 

 

Progress With Impediments.

   Under the Apostles' successors during the second and third centuries Christianity still continued to gain ground day by day. The philosopher and martyr, Justin, who died in A.D. 166, was already able to affirm that in his time there was scarcely a single race of men on earth, barbarous or civilized, nomad, or dwelling in tents, among whom prayers were not offered up to the one true God, revealed through Jesus Christ. And the facts proved that Justin's assertion was no mere rhetorical bombast. In Asia Minor, at Bithynia, the younger Pliny viewed with alarm the swift spread of the new religion. In Syria, the light of the Gospel shone out from Antioch as from a glowing hearth. In Athens the apostolic Bishops, Dionysius the Areopagite and Quadratus, continued Paul's preaching of the Unknown God. In Italy the Christian communities were multiplying, with Rome as their spiritual metropolis; while in the south of France Lyons and Vienne were prominent Christian centers. In Africa great men of the Church covered Carthage with glory, and disseminated the faith in the neighboring towns; while the Church of Alexandria, founded by Mark the Evangelist, was like another Pharos to Egypt. But such great progress was not made without encountering serious obstacles. The Roman Empire, which held the mastery of the world, was a pagan empire, and naturally looked upon the undermining of paganism as equivalent to the sapping of its own foundations. Hence there arose the persecutions of the first three centuries, which broke out at intervals with renewed violence, with the object of exterminating the Christian faith, until after three hundred years of fighting the Empire laid down its sword at the feet of Christ.

 

Persecution Under Trajan.

   Under the Emperor Trajan (98-117) Pliny the younger, then Governor of Bithynia and Pontus, observed the daily increase of the Christian communities in his province; and uncertain how to check the progress of this “evil and mischievous superstition,” as he called it, wrote to the Emperor for instructions. Trajan replied that no measures should be taken deliberately to hunt out Christians; if, however, they were once summoned before the magistrates, they should be forced to choose between sacrifice to the pagan gods and death. Thus Christianity, whose fate had hitherto depended on the caprice of successive emperors, became, from now onwards, by the explicit provisions of Roman law, a punishable offence. The most notable victim of this persecution was the Bishop of Antioch, Ignatius Theophorus, by reason both of his own distinguished position and of the eminence of his judge; for the Emperor Trajan himself, during a campaign against the Parthians, happened to pass through Antioch, and Ignatius appeared before him to intercede on behalf of his flock. — “Who art thou, evil spirit, who despisest my decrees?” asked Trajan. — “A God-bearer cannot be called an evil spirit,” replied Ignatius. — “And what man is a God-bearer?” — “He who bears Christ in his bosom.” — “Who is this Christ? He who was crucified under Pilate?” — “I mean Him who crucified sin, my adored Lord.” — “And thinkest thou that those whom we worship are no gods?” — “O king, you call the demons gods, for there is one God alone, He who created heaven and earth.” — “Very good,” said Trajan; “I command that this man, who says he bears within him the crucified Christ, be sent in chains to Rome, and be torn to pieces by wild beasts for the entertainment of the Roman people.” When he heard the Emperor's decision, Ignatius gave praise to God that he was to be glorified by the same end as the Apostle Paul had suffered; and, following his guards, he made the long journey to Rome, where before thousands of spectators he was thrown into the Coliseum and devoured by I wild beasts.

 

The Decian Persecution.

   So far, all persecutions had been more or less local, depending mainly on the disposition of the provincial governors, of whom the more fanatical enforced the imperial decrees strictly, while the more tolerant found means to evade them. But in the reign of Decius (249-251) persecution became not only general, but severely systematic. Henceforth a time-limit was set for all Christians in every place, within which they were to present themselves before the authorities, sacrifice to the pagan gods, and thus obtain a certificate of recantation. Many Christians, yielding to torture, were forced to sacrifice against their conscience; others managed to buy their certificates, to the great sorrow of the Church, who considered such expedients as equivalent to apostasy. But many others, among whom were Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, Babylas of Antioch, and Fabian of Rome, preferred martyrdom to hypocrisy; and, indeed, the army of those who confessed their faith far outnumbered that of the poor-spirited and apostates. The “odious superstition,” to which Decius, a true if misguided patriot, ascribed the decadence of the Roman Empire, proved itself to be stronger than human frailty.

 

Constantine the Great.

   The persecution of the Christians was not carried on uninterruptedly from beginning to end. There were peaceful intervals which enabled the victims to reorganize themselves and augment their numbers; for certain emperors, engrossed, like Heliogabalus (218-222), by a life of luxury, professing, like Alexander Severus (222-235), an eclectic philosophy, or in sympathy with Christianity, like Philip the Arabian (244-249), left the Christians undisturbed. But persecution was finally brought to an end by Constantine the Great, who was destined by Providence to enthrone Christianity as the official state religion, and whose great services to Christianity our Church still commemorates by honoring him as an “Isapostol,” that is, equal to an Apostle.

 

The Vision of the Cross.

   Constantine was the son of Constantius Chlorus, Caesar over Gaul, Britain and Spain, whom he succeeded in A.D. 306. Fortunate in having an eclectic father, and as mother the devout Christian Helena, he followed closely the unavailing struggle of expiring paganism against Christianity, and was not slow to realize that the religion of the future would be this new faith, which seemed to him to be of a supernatural character. He was still further strengthened in this belief by an episode which took place in A.D. 312, while he was marching towards Rome on a campaign against his colleague Maxentius, Augustus of the West. About mid-day, he saw the sign of the Cross mysteriously traced on the sky, with the words “By this conquer” and as he slept that night, Christ appeared and exhorted him to adopt this symbol as his imperial banner. He did as he was commanded, and his subsequent victory over the pagan Maxentius was the victory of Christian truth over pagan error.

 

Julian the Apostate.

   Julian imagined that he had been designated by fate to revive the religion of paganism, and this belief was covertly fostered by the philosophers of his day. At first he pretended to be a Christian, and even read the Scriptures in church. But in 361 Constantius, who in consequence of his brothers' death had been sole ruler since 353, died suddenly; and Julian, ascending the throne to the acclamation of his soldiers, who adored him for his military virtues, showed himself in his true colors as a violent hater of Christianity. He forbade the attendance of Christians in the Greek schools, ironically relegating them to the Galileans, Matthew and Luke. He summoned turbulent bishops back from exile to foment quarrels and disturbances in the Christian communities. He imposed taxes on the clergy, and abolished the Church's right to receive bequests. He sent builders to Jerusalem to reconstruct the Jewish temple, which had been destroyed in the reign of Titus (A.D. 70), in order to belie the Lord's prophecy concerning its destruction. He tried to revive oracles that had for years been silent, presided over public pagan ceremonies, often himself sacrificing elaborate hecatombs. He introduced into paganism choir-singing, the preaching of sermons, and collections for the poor, all features borrowed from Christianity. But all his efforts were in vain, and after a reign of only twenty months the Apostate and Transgressor — for so history has stigmatized him, — died from a wound in the liver which he received in battle against the Persians. It is said that as he lay dying he filled his hand with blood from his wound, and, shaking the drops of blood into the air as though Christ stood before him, he cried with his dying breath: “Thou has conquered, Galilean!”

 

The Perils of Heresy.

 

Gnostics.

   While the Judaic heresies sought to graft Christianity on to Judaism, the Gnostics tried, with a strange lack of judgment and unbridled imagination, to adulterate the divine Revelation with the inventions of human philosophy. The doctrines of these heretics, too, were many and various, some of them (those of the Alexandrians) being influenced by Platonic philosophy, while others (those of the Syrians) were based on Persian dualism; but certain characteristics were common to all Gnostics. They believed themselves to be the privileged recipients of a special revelation from pod, which they called “gnosis,” or knowledge, and by virtue of which they were able to solve the problems of life. Since the hardest problem of all is the existence of evil, they imagined that they had solved it by attributing it to matter, in which the fallen souls from the world of light are held captive. But because God, as He is portrayed in the Gospels, is a God of goodness, and it was not possible for evil matter to proceed from a good God, they were driven to the supposition that there were two Gods, — the God of the New Testament, Who ruled over the kingdom of light, and the God of the Old Testament, Who created matter and was the “Demiurgus,” or Creator of the universe. According to the Gnostics, therefore, matter and the flesh are to be abhorred as creations of the God of Evil; and many of them submitted their body to unheard-of torments and privations, while others, on the contrary, degraded it with every form of vice in order to show their contempt for the flesh. Christ, in the opinion of most Gnostics, was simply a divine emanation, — a spirit sent from the world of light to liberate the souls that were groaning in the bonds of matter. But if Christ were a spirit, and belonged entirely to the kingdom of light (so the Gnostics reasoned), His connection with matter would be utterly impossible and incongruous. Christ, then, did not put on fleshly form; God and man did not unite in the person of the Savior, and the alleged Incarnation was only an “appearance,” an illusion, a figment of the imagination of the beholders.

 

Manichaeans.

   Another heresy based on Persian dualism was Manichaeism, which was started in the third century by the Persian Mani. He also believed in the existence of two principles, uncreated and eternal, perpetually warring against each other; God, Lord of the kingdom of light, and Satan, Lord of the kingdom of darkness. Satan, tempted by the kingdom of light, had once tried to enter into it, whereupon God brought forth man from the Mother of Life and sent him to fight against the powers of darkness. But the powers of darkness, in their struggle with man, attacked his soul, and would have utterly destroyed him, had not God hastened to the rescue by clothing Christ, Who dwelt in the sun, with an imaginary body and sending Him down to earth, where by His teaching He achieved the redemption of man. But, unfortunately, according to the Manichaeans, the Galileans (that is, the Apostles) had misinterpreted the teaching of Christ, Who therefore sent Mani, greater than the Apostles (for he was the Comforter foretold by Christ), to disentangle truth from error. Hence the Manichaeans rejected all the canonical books of the New Testament, substituting gospels and epistles of their own invention. They considered Mani and his successors as the representatives of Christ, and appointed about them 12 teachers and 72 bishops, corresponding to the 12 Apostles and 72 Disciples of the Lord. Further, they divided themselves into two classes, — the Hearers or outer circle, and the Initiate or inner circle. On the latter was imposed not only strict celibacy, but also abstention from all animal food, and scrupulous respect for the life of insects and flowers.

 

Antitrinitarians.

   Among the heretics who appeared during the first few centuries of Christianity must be numbered the Antitrinitarians of the second and third centuries, who tried to elucidate the supernatural doctrine of the Holy Trinity by human reasoning. The problem which they set themselves was to reconcile the doctrine of the Trinity with Christian Monotheism. Some, like Theodotus the Tanner and Paul of Samosata, ascribed divinity to the Father alone, and relegated the Son to the status of a prophet, great indeed and unique, but a mere mortal man who had received inspiration and illumination from on high. Others, like Noetus of Smyrna and Sabellius the Libyan, acknowledged a single divine Person Who manifested himself in different forms according to the different needs of the world, adopting at the Creation the figure of the Father, at the Redemption that of the Son, and during His guidance of the Church, that of the Holy Ghost. These individual opinions, which had nothing in common with the Christian faith, were condemned sporadically by the early Fathers, until more violent discussions on the person of the Savior impelled the Church to define and interpret her teaching clearly at successive Ecumenical Synods.

 

Arianism.

   At the beginning of the fourth century, a certain presbyter of Alexandria, Arius by name, a man of strict morality, but more attached to profane learning than to Gospel truth, preached that Christ was created by God the Father as a tool by means of which He might create the Universe; that He was the first of all created things but had not existed eternally; that there had been a time when He was not, and He was, therefore, inferior to God the Father. These platonic theories came to the notice of his bishop, Alexander, who summoned a local Synod in Alexandria in 321, and condemned them as contrary to the Gospel. But Arius, who believed that only the adoption of his theories could preserve monotheism in Christianity, not only continued to uphold his personal opinions, but — by means of hymns and other methods of popularization — disseminated them among an ever-widening circle. Other churchmen joined him, and as the unity of the Church was in peril, in order to calm men's minds and restore peace among them, Constantine the Great summoned to Nicaea in 325 a great Synod, which was attended by representatives from every part of the world, and was therefore known as an Ecumenical, or Universal, Synod.

 

The First Ecumenical Synod.

   There were present at this Synod many distinguished men, some famous for their learning and virtue, some for their ascetic life, and others for the marks of martyrdom which Diocletian's persecution had inflicted on them. But in theological skill they were all overshadowed by Athanasius the Great, who was still only a deacon to the Bishop of Alexandria. On the basis of Holy Scripture and Tradition, he demonstrated that the Son of God, far from being created by the Father, was born of Him, of His own substance, before all the ages, and that consequently the Son does not differ in His nature from the Father, but forms with Him a single Godhead. Nearly all those present approved him, and the following formula was inserted in the Creed: “And [I believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father only-born, that is of the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten, not made, of one and the same essence of the Father; through Whom all things were made.” This Creed was signed by all the Fathers present, over 300 in number, and was ordained as the exact expression of the Church's doctrine on her divine Founder. Arius and two of his supporters who refused to sign the Creed were sent into exile.

 

The Third Ecumenical Synod.

   The Second Ecumenical Synod affirmed not only the perfect divinity of Christ, but also His perfect humanity, by condemning the heresy of Apollinarianism, which began to spread in 362. This heresy consisted in the denial of a “rational” soul to the incarnate Logos, asserting that the God-Man took on only the “irrational” soul and material body, having His divinity in place of the rational soul. The Fathers protested against this, maintaining that if the incarnate Logos did not assume full humanity with its rational soul, He left our noblest part unhealed; “for that which He did not assume, He did not heal.” These were the arguments which the Fathers at the Second Synod opposed to Apollinarianism; but they had as yet no definite and crystallized idea of the manner in which the full divinity and the full humanity of Christ were united in His person. Some held that the relation was extremely close; others, extremely loose. Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, was of the latter opinion, and drew so sharp a distinction between the two natures in Christ, that he came eventually to recognize two persons in Him, maintaining that Christ, the son of Mary, was one, and Christ, the Son of God, was another; so that Mary should be rightly called “Christotokos” (i.e. Mother of Christ) and not “Theotokos” (i.e. Mother of God). To combat this heresy, Theodosius II summoned to Ephesus in 431 the Third Ecumenical Synod, which affirmed that the Church confesses one Christ, one Son, one Lord, Who is at once both God and Man, Who was born of the Father before all the ages, and became incarnate through the Virgin Mary at the appointed time. In his pride, Nestorius refused to yield to the unanimous decision of the Church, and preferred to retire into exile, where he died in 440. A similar fate befell his supporters; persecuted by the Orthodox, they took refuge with the Persians, who received them with open arms, as a hostile gesture towards the Byzantine Empire.

 

The Fifth Ecumenical Synod.

   The decisions of the Synod of Chalcedon were not, however, universally accepted. The Armenians, considering that the Decree of Chalcedon verged on Nestorianism, rejected it at a local Synod which met at Etchmiadzin in 491. The Copts of Egypt, their neighbors the Abyssinians, and the Syrian Jacobites likewise preferred to break away from the Catholic Church and to found schismatic Monophysite communities rather than admit two separate natures in Christ, — a doctrine which they thought amounted to cutting in two the Person of the God-Man and returning to the teaching of Nestorius. In order to emphasize the difference between the recognition of two persons in Christ, which was the heretical opinion held by Nestorius, and the recognition of two natures in one Person, which was the Orthodox teaching of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Emperor, Justinian the Great, following the now established custom, convened the Fifth Ecumenical Synod at Constantinople in 553. This Synod condemned certain Theological works of Nestorian flavor, hoping thereby to conciliate the Monophysites and to persuade them to return to the Catholic Church.

 

The Sixth Ecumenical Synod.

   Another method was followed by the Emperor Heraclius (611-641), who was moved chiefly by political considerations and was striving by every means to maintain the threatened unity of his empire. He tried to reconcile Monophysites and Orthodox on the basis of the formula of “two natures in Christ, but one activity,” or, as a later edict phrased it, “two natures in Christ, but one will.” This solution of the controversy, known under the name of Monotheletism, was not, however, acceptable to the Orthodox theologians, who pronounced it contrary to the Gospel and to sound reasoning. If Christ had two natures, it was inevitable that He should also have had two activities, — as God working miracles, rising from the dead, and ascending into Heaven; as man, performing the ordinary acts of daily life. Similarly, if He had two natures, each one must have Јad its individual will. In 680, therefore, under Constantine Pogonatus, the Sixth Ecumenical Synod was convened at Constantinople. Its members condemned Monotheletism as a heresy, and laid it down that as in Jesus Christ there are two natures, unconfused, unchanged, inseparable and indivisible, so also there are in Him two natural activities and two wills, which do not strive against each other, since the human will subordinates itself to the all-powerful divine will. To this very day one small community still adheres to Monotheletism; it is that of the Maronites of Lebanon.

 

The Most Eminent Fathers.

 

The Apostolic Fathers.

   The title of “Fathers” is given to those distinguished men of the first eight centuries of the Christian era who combined profound learning with a saintly life and perfect purity of faith, and who strengthened others in the Christian life by their written and spoken word. Those who had every kind of knowledge, but whose faith was in some way imperfect, are called “teachers,” and are not entitled to equal honor with the Fathers, although they, too, contributed all that was humanly possible. The earliest Fathers were the Apostolic Fathers, so named because they were the disciples and fellow-workers or contemporaries of the Apostles. These are Clement, Bishop of Rome (d. 100), who worked with the Apostle Paul; Barnabas the Cypriot, who also preached the Gospel with Paul, and who, tradition says, was stoned to death by the Jews at Salamis in Cyprus; Ignatius of Antioch, whose martyrdom under Trajan in 115 has already been mentioned; Polycarp of Smyrna, whose martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius in 166 has also been mentioned; and two or three others. Written memorials of all these men have survived, chiefly in the form of occasional epistles to various Christian communities. They form a slender but precious volume; for the works of the Apostolic Fathers were written immediately after the holy books of the New Testament, and are inspired by a supreme love of and devotion to the Savior.

 

Apologists.

   The writers who succeeded the Apostolic Fathers represent, as it were, the adolescence of Church Literature. As their common characteristic is a bold defense of the faith, they have been called the Apologists. We have already met two such apologists: Quadratus, Bishop of Athens, and the Athenian philosopher, Aristides, both of whom presented apologies to the Emperor Hadrian on behalf of their unjustly persecuted fellow-Christians. To them must be added the philosopher, Justin, who addressed two apologies to Marcus Aurelius, under whom he was martyred in 166; the Athenian, Athenagoras, who flourished between the years 170-180, and addressed an “Intercession on behalf of the Christians” to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus; and Theophilus of Antioch (d. 182), who submitted an exposition of the Christian faith to his pagan friend Autolycus. All three present a sincere and detailed account of the beliefs of the Christians and of their manner of life, thus giving the lie to the false and unfounded accusations of their enemies that they met by night to indulge in orgies and to slaughter and eat new-born babes. Justin especially was an excellent apologist, and defended Christianity not only against the pagans, but also, in another work entitled “A dialogue with Trypho,” against the Jews. His life was a tireless search for truth; one after another, he went through every system of philosophy, and sat under every learned man of his age, without finding satisfaction for his spiritual craving, until finally he attained peace in Christianity. To the end of his days he continued to wear the philosopher's gown, convinced that Christianity was the only infallible philosophy of life.

 

Origen.

   Origen was the son of Leonidas the martyr, whom, as we have seen, he urged not to fear death for Christ's sake, when he was yet a child. It has been said that the wrote more books than a man could read in a life-time. As an apologist, he wrote his treatise Against Celsus, in which he refutes the idle accusations of that formidable enemy of Christianity. As a writer on dogma, he has left us his work On Principles, the first example of Christian Dogmatics. As a commentator, he composed long commentaries on almost every part of the Bible. As a critic, he labored at the Hexapla, wherein he set out in six parallel columns the original and the translations which existed in his day, in order to determine the original text. Unfortunately, this man, whose great zeal for Christ drove him even into Arabia to preach the Gospel, and who converted Julia Mammaea, the mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus, strayed into certain errors of individual opinion which have made later generations hostile to his memory. But in spite of this, to Origen belongs the glory of having laid the foundations of almost every branch of Theology, and of having been the master of those who followed after; for many of the great Fathers of the Church were educated by his writings. His death was consistent with his life, for he succumbed in 254 to wounds inflicted upon him during the Decian persecution.

 

Athanasius.

   To the Alexandrian School also belong Saint Athanasius and the three Cappadocians, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, who bring us to the most glorious epoch of Greek Church Literature. It was the “Golden Age,” which produced spiritual works of such perfection, eloquence, profundity and originality, that not only were they to remain unsurpassed, but were to serve as patterns and models to posterity. Athanasius (d. 373), who was small of stature but mighty of spirit, was the fearless champion of Orthodoxy, for whose sake he fought for forty-five years, and was ten times sent into exile. There were times when he seemed to be abandoned by all and struggling alone against kings and peoples; but he was fighting for truth, and in the end truth triumphed. In the course of his troubled and wandering life he found time to write treatises appropriate to the times, to compose long epistles and apologies and to devote himself to the study of Holy Scriptures. His works are characterized by wealth and depth of meaning and by a severe dialectic method, though they are not always perfectly polished in style; for Athanasius was constantly in want, and wrote more often upon his knee than in the quietness of a study.

 

The Three Cappadocians.

   The battles waged for Orthodoxy by Athanasius were continued by the three Cappadocians. Basil (d. 379), whose mother, Emmelia, was a most devout woman, studied philosophy in Athens. There he made a life-long friend of his fellow-student, Gregory of Nazianzus, with whom he retired, when their philosophical studies were ended, to a hermitage in Pontus, in order to study the works of Origen, and to prepare himself for a theological career. Basil's learning and virtue soon raised him to the archbishopric of Caesarea, which long remained under his pastoral care. To him is due the credit for having founded the first poor-house in the world, called by his contemporaries the “Basilias,” on which he expended his whole income. His love of Orthodoxy brought him into conflict with the Arian Emperor Valens, before whom he remained undaunted. His interpretative, doctrinal and ethical treatises, like his letters, shine out in the front rank of the world's literature, and justify the title bestowed on him, “torch-bearer of the universe.” In his homilies on the Hexaemeron, he blends religion with natural science for the understanding of the people; and his Advice to the young on how to profit by the writings of the ancient Greek authors is worthy of study. His death was lamented, not by Christians alone, but even by Jews and pagans. His brother, Gregory of Nyssa (d. 394), excels in his works rather as a speculative philosopher and scholar than as a practical moralist. Philosophical speculation also characterizes the work of Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), already mentioned as the friend of Basil, whom the people named “the Theologian” on account of the sermons on the divinity of the Logos which he preached against the Arian heresy in the church of Saint Anastasia at Constantinople, in order to draw the current of popular opinion back into the channels of uncorrupted faith. So popular had Gregory become at that time that Theodosius the Great invited him to become Archbishop of Constantinople, a position from which he soon retired when he realized the perpetual machinations of which it was the center. Poet in his poetry and his sermons, Gregory was a poet in his life also, being the opposite to his practical and phlegmatic friend, Basil.

 

Other Fathers.

   The recital of these few famous names constitutes not a tenth of what should be said upon this subject. Apart from the Fathers we have mentioned there are others, distinguished as historians (like Eusebius of Caesarea and Socrates), as catechists (like Cyril of Jerusalem), as commentators (like Theodoret of Cyrus), or as controversialists (like Cyril of Alexandria). Nor must we forget the eminent Latin Fathers of the West, among whom Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine shine out as stars of the first magnitude. But we have merely sought to give some idea of those exceptional men, who by the splendor of their learning and morality adorned the Church both in their life-time and after it.

 

 

Christian Life and Worship

 

The Tares Among the Wheat.

   But corn and tares grow up together, and ancient habits are hard to put aside. The Christian Church did not lack sinners, who offered a striking contrast to her saints, and were a reproach to the Christian reputation. Most grievous of all evils was the hypocrisy of those who did not practice the faith that they professed. Such, in apostolic times, were Ananias and Sapphira; in the times of the persecutions, those whom fear caused to deny their faith and deliver to the persecutors certificates of paganism; and, during the years of peace, those pseudo-Christians who posed as Christians in order to curry royal favor. How many other sins were rife among the Christians, and especially in such great centers as Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople, may be seen by anyone who reads the sermons of those Fathers who denounced from the pulpit the evils of their time. The great ladies were accompanied, when they went out, by crowds of serving-maids to advertise their wealth; their adornments were costly, and they frequently wore religious pictures embroidered on their elaborate robes. Magicians, astrologers and cheiromancers divided the sympathies of many Christians who were unable to abandon their old superstitions. The people had such a mania for the spectacles at the hippodrome, that even on Good Friday the services of Saint Sophia were disturbed by the shouting from the hippodrome at Constantinople. Shameless actors disgraced the stage with vile and licentious spectacles. To crown all, many bishops dishonored their calling by their passions, intrigues and conspiracies. It was bishops such as these who persecuted Athanasius, forced Gregory the Theologian to resign, and did their share in causing the banishment of John Chrysostom.

 

The First Hermit.

   The moral decadence into which the Roman Empire had sunk when Christianity appeared, the merciless persecutions directed by the pagans against the Christians, and a desire to worship God freely and unhindered, impelled some of the most ardent followers of the Gospel to withdraw from such a cruel and corrupt community. Retiring into desert places, they preached life-long celibacy, and made solitary prayer and communion with the Lord the aim and purpose of their life. These men were called hermits, monks, anchorites and ascetics. The first hermit mentioned in history is Anthony (d. 356), who in 270, when he was eighteen years old, happened to hear read in church, in his native town of Alexandria, the Gospel text: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me” (Matthew 19:21). He immediately distributed the whole of his large fortune among the poor, and withdrew into the desert, where he spent his whole life, only appearing once or twice in Alexandria to preach against Arianism, and to convert hosts of idolaters to the Christian faith. His life has been related by his friend and admirer, Athanasius the Great. A contemporary of Anthony was Paul (d. 340), who came from the Thebaid, and whom Anthony discovered in the desert, where he had been hidden for seventy years.

 

Places of Public Worship.

   Worship, which brings the believer into relation and communion with God, forms a component part of the moral life. In the earliest times, Christians met together for worship at private houses, where they received the Holy Sacraments and ate together the so-called “agapes,” or love-feasts; during the persecutions, they took refuge in hiding-places, caves and catacombs. But when the persecutions came to an end, they began to meet together for worship in magnificent churches, which were often built and adorned by emperors, such as Constantine the Great, who embellished his newly-built capital with the churches dedicated to God's Wisdom, God's Peace and God's Power, and whose example was followed by many of his successors. In shape, the first buildings for public worship were quadrilateral and oblong, with the altar at the east end, and the porch at the west, and were known as “basilicas.” In the course of time, wings were added on either side of the basilica, and thus the once quadrangular building took on the appearance of a cross. When for the first time Justinian placed a round dome on this cruciform building, the true Byzantine style of architecture was evolved, such as we see it in the beautiful church of Saint Sophia, built by Anthemius in 537. Icons were not unknown even in the earliest times, but they were at first of a symbolic character, as is evident from the catacombs. Thus, e.g., a dove stood for the Holy Spirit; and anchor for hope; a phoenix for the resurrection; a ship for the Church; a basket with loaves for Holy Communion; a fish was depicted to represent cryptographically our Lord; because each letter of its equivalent in Greek was taken as the initial of one of His attributes; thus: —

 

Ι Ιησους — Jesus

Χ Χριστος — Christ

Θ Θεου — God's

Υ Υιος — Son

Σ Σωτηρ — Savior

 

Later, scenes from the Bible began to appear in church decoration, and the icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Saints. Some of these icons were made of mosaic, and so lasted indefinitely; but no statues were allowed in churches.

 

Part II.

Mediaeval Times.

(A.D. 700-1453).

 

The Moravians.

   Among other Slavonic tribes were the Moravians, who settled on German soil and came under German domination. But in 855 their king, Rostislav, freed them from the German yoke, and then appealed to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, to send him Christian preachers; whereupon Michael, with the co-operation of the Great Patriarch Photius, sent out into Moravia the two famous missionaries and heralds of civilization to the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius, Greeks from Salonica who had practiced the monastic life in the Monastery of Polychronius at Constantinople. Not only did these two men preach God's Word among the Moravians; they also translated the Bible and the Byzantine Liturgy into the Slav tongue for the benefit of the newly-founded Moravian Church, which they placed under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, whose envoys they were. Unfortunately, in 867, Rostislav changed his mind, for political reasons, and turned to the Church of Rome, which in those days began to aspire to be the supreme ecclesiastical center of Christendom. The two fellow-missionaries were then summoned before the Pope, and Cyril stayed in Rome until his death, while Methodius was sent to continue his work as Archbishop of Moravia. As long as Methodius lived, he fought for the preservation of the Slavonic Bible and the Byzantine Liturgy in church use. After his death, however, the Roman See abolished them and replaced them by Latin, scornfully rejecting the Slavonic language as “barbarous and profane.”

 

The Bulgarians.

   During the ninth century, too, the Bulgarians received Christianity from the same Byzantine source. The Bulgarians, a Tartar tribe, who had once lived on the shores of the Caspian Sea, migrated thence in the fifth century and, traveling up the Danube, established themselves permanently in the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula. They were at first a heathen people of savage customs, and even practiced human sacrifice; but from 800 onwards they began to progress along the ways of enlightenment, and under the influence of the native Slavs, adopted the Slavonic language and race consciousness. Their proximity to the Byzantine Empire was not at all pleasant to the Byzantines, whom they constantly harried; it had, however, an undoubtedly beneficial influence on the Bulgarians themselves by accustoming them to the atmosphere of Christianity. The first herald of Christianity to the Bulgarians was the sister of their king Boris, who had been initiated into Christian beliefs while she was a prisoner in Constantinople. After 861, however, Boris himself was the hardest and most systematic worker for the Christianisation of his people, having been persuaded on the one hand by a fearful plague from which he had been saved through prayer to Jesus Christ, and on the other by the terrible impression made on his mind by a picture of the Last Judgment, which had been shown to him by the missionary Methodius.

The Russians.

 A much greater conquest for the Orthodox Church of the East was the introduction and dissemination of the Gospel in the vast territories of Russia, which took place a century later than the conversion of the Bulgarians. This important event was preceded by the various attempts made at different times, first of which may be reckoned the traditional visit of Andrew the Apostle to Scythia, and his preaching of the Gospel to the Scythians, who were the ancestors of the Russians. But these original seeds were quickly choked, and for centuries the Russians clung to their worship of Peroun, the god of thunder. Towards the middle of the ninth century, we hear of a second attempt to introduce Christianity into Russia, when the Russian princes, Oskold and Dir, setting out against Constantinople in their canoes, were overtaken and decimated in the Golden Horn by a fierce storm, and, returning terrified to Kiev, begged the Emperor and the Patriarch Photius to send priests to baptize them. Still another attempt was made later on by the Queen Mother Olga, who, when staying at Constantinople in 955, was baptized by the Patriarch Polyeuct and decided to return to her country and to evangelize it herself. But she, too, was laughed at for her pains; and it was left to Olga's grandson, Vladimir, to receive divine inspiration and to prove himself at last the “Isapostle” of Russia.

 

The War Against Images.

   When, therefore, Leo issued his two proclamations against images in 726 and 730, the first ordering that all images should be raised higher up, and the second commanding their total removal, he found ranged against him not only the people, but men of proved distinction in learning and piety; such as Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, who preferred to retire rather than proceed to such extremes, John of Damascus, who published three fiery apologies for the right use of images, and the Pope of Rome, Gregory II, who protested to the Emperor by letter. But the Isaurian yielded neither to the advice of those wiser than himself nor to the insurrection of his people, and stubbornly carried on his plan of campaign against the images. More unfortunately still, those who carried out the royal commands were uneducated men who committed acts of sheer vandalism. Thus it came about that precious works of art, which would have been the pride of any art gallery, were ruthlessly consigned to the flames; valuable manuscripts were destroyed because of the miniatures that adorned them; the Ecumenical School at Constantinople was burnt down with its splendid library of rare books; and Christian blood was shed when the image of Christ was being hacked down from the Bronze Gateway of the Imperial Palace. For the sake of one abuse, which might have been corrected by the better education of the people, all these abuses were committed, and the state was divided into two fiercely opposed camps: that of the image-lovers and that of the image-breakers.

 

Orthodoxy Sunday.

   Even after the decision of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, the Byzantine Emperors, Leo the Armenian (813-820), Michael the Stammerer (820-829), and Theophilus (829-842), waged incessant war against the images. After the death of the latter, therefore, his widow Theodora, with her brother-in-law, Manuel, her brother Bardas and the Chancellor Theoctistus, realizing that only the recognition of the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council could bring peace to the troubled realm, summoned a great Synod to Constantinople on the first Sunday of Lent in 842. It was presided over by the Ecumenical Patriarch Methodius, and declared that the Decree of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod was binding upon all, and upon this basis the opposing parties were reconciled. With great pomp, the images were then carried back into the churches, and the places of public worship at last recovered their old adornments. That day was known as “Orthodoxy Sunday,” and was henceforth appointed as a yearly festival. Protests against the images still continued, but gradually they became weak and spasmodic, until at last they disappeared entirely.

 

The Paulician Heretics.

   During the Middle Ages the Eastern Church was harassed not only by the image-breakers, but also by various other heretics, among whom the most important were the Paulicians and the Bogomils. The Paulicians appeared in Armenia during the seventh century, and survived as a religious system until the twelfth. Their leader was a certain Constantine who took upon himself to continue the work of the Apostle Paul, thus giving this heresy its name, and tried to reproduce the activity of the Apostle to the Gentiles by giving himself the name of Paul's fellow-worker, Silvanus, and by calling the centers of his heresy Macedonia, Achaia, Corinth, Colossae and so forth. He maintained that only he and his followers represented the true Church founded by Jesus Christ, while all others were “Romans” and not Christians. The basis of the Paulician heresy was dualism, or the belief in two gods: the Good God and the Prince of this World, or “Cosmocrator.” Further, the Paulicians taught that priesthood was universal, accepted only the New Testament as Holy Writ, and rejected the icons, the intercession of saints, the monastic life, and every form of pomp and mystery in religion. In 752 Constantine Copronymus transplanted the Paulicians to Thrace. After his time, they were mercilessly persecuted by Michael Rhangabe (811-813) and Leo the Armenian (813-820), who set up an inquisition against them and thus forced them to return to Armenia, whence they made constant destructive raids into Byzantine territory. John Zimiskes established them around Philippopolis in 970 to defend the frontiers of the Empire, but from 1118 onwards Alexius Comnenus set out to exterminate them by persuasion and force.

 

The Bogomil Heretics.

   The Bogomils, or Beloved of God, appeared in Bulgaria in the twelfth century, and were most active in that region. The head of this sect was Basil, whom in 1119 Alexius Comnenus arrested, and tried to make him reveal the secrets of his heresy. Finding, however, that violence was of no avail, the Emperor changed his tactics, and treated Basil as a friend and table-companion until his silence was conquered and he unfolded all his mysteries. Then the curtains suddenly parted, and the Patriarch appeared with the Senate to sentence Basil to death at the stake. The conduct of Alexius was hardly honorable; some excuse may, however, be found for him in the fact that the populace was raging against the Bogomils, and that by condemning their leader to the flames, Alexius at least rescued his followers from the hands of the mob. But fire cannot burn out heresy, and more than a century later Bogomils were still to be found, often, indeed, hidden under a monk's cowl. The Bogomils limited Holy Writ to the books of the New Testament, the Prophets and the Psalms, and the only Sacrament they acknowledged was Baptism by the Spirit, and not by water. They, too, believed that two principles governed the world: Christ on the one hand, and on the other Satanael.

 

 

Church Government.

   In spite of all local differences of language, nationality and form of worship, the Christian Church had succeeded throughout eight centuries in maintaining absolute unity. In the ninth century, however, East and West began to drift apart, until in the eleventh century the separation between them definitely became an established and permanent fact. The causes of this unfortunate schism, which rent the body of the Church in two, were many and various, and will appear in due course; but chief among them was the spirit of domination which gradually inflamed Rome and caused her to aspire to supreme sovereignty over all the Churches in every part of the world. In order, however, that this matter may be better understood, we must first say something about the original form of Church government throughout the Church, and how the Popes suddenly tried to usurp the reigns of government.

 

The Five Patriarchates.

   Before Constantine the Great, Byzantium was an inconspicuous bishopric under the Metropolitan of Heraclea. But from the moment that Constantinople supplanted Old Rome as the capital of the Empire, it was only natural that it should become, too, the Empire's most important archbishopric; and the Fourth Ecumenical Synod declared accordingly that the Archbishop of Constantinople was entitled to equal reverence with the Archbishop of Rome, “because Constantinople was the king's city.” For the same reason — because, that is to say, the once insignificant town of Byzantium rose to be capital of the world at the time when the ancient city of Rome was dwindling into insignificance. — it did not belie the existing state of affairs when in 587 the Emperor Justinian bestowed on the Archbishop of Constantinople, John the Faster, the honorary title of “Ecumenical,” which his successors have held ever since. In the course of time, the administrative authority of the Archbishops of Ephesus and Caesarea became subordinate to that of the Archbishop of Constantinople, and Salonica came under Rome; while in 431 the bishopric of Jerusalem was promoted to the rank of an independent ecclesiastical center, as a mark of reverence to the Holy City that had cradled Christianity at its birth. Thus, by the middle of the fifth century, there were in the Christian world five supreme ecclesiastical rulers, who then began to receive the title of Patriarch: — namely, the Archbishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. But in the seventh century the fierce inroads of Mohammedanism into Egypt, Syria and Palestine diminished the three latter Patriarchates, and restricted them in every way. Henceforth, therefore, two ecclesiastical heads remained supreme in Christendom: in the West the Primate of Old Rome, whose authority was steadily growing; and in the East the Primate of New Rome, or Constantinople, who was striving to maintain his ecclesiastical independence.

 

The Crusades.

   Thenceforward, various unfortunate occurrences contributed to make this division permanent. The most terrible of all were the Crusades, which, though looked upon by the West as heroic enterprises inspired by sacred zeal for the deliverance of the Holy Land, were to the East nothing less than a scourge and a calamity. The Crusaders, who represented a lower stage of civilization and were inflamed against the Orthodox by intolerance and fanaticism, looted, pillaged, profaned and destroyed everything. Everywhere they left in their wake tokens of their fearful passage. In the Ionian and the Aegean Islands, they deposed the Orthodox bishops, and forced the Greek clergy to submit to Latin bishops. In Cyprus, as we shall see further on, they tied the Orthodox monks to the tails of horses, and thus made them gallop to their death. In Salonica they held orgies. Particularly in Constantinople were outrages committed by the armies of the Fourth Crusade led by Baldwin. They dishonored old men and young girls; they slung the Holy Sacraments out into the streets, and drove donkeys into the Church of Saint Sophia to carry away the looted treasures of the church; they hacked down the diamond-studded altar and set a low woman to sing and dance upon the Patriarch's throne to outrage the holiest feelings of the Eastern Church. The Greek Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, in terror of these fierce invasions, were obliged to abandon their dioceses in Syria and Palestine, and to seek refuge within the Byzantine Empire. Eastern Christianity can never forget the behavior of those European barbarians who by their looting and plundering and their sixty years of tyrannical misrule in Constantinople (1204-1261) prepared the way for the destruction of the Byzantine Empire and hastened on its downfall.

 

The Hegira.

   When, however, Mohammed emerged in 622 from the privacy of his family to present himself to a wider public as a messenger of God and to preach his new religion openly in Mecca, the people of Mecca rose up against him menacingly, and sought his death. He was obliged to take flight on a dromedary, and to seek refuge at Medina, which was the first town wholeheartedly to embrace his doctrine and to range herself at his side. The Mohammedans therefore count the year of Mohammed's flight or “Hegira” as the first year of their religious calendar, just as we reckon our era from the year of our Savior’s birth. From Medina, Mohammed set out with his followers to subdue Mecca and gradually won over the whole of Arabia, which he inspired with religious fervor and led forth to political conquests. He believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission, and even imagined at times that he received commands from Heaven, carried to him by angels; he had, moreover, an unshakable belief in the destiny of Islam, his new religion, as a world-wide power. Let us see what were the tenets of this new religion.

 

Mediaeval Letters.

 

Christian Life and Worship.

 

The Condition of Morals.

   The morality of mediaeval life was disfigured by many blemishes. Many Christians confined their virtue to the observance of outward forms, and considered that frequent attendance at festivals and holy days, pilgrimages to famous shrines, the worship of wonder-working images, and similar ceremonies were enough to justify them in their Christian calling. The Emperors themselves were often the worst sinners in this respect. Michael III, nicknamed the Drunkard, who treated everything holy and sacred with mockery, was yet constantly presenting wonderful votive offerings to St. Sophia. And Basil the Macedonian, who assassinated him in order to seize the throne for himself, built churches to propitiate the Archangel Michael, who at his death would carry off his soul and bring it up to judgment. Blinding and mutilation were common occurrences in the palaces of those days. And yet these kings considered themselves as anointed by God to be the leaders and absolute rulers of their people, — a conviction which accounts for their perpetual interference in the affairs of the Church. It was they who negotiated with Rome, against the wishes of their whole people; they who convened Synods and condemned heretics; and they who arbitrarily elected and deposed the Patriarchs. “I built thee, even, and I will break thee too,” were the words of a certain Emperor to a Patriarch who had fallen out of favor.

 

The Reverse of the Medal.

   It must not, however, be supposed from what has just been said that the Middle Ages were a period of unrelieved darkness in which virtue was unknown. That faith lived on in the heart of the people, although too often dormant, is evident from their fervent prayers and supplications during their political reverses, and from the general and passionate litanies held in times of earthquake, pestilence, and other such calamities. That this faith, moreover, was not dead and barren is proved by the institution of every kind that existed for the succour of the poor and the orphaned, under the direct care of the Church. And if, on the one hand, the interference of the State in ecclesiastical affairs marked an abuse of power, it revealed on the other hand the great interest taken in religion at that time, when the idea of a state without religion was inconceivable, and when even the Byzantine Emperors themselves were sometimes skilled theologians. Neither should it be forgotten that, though some of the heads of the Church submitted through weakness to the imperial will, there was yet no lack of fearless prelates who valiantly defended the independence of their Church and, like other Nathans, rebuked the errors of their rulers. Patriarchs such as Germanus, Photius, Nicholas the Mystic and Arsenius, are the brightest jewels of the Orthodox Church.

 

Churches and Icons.

   The Middle Ages saw an enormous increase in the building of places of worship, which provided an adequate outlet for the religious feeling of the people, without, however, improving from an architectural point of view on the magnificent achievement of Justinian in the Church of Saint Sophia. The only difference and innovation was in respect of the roofing and the exterior of the church. Whereas in Justinian's time a single semi-circular dome had been considered sufficient to roof the whole building, the architects now preferred to construct around the central dome a number of smaller ones, supporting each one of them on a polygonic base so as to give it the appearance of a many-lighted lantern. The attention to ornament, too, which had formerly been concentrated on the interior of the church, now began to extend to the exterior as well, where beauty was sought by the skilful disposal of colored bricks. The brilliant but costly inlay-work of mosaic inside the church was replaced by the less expensive decoration of frescoes painted in liquid colors. Symbolic representation either disappeared entirely, or was confined to signs carved in wood beneath the sacred pictures on the iconostasis. Byzantine Iconography grew up austere, uncompromising and, as it were, foreign to the vanities of this world, breathing out a lesson of superhuman holiness. The iconoclasts set upon it barbarously, and very few works survived, except a certain number in the Monasteries of Mount Athos particularly. Such as they are, however, and taken in conjunction with the miniatures found in manuscripts, they suffice to prove that the criticism leveled at Byzantine Hagiography is in no way justified. Mount Athos and Salonica were the main artistic centers of Mediaeval Christianity in the East; and thence, it is said, came the great Greek artist of the thirteenth century, Manuel Panselenus, whose rules of painting are still observed today by the sacred artists of our Church. Statues were never permitted in Orthodox churches; but other plastic arts were brilliantly cultivated, such as wood-carving, gold-working, enameling and embroidery.

 

Ceremonies and Sacraments.

   Theologians were not yet agreed as to the number of the Sacraments. John of Damascus, in his work On the Orthodox Faith, mentions two, which are indeed the most essential, — Baptism and Holy Eucharist; Nicholas Babasilas refers to three, — Baptism, the Chrism and the Eucharist; and Theodore of Studium to six, — Baptism, the Chrism, the Eucharist, Ordination, Initiation into a monastic order, and the Rites of Burial. It was only in the fifteenth century that the great liturgist Simeon of Salonica first taught that there are seven Sacraments — namely, Baptism, the Chrism, the Eucharist, Repentance, Ordination, Marriage and Unction; and from his day to our own this reckoning has been accepted by the Church. The rite of Baptism has always been performed by a triple immersion and emersion in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Chrism was performed by anointing with Holy Oil. The Holy Eucharist was celebrated with leavened bread, for the use of unleavened bread, habitual to the Armenians, the Jacobites and the Latin Church, was strictly forbidden to the Orthodox; and though Orthodox believers always continued to receive the Communion under both its forms, it appears that from the twelfth century onwards there arose the practice of using a spoon for the lay congregation, while the right of communion directly from the Chalice was reserved for the clergy. The confession of sins to a spiritual father was considered an essential preliminary to Repentance, which was, therefore, called “Confession,” and was a necessary preparation for Holy Communion; penance was imposed on those whose sins were particularly heavy not for punishment, but to assist their recovery. Marriage was optional for the clergy, but the higher offices of the Church were only tenable by unmarried clerics. The dissolution of marriage was normally only brought about by the death of one of the partners, after which the survivor might contract a second and third, but never a fourth marriage. Finally, the ceremony of Unction developed from a simple anointing with oil, after suitable prayers had been offered for the restoration of health, into a rich and imposing ceremony, consisting of seven parts and performed by seven priests.

 

Sacred Hymnology.

   The lengthening of the Church Calendar by the creation of new festivals and holidays in honor of the Lord, the Virgin Mary and the Saints, was followed by an enrichment of the Church Hymnal, in which the people and events commemorated were extolled. It is pleasant to record that, though the golden age of Sacred Poetry was at the beginning of the Middle Ages, and almost coincides with the Iconoclastic period. The first centuries of Christianity were spent in the attempt to free Christian Hymnology from the bondage of classical models; for, with few exceptions, all Christian poets composed their poems in accordance with the metre and language of Homer, Pindar, or Anacreon. Many years went by before the ancient forms of prosody gave way to meters based on the accentuation of words, and the unintelligible language of Homer and Pindar was replaced by a new tongue which was both popular and harmonious. This reform found its most perfect exponent in Romanus the Melodus, who is sometimes thought to have lived in the eighth century and sometimes still earlier. Tradition has it that Romanus lay sleeping one Christmas Day, when the Virgin appeared to him in a dream and, offering him a scroll of papyrus, urged him to eat it. When he did so, he savored a taste sweeter than honey; and, rising full of enthusiasm, he went up into the pulpit and began to sing before the whole congregation: — “The Virgin today bringeth forth the Supersubstantial and the earth offereth the cave to the Unapproachable.”

   Devoting himself thenceforth to the writing of hymns, he became the Orpheus of the Church; for poetic inspiration, fertility of imagination, suppleness of style and simplicity of language, are in no other ecclesiastical poet found in such happy combination. Around the name of Romanus, with whom Byzantine poetry attains its most perfect flowering, revolve others such as those of Andreas of Crete (d. 732), Ger-manus of Constantinople (d. 734), Cosmas the Singer (d. 760), Theophanes Graptus (d. 818), Theodore of Studium (d. 826), Methodius of Constantinople (d. 846), and others; and there were even Emperors, such as Justinian, Leo the Wise, Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Theodore Lascaris, who aspired to compose hymns for the Church; but none of them equaled or excelled Ronianus. At first the poets themselves set their poems to music, orally teaching the melody to their pupils. But later, John of Damascus (d. 780), who distinguished himself as much in hymnography as in theology, invented the system of musical notation, and transmitted to his successors a written record of the eight musical modes on which the various church hymns were chanted. He then went on to compose his Oktoechus, which contains poems divided according to the tune to which they are to be sung. It may here be noted that the hymnology of the Eastern Church has never made use of the organ, although the organ was a Greek invention, much used at the Hippodrome and in the palaces of Byzantium, and introduced thence into the West during the reign of Constantine Copronymus.

 

 

Part III.

(A.D. 1453-1930).

Modern Times.

 

The Greek Revolution.

   On the 25th March, 1821, in the Hagia Laura, the Archbishop of Old Patras, Germanus, raised the banner of rebellion against the Turks, bearing the motto of “Freedom or Death,” and the whole of the Greek mainland, with the Peloponnesus and the Aegean Islands, rose up to an unequal struggle. This event, which touched the hearts of sensitive people in the West, correspondingly enraged the Sultan, who swore revenge against the revolutionaries. The first victim of his rage was the cultured and ascetic Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory V, who, on April 22nd, Easter Day of that same year, was hanged from the gates of the Patriarchate, and whose dead body, after having been dragged through the streets of Constantinople by the crowd, was finally flung into the sea. After him, the Metropolitans of Ephesus, Chalcedon, Derki, Salonica and Adrianople, were all put to death in a similar manner in various parts of the Seven-Hilled City. The Great Logothete, Stephen Mavrogenes, was beheaded, and the Grand Interpreter of the Fleet, Nicholas Mourouzes, was butchered with his brother. Not only in Constantinople, but in Adrianople, Larissa, Cyprus, Crete and other places as well, the blood of many venerable bishops was shed, sometimes even upon the holy altar. But after seven years of war, the little country of Greece achieved her independence.

 

The System of Government.

   During the first three centuries after the fall of Constantinople, the Patriarch had the co-operation of two administrative bodies; namely, the “Holy Synod,” which was composed of bishops and deliberated over the most important affairs, and the “Ecclesiastical Council/ which consisted of office-bearers, and dealt with less weighty matters. But in 1763, during the patriarchate of Samuel I, this system of Church government was replaced by the senatorial system, known as “Gerontismos.” Twelve bishops, that is to say, chosen from the places nearest to Constantinople, were continuously in attendance on the Patriarch, permanently assisting him in the work of government, and representing all their fellow-bishops. From one point of view, this system was a good one, because, through long experience and frequent contact with the rulers, it trained a group of men to knowledge of the dangers surrounding them and understanding of the methods by which such dangers might be averted. It had, however, the great disadvantage that in the course of time the rule of these “elders” became arbitrary, since all authority was centered in their hands. A hundred years after its institution, therefore, the system of Gerontismos was abolished, and a new administrative system, better suited to modern requirements, was introduced by the “General Regulations” drawn up in 1862. By these regulations, the affairs of the Patriarchate were divided into the purely “spiritual,” or those that concern faith and morals, and the “material,” which deal with the supervision of schools, the control of bills, the property of monasteries, the settlement of wills, and other kindred matters. The care of the former was entrusted to the “Holy Synod,” which was composed of twelve bishops of the Ecumenical Throne, elected in rotation, and was so constituted that its members were constantly being renewed, all the bishops in turn taking part in the administration; while to deal with the latter a “Mixed Council” was created, on which four members of the Holy Synod sat together with eight eminent laymen, duly elected by the people.

 

The Area of Jurisdiction.

   It was particularly during the eighteenth century that the area subject to the jurisdiction of Ecumenical Patriarchate reached its widest extent. At time there were dependent upon it about one hundred and Archbishops, Metropolitans and bishops, who had their in Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, Albania, Greece, the an and Ionian Islands, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldavia and Walachia, Hungary, and the region called e Russia,” which marked the limit of the Patriarch's authority; for although the Metropolis of Moscow had been promoted to the rank of an independent and self-sufficing Russian Ecclesiastical Center in the sixteenth century, Kiev the Archbishopric of Little Russia, still continued to acknowledge the Patriarch of Constantinople as its spiritual head. The desperate circumstances contributed towards the extension of the Patriarch's sphere of authority. Bulgarians, Serbs, Vlachs, Albanians and other peoples were being crushed by the all-powerful Turk, and needed protection if they were to save at least their faith; and what other refuge had they but the Ecumenical Patriarchate? Thus, in 1766 and 1767, under the previously mentioned Patriarch Samuel, the Archbishopric of Ipek and Ochrida, which were at that time the ecclesiastical centers of the Churches of Serbia and Bulgaria respectively, came spontaneously to the Ecumenical Patriarch, requesting him to take them under his authority. Such was the vast extent of the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the eighteenth century. But the political independence, which from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards began to be enjoyed by Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and, lastly, Albania, also resulted in the emancipation of these countries from the ecclesiastical authority of the Patriarchate. Consequently, — and particularly after the wholesale eradication of Christianity by the Kemalists from the land of the “Seven Stars of the Apocalypse,” — the boundaries of this Patriarchate, first in rank and in authority, have been signally reduced.

 

The Church of Cyprus.

   The Church of Cyprus, like the four eldest Patriarchates, can also boast of great antiquity. Founded in the year 45 by the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, and numbering among her members saints such as Spiridon and Epiphanius, she was granted the privilege of autonomy by the Third Ecumenical Synod, which forbade the Archbishop of Antioch to interfere in the affairs of Cyprus. Unfortunately, in 1191, Richard Coeur de Lion took possession of the island, and sold it to the Knights Templar; and thenceforward the unfortunate Cypriotes, under the yoke of the fanatical Roman Catholic Lusignans, underwent every km of suffering for the sake of their national and religious independence. Not only did the Templar intruder transform the majority of them into serfs, but the Pope imposed on them a Roman Archbishop, to whom the Orthodox bishops were obliged to swear the oath of allegiance. In 1231, in the presence of the Portuguese Pelagius, the representative of Pope Honorius III, the Thirteen Holy Fathers were martyred, having been condemned as heretics for not accepting the innovations of the Roman Church. They were first tied to the tails of horses and dragged over stones, then burnt together with animals, so that it should be impossible to collect their bones. The Venetian occupation of the island in 1489 was merely the substitution of anew tyranny for the old; and the only redeeming feature of the Turkish conquest which followed in 1571 was that it drove away from the island all the Roman intruders. The crowning act of Turkish ferocity was the strangling at Nicosia of the Archbishop of Cyprus, Cyprianus, the Metropolitans of Paphos, Kition and Kyrenia, and other Cypriot notables, by the blood-thirsty Turkish Governor, Kuchuk Mechmet, during the first year of the Greek Revolution (1821). In 1878, Cyprus was taken over by Great Britain, whence had come her first conqueror, Richard Coeur de Lion. But the two hundred and fifty thousand Orthodox Greeks of this martyred island, who constitute four-fifths of its whole population, will never turn their thoughts to higher things until they are freed from foreign domination, and return once more to the care of their natural mother-land.

 

 

Other Orthodox Churches.

   The Orthodox, Eastern and Apostolic Church, which embraces a total of two hundred and fifty million souls in the world today, is not represented only by the four oldest Patriarchates and the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus. By the grace of God, it is also represented by various local and independent Churches; namely, the Churches of Russia, Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Poland and Georgia, together with the autonomous Churches of Finland, Czechoslovakia, Esthonia and America, and the Churches of the Dispersion in Europe. Nor must we forget the Orthodox Greeks of the Dodekanese and of Albania. It is impossible in the present work to dwell upon the history of all these Churches. Something must, however, be said about the first five, which are the most important of them.

 

The Church of Syria.

   It is well known that it was at Antioch that the followers of Christ were first called Christians. The Church of Antioch was founded by the Apostle Peter who headed the church there for seven years, from 37 to 44 A.D. In its early Christian days, Antioch was the richest city of all Syria and the Christians there supported many other communities of new believers. A Synod held at Antioch in the year 341 issued twenty-five Canons dealing with ecclesiastical matters and these precepts were observed by both the Eastern and Western Churches. St. John of Chrysostom, the most eloquent preacher of all Christendom, was born in Antioch and began his religious career there. During his time, Antioch was a city of 200,000 inhabitants and was called the Athens of the East. Antioch became the capital of the diocese of Anatolia when the Byzantine Empire was divided into prefectures by Constantine the Great. Thus all of Syria was included in the jurisdiction of Antioch. In the seventh century, Syria was overrun by the Arabs but the invaders gave the Christians personal and religious freedom. Damascus was proclaimed as the capital of Syria and of all the Arabian Empire. The Patriarch was required to change his residence from Antioch to Damascus where the Patriarchate is still located. Due to Moslem domination from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, the Church of Antioch became practically isolated from the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. From the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, Syria, along with Palestine, was under the dominance of the Crusaders. During this period the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem lived in exile in Constantinople. Early in the fourteenth century the Crusaders were expelled from Syria and a Moslem regime was again established. Later, in the seventeenth century, internal troubles in the Church of Antioch caused a division in the population with some becoming Uniate Romans. For a long period of time, the Patriarch of Antioch and his Metropolitans were elected in Constantinople. Now they are taken from the native population and are elected by the Hierarchy of the Patriarchal Throne of Antioch. Under the Patriarch there are fourteen dioceses each headed by a bishop.

(The above section, “The Church of Syria,” is reprinted from the book Faith of Our Fathers, by Rev. Leonid Soroka and Stan W. Carlson.).

 

 

Orthodoxy in America.

Albanian Church.

   The Albanian Orthodox Church in America was organized by Dr. Fan S. Noli in Boston in 1908. Father Noli was ordained in 1908 by Russian Metropolitan Platon and elected Bishop by his people. As has been noted, Bishop Noli returned to Albania to lead his country's fight for freedom. When his work in Albania was interrupted, he spent a period of time organizing Albanian congregations in other European countries.

   Bishop Noli returned to the United States in 1930 to resume leadership of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America and present is the Bishop of the Church. There are thirteen Albanian Orthodox churches in the United States with the Cathedral located in Boston. The Albanian Orthodox Church in America is a completely self-governing group with no connection with any church abroad.

 

Bulgarian Church.

   The first Bulgarian Orthodox Church in America was built in Madison, Illinois, in 1907. Bulgarian immigration to the United States had increased greatly after 1903, with most of the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians attending Russian Orthodox Churches.

In 1922 the Bulgarian Orthodox Mission of the Holy Synod of Bulgaria began attempts to organize the Bulgars. In January, 1938, a Bishopric in the United States was established with Archbishop Andrey, the present head of the churches, appointed in July, 1938.

   There are now twenty-three organized parishes of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the United States with two more in Canada. There are also fifteen communities that are not yet constituted as parishes. The Cathedral is located in New York City and the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan includes North and South America and Australia.

 

Greek Church.

   The foundations of the very first Greek Orthodox Church in the New World, America, were placed in the year 1866 at New Orleans.

   This was really four years before the actual beginning of the immigration to America of the Orthodox Christians of Greek descent. Even before the first few immigrants of 1870 set foot upon the new land, this first little church existed in New Orleans as a result of the hope of a few Greek merchants residing in that city. The Greeks feel deeply about the religion of their fathers and, as time went on, with immigration increasing, the churches sprang up quickly in various areas of America. At that period the jurisdiction of these communities of Greek Christians came under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Priests were sent out from the motherland to the churches in the New World.

   March 1908, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, headed by Patriarch Joachim III, transferred the spiritual jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox churches “abroad” to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. This was maintained for the next ten years much to the disadvantage of the communities of America — disadvantage because there was no religious leader present, on American soil, to provide necessary organization in the scattered areas of the many growing communities.

   Fortunately, Meletios Metaxakis, Metropolitan of Athens, visiting in the United States in 1918, saw that the need for religious leadership was indispensable right at the source, not back in the mother country. He began at once organizing the Greek Orthodox Churches in America by establishing the Synodical Conclave on October 20, 1918, with Bishop Alexander of Rodostolou as Synodical Supervisor.

   Metropolitan of Athens, Meletios, went back to Greece, but returned to America in three years to continue the organization of the Church. This was February 1921. While still residing in America, on the 25th of November of that year, he was elevated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as Meletios IV. The following January 1922, he arrived in Constantinople.

   There in his new position, by a Synodical Act the first of March, he revoked the Patriarchal Decree of 1908. Thus all the Greek Communities abroad were made to be directly under the Ecumenical Patriarchate and were removed from dependence upon the Holy Synod of Greece. On May 11, 1922, he declared the Church of America an Archdiocese. He placed Bishop Alexander Rodostolou as the Archbishop of North and South America, with three Bishoprics — Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. This was progress. There was hindrance though to speedier progress between the years 1922 and 1930. During this period political events in Greece divided the Greeks in America. The communities became divided ecclesiastically, for to a Christian Orthodox, life's core is his church. Fortunately, the need of religious unity and concord was realized in time. The newly elected Patriarch of Constantinople Photios II undertook the elimination of discord.

   Metropolitan of Corinth Damaskinos was sent to America in May of 1930 for the purpose of temporarily governing the Greek Communities in America and establishing order therein. During the same year Archbishop Alexander and Bishops Philaretos of Chicago and Joachim of Boston departed for Greece where they were appointed Metropolitans.

   On August 20 of that same important year, Metropolitan Athenagoras of Kerkyra was elected Archbishop of America, arriving in New York on February 24, 1931. Two days later he was enthroned in the Church of St. Eleftherios in New York. Meanwhile Exarch Metropolitan Damaskinos had fulfilled his mission of establishing order and departed for home.

   In the next years there were other ecclesiastical changes. By 1949 Archbishop Athenagoras had served as leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in America for eighteen years, a well loved and important worker for the faith. He left to be appointed Patriarch of Constantinople.

   Most Reverend Michael, Metropolitan of Corinth, came at this time to serve as Archbishop of North and South America, for, at the Holy Synod of October 11,1949, he had been elected to this duty. Archbishop Michael is now assisted by Bishops Germanos of Nyssa, Athenagoras of Elaia, Ezekiel of Nazianzos, Demetrios of Olympus, Germanos of Constantia, Polyefktos of Tropaiou, and Irenaios of Abydus, for South America.

   Under the jurisdiction of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America there are the following: All the Greek Communities in the United States of America, Canada, the Bahama Islands, Cuba, Mexico, the Republic of Panama, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The 357 communities are now well organized and there are over 400 priests serving them.

   The communities support parochial schools, Sunday Schools and chapters of the Greek Orthodox Youth of America (GOYA). Three-fourths of the communities have afternoon Greek Schools, Sunday Schools, Choirs and Ladies' Charity Societies. Over half have the youth clubs affiliated with the GOYA and the Olympians (National Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Junior Youth Organization). There are also now seven Eastern Orthodox chaplains serving in the armed forces of the United States and two of these are Greek Orthodox.

   The Archdiocese maintains the Theological Seminary established in 1937 at Pomfret, Conn., and transferred to Brook-line, Mass., in 1946. There American youth of Greek Orthodox lineage are trained for the priesthood and as teachers.

The Archdiocese in 1944 established St. Basil's Academy in Garrison, N. Y. This has two branches — one for Greek women teacher preparation and the other a public school for very young girls of Greek parentage. This particular academy is under the care of the Greek Ladies Philoptochos Society.

   From the tiny foundation of one little church in New Orleans, built by a few hopeful Greek merchants in 1866, has grown the Greek Orthodox Church of America, now a member of both the National and the World Council of the Churches of Christ. In August 1954, Archbishop Michael was named one of the six co-presidents of the World Council of the Churches of Christ. The foundation was built on faith and hope and stands today in solid truth for an ever-growing Christian world.

 

Rumanian Church.

   The first Romanian Orthodox Church to by established in the United States was St. Mary's in Cleveland, Ohio, which was organized on August 15, 1904. Earlier, in 1901, two Romanian Orthodox churches had been organized in Canada. The first Romanian priest to visit the United States was the Reverend George Hertea, but his stay in this country was only temporary. Father Moses Balea, who became the pastor of St. Mary's in Cleveland in November, 1905, was the first of the clergy to come to the United States to stay.

   Until the time of World War I, all Romanian clergymen came from the Romanian homeland, but with the cutting off of immigration, a number of Americans of Romanian origin were ordained by Russian Orthodox Bishops in America. Several years after the termination of World War I, the Metropolitan of Sibiu in Transylvania sent eleven priests to America, five of them remaining in the United States permanently.

   Beginning in 1911, several attempts were made to organize an American diocese of the Romanian Orthodox Church. On February 24, 1918, a group of delegates who met in Youngs-town, Ohio, voted to establish a United States Episcopate. This Episcopate was incorporated and its establishment was confirmed at a subsequent meeting held in Cleveland in April, 1923. The organization, however, did not become active.

   The need for a unified Romanian church organization in America became more apparent in 1924 when it was found that three sources of ecclesiastical authority were recognized by Romanian Orthodox clergymen. Those ordained in Romania considered themselves under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Transylvania, those ordained in America recognized the Russian-American Bishop Adam, and those of the clergy in Canada considered themselves under the authority of the Metropolitan of Moldavia.

   A Romanian Orthodox Episcopate was organized at a church congress held in Detroit, Michigan, in April, 1929. This new Romanian Orthodox Diocese in America was headed by a provisional commission composed of four priests and eight laymen with the Very Reverend John Trutza of Cleveland as President. Repeated requests were made for a bishop to be sent to the United States.

   On March 24, 1935, the Right Reverend Policarp Morusca was consecrated bishop for the American Diocese. He was installed on July 4, 1935, in St. George's Cathedral in Detroit.

Under Bishop Policarp the Romanian Orthodox Church in America grew to more than forty parishes.

   Bishop Policarp returned to Romania in August, 1939, to attend a meeting of the Holy Synod. The outbreak of World War II shortly after prevented his return to America and the political changes which followed World War II complicated matters further and he remained in Europe. Bishop Policarp is still the canonical head of the American Episcopate.

   The American Romanian churches decided recently to return to their original autonomous status. On July 2, 1951, the Right Reverend Valerian D. Trifa was elected as Bishop Coadjutor at a Church Congress held in Chicago, Illinois, and the name of the American Diocese was officially changed to the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate (Diocese) of America.

   The Romanian Orthodox Church in America is divided into five deaneries or districts: Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Canada. The Cathedral of St. George is located in Detroit.

 

Russian Church.

   The Russian Orthodox Church came to America by way of Alaska. Vitus Bering, a Dane who entered the Russian Navy in 1704, was chosen by Peter the Great to explore the North Pacific. Before Bering left St. Petersburg in 1725, Catherine the Great, who had succeeded Peter, gave her support to the plan.

   After an exploration trip during which he proved that Asia and North America were separate continents, Bering returned overland to St. Petersburg. He then built two ships, naming them the St. Pete and the St. Paul, and sailed eastward from Kamchatka in 1741. During the voyage the ships became separated and were never reunited.

   Driven by storms and with his crew dying from scurvy, Vitus Bering landed on an island in the Commander Islands group. This island, where Bering died, was later named for h«n in his honor. Bering's voyages clarified the geography of the entire North Pacific and were the basis for Russian claims to the northwest coast of America. Alaska, later purchased from Russia by the united States in 1867 for $7,200,000, was included in Bering's discoveries and became known as Russian-America. The first Russian colonization took place in 1783.

   Russian trading expeditions worked down the coast of America and in 1809 a Russian settlement was established in California, located about sixty miles north of San Francisco and named Fort Ross.

   The Russians who settled in Alaska and California founded churches soon after their arrival. The first Russian Orthodox missionaries arrived at Kodiak Island, off the Alaskan mainland, in August of 1794. This first mission had a two-fold purpose: to give spiritual service to the men of the Russian Trading Company and to evangelize the native Aleuts. The leader of this mission was Archimandrite Joasaph.

   The Orthodox religion flourished and soon spread to all parts of the Aleutian Islands and to the Alaskan mainland. In Alaska, a Russian Orthodox Church was built on the present site of Sitka in 1815. This edifice became the Cathedral for the first Russian Orthodox Diocese on the American continent. Innocentius (Vemiaminoff), who was ordained on December 15th, 1848, became the first Bishop of this Diocese.

   In 1869, two years after Russia had sold Alaska to the United States, a Russian Orthodox Church was built in San Francisco, California, and in 1871 Bishop John transferred the seat of his cathedral from Sitka, Alaska, to San Francisco. Bishop Nestor, who succeeded Bishop John, received official permission from the Russian Synod in 1881 to establish his diocese headquarters in San Francisco and property at 1715 Powell St. was purchased for $38,000, for this purpose.

   In 1888, Bishop Vladimir came to San Francisco to succeed Bishop Nestor and during his administration the first Russian-Uniat parish, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, returned to the Orthodox fold. The Very Reverend Alexis Toth was the priest of the Minneapolis congregation which became the Mother Parish of all Orthodox churches in the United States and Canada located east of San Francisco.

   Bishop Nicolas succeeded Bishop Vladimir in 1891 and in 1898 Bishop Nicholas was succeeded by Bishop Tikhon who later became the Patriarch of Russia. Tikhon founded the first Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1905. This seminary building is still standing and is now used for Sunday School classes and church organizations of St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church. This first missionary school was also established in Minneapolis in 1897.

   Bishop Tikhon also transferred the Episcopal See and its Ecclesiastical Consistory from San Francisco to New York City where the Russian Orthodox headquarters for this hemisphere are still located. Under Tikhon, St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York was built in 1901. He was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 1903 with jurisdiction over all of North America. Successors to Tikhon were Archbishops Platon and Eudokim. Under Platon's administration more than a hundred new parishes were formed.

   In 1919 the Russian Church in America held its first Sobor or general council at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A second Sobor was held in Detroit in 1924 at which time Metropolitan Platon was chosen as the ruling Bishop. He had previously headed the Russian Orthodox Church in America from 1907 to 1914. The same council declared that henceforth the Church in America was to be autonomous.

   Metropolitan Platon died in April, 1934. He was succeeded by Bishop Theophile under whose tenure the Federated Russian Orthodox Clubs were founded. Since the death of Theophile in 1950, Metropolitan Leonty had headed the Russian Orthodox Churches of North and South America.

   The growth of Orthodoxy in North America has been steady. In the United States, Canada and Alaska there are several hundred parishes of the Russian Orthodox faith.

 

Serbian Church.

   Serbian immigration to the United States reached serious proportions about 1890 and four years later, in 1894, the first Serbian Church in America was founded in Jackson, California, by Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich. This church was dedicated to St. Sava, the great national Saint of Serbia. Until after World War I, the spiritual welfare of the Serbian Church in America was under the guidance of the Russian Bishop of San Francisco.

   In 1900 there were six Serbian congregations in America and in 1906 there were ten. Fifteen years later this number had increased to twenty. In 1926, with thirty-five Serbian churches making up the American Diocese, Archimandrite Mardary Uskokovich was consecrated by Patriarch Dimitriji of Serbia as the first Bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church in America. Under his guidance the diocese increased to forty-six parishes in the United States and Canada. The Cathedral of the Serbian Church, built and opened in 1945, is located in New York City.

 

Syrian Church.

   In 1878 the first Syrian family of record came to America, but there was little immigration from Syria and Lebanon until around 1890. From 1900 to 1910 about 5000 persons a year immigrated from these countries to the United States with a peak of about 9,000 arriving in 1913 and in 1914.

   The Syrian Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church, founded in 1892, took over the spiritual welfare of the Syrian Orthodox people in the New World, and the first Syrian Church Society was founded in New York in 1895.

   Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny was brought from the Academy of Kazan in October of 1895 to oversee Syrian church activities in America. In 1904 he was consecrated as Vicar-Bishop to the Russian Archbishop and became the first Orthodox Bishop of any nationality to be consecrated in the United States. He served capably until his death in 1915.

   In 1914, Metropolitan Germanos, Bishop of Zahle, Lebanon, in the Patriarchate of Antioch, came to America and during his stay in the United States several parishes were organized. In 1924 there were seventeen Syrian Orthodox churches with resident pastors and seven more with a priest in attendance but without parish buildings. The Syrian Mission of the Russian Church consisted of an additional twenty-two parishes and one mission under the jurisdiction of Bishop Aftimios Ofeish who had been consecrated as Bishop of Brooklyn in 1917 to succeed Bishop Raphael.

   For several years, the Syrian churches of America remained under separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 1933, Archbishop Aftimios resigned and Metropolitan Germanos returned to Beirut where he died in 1934. Bishop Victor Abo-Assaley, representing the Patriarch of Antioch in the United States, died in September of 1934.

   Archimandrite Antony Bashir was appointed as Vicar in America by the Patriarch and he was subsequently elected Bishop of the American Syrian churches. In 1936 he was consecrated in New York by Metropolitan Theodosios of Tyre and Sidon who had been sent to the United States for this purpose. In June of 1940, Archbishop Antony was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan Archbishop of New York and all North America. Under his leadership the Syrian Orthodox Church has grown to eighty parishes in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

 

Ukrainian Church.

   The early history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church parallels that of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Later, under Polish rule and subsequent Communist domination, the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine became practically non-existent. The Independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, both in the Ukraine and America, came into being after World War I.

   Several hundred thousand Ukrainians had migrated to the United States from 1870 until 1914 and many of the early Ukrainian congregations in this country entered the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. A later large migration, between 1945 and 1951, increased the number of Ukrainians in America.

   The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America held its first convention in 1931. Congregations consisting of former Uniats were added to the Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes and the Very Reverend Joseph Zuk was chosen as bishop-elect of the American Diocese in July, 1932. He was consecrated in September of that year and served as head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in America until his death on February 23, 1934.

   Bishop Bohdan Shpilka, who succeeded Bishop Zuk, was consecrated by Archbishop Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church on February 28,1937. He still serves as the head of American Ukrainian Orthodox Churches under the Ecumenical Patriarch. Technically, Bishop Bohdan is a Suffragan of the Greek Archbishop within the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. There are forty-five parishes and missions under Bishop Bohdan with the Cathedral located in New York City.

   The American Ukrainian Orthodox Church was organized about 1919-1920 as an independent church. In February of 1924, Archbishop John Theodorovich arrived in the United States from Kiev, Ukraine. He was chosen bishop-elect of the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Argentina. The Ukrainian churches grew in number after the mass migrations to America after World War II.

   In a convention held in 1949 at Allentown, Pennsylvania, Archbishop Mstyslaw S. Skrypnik was elected to head the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America with Bishop Bohdan as Suffragan Bishop.

   In October of 1950, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America, headed by Archbishop Mstyslaw S. Skrypnik and the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Archbishop John Theodorovich, merged to form the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America under independent jurisdiction. Bishop Bohdan did not join in this merger and he became head of Ukrainian churches remaining under Ecumenical jurisdiction.

   The United Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States has its headquarters in South Brook, New Jersey, and includes 96 parishes in the United States under its jurisdiction. The Most Reverend Metropolitan John Theodorovich heads the church. Metropolitan Dr. Ilarion Ohienko, with headquarters in Winnipeg, heads the Independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada.

   (Text material in this chapter, except the section about the Greek Church, is reprinted from Faith of Our Fathers: The Eastern Orthodox Religion, by the Rev. Leonid Soroka and Stan W. Carlson. Published by The Olympic Press, 806 N. E. Fourth Street, Minneapolis 13, Minnesota, and copyrighted, 1954, by Stan W. Carlson. This material is reprinted by special permission of the copyright owner.).

 

 

Protestant Missionaries.

   It was not long before Protestantism began to break up into a multitude of heresies, owing partly to its lack of unity in dogma and government, an partly to the individual interpretation of the Bible according to each man's lights. Representatives of some of these heretical sects, particularly from America, visited Greece as early as 1810; and others arrived immediately after the Revolution, with the object of assisting the Greeks towards their national and spiritual awakening. Some of them opened schools, which were the crying need of the times, and other distributed books or gave out copies of the Holy Scriptures either in the original text or in modern Greek translation. The Greeks at first welcomed them without suspicion as their benefactors; and certain Patriarchs of Constantinople, such as Cyril VI in 1814 and Gregory V in 1819, applauded the propagation of the Bible and praised the popular Greek translations as being of great benefit to the people. But when the Protestant missionaries began to reveal their secret designs by trying to effect conversions and by distributing together with the Scriptures little volumes offensive to Orthodox sentiments, they aroused the enmity of the nation and immediately became unpopular, while their Scriptures were consigned to public bonfires. The Greeks, who have suffered so greatly for the preservation of their faith, are acutely sensitive to any attack on it. That is why, after more than a century of activity in Greece, Protestantism can today point to no greater achievement than a handful of so-called “Evangelicals” in Athens and elsewhere.

 

Anglicans and Orthodox.

   The relations between the Orthodox and Anglican Churches are rather different, for the latter, alone among the various branches of Protestantism, both acknowledges the three orders of Priesthood and more or less honors the sacred Tradition. As we have already noted, relations were first established between Orthodox and Anglicans in the time of Lucar. They were renewed again in the eighteenth century, when the Non-jurors (that section of the Church who refused to take the oath of allegiance to George I of England) submitted a plan of union with the Eastern Church to the Patriarchs of the East. But it was particularly from 1869 onwards that Anglicans and Orthodox began to come closer together, when the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory VI, after receiving with great satisfaction letters from Campbell, Archbishop of Canterbury, in favor of union, sent an encyclical letter to his clergy directing them to bury members of the Anglican Church, in the absence of Anglican ministers, and dispatched the learned Archbishop of Syra Alexander Lycurgos, to England, in order to strengthen the bonds between the two Churches. Since then, Anglican bishops have more than once visited the Churches of the East, as John of Salisbury in 1898, the present Bishop of London at the beginning of the Great War, and the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, who was welcomed in Athens last year. Bishops from Greece, Russia, Serbia and other countries, not forgetting the Patriarchs Photius of Alexandria and Damianos of Jerusalem, have visited England in return, and have joined with the Anglicans in solemn prayer in St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. A great forward step in the relations between the two Churches was taken in the summer of 1930, when almost the whole of the Orthodox Church sent its representatives to the Lambeth Conference, under the leadership of the present enterprising and progressive Patriarch of Alexandria, Meletius Metaxakis, in order to discuss and discover terms of union. This friendship between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy is due in the first place to the recognition by the Orthodox Church of the validity of Anglican Orders, which has always been disputed by the Roman Church; secondly, to the abstention of the Anglican Church from efforts to convert the Orthodox; and thirdly, to the exchange of letters of peace on ceremonial occasions. The Anglican and Orthodox Churches differ from each other on points of dogma, and a sacramental union between them is for the present still remote. The variety of belief, which characterizes the one Church, is incompatible with the uniformity of faith, professed by the other. But by the mutual interest they take in each other, and by the brotherly nature of their external relations, Anglicanism and Orthodoxy are marking out the path that all separate Churches should follow towards the eventual attainment of full and catholic unity.

 

 

Theological Literature.

The Nineteenth Century.

   The nineteenth century marks at last a notable step forward. Till then, sacred scholarship had, as it were, wandered through the East vagrant and homeless; but the return of freedom now afforded her permanent habitations once again. As early as 1810, the English nobleman Wildford, a friend of Greece and of Orthodoxy, had founded, for the benefit of the Greeks, the Ionian Academy of Corfu, which was indeed of inestimable service to them. In 1837 the town of modern Athens acquired her University, in which serious scholars taught theology. In 1844, the Patriarchate of Constantinople founded the Theological School at Halki for the scientific training of future bishops; and its example was followed in 1853 by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which founded the Theological School of the Cross. Around these main centers, other smaller ones sprang up. The Greek State and the Church provided scholarships to enable successful students to go to Germany, where they specialized in certain branches of study, and returned to Greece to transmit the latest results of theological science as lecturers or professors. This practice was followed not only by the Greek-speaking Orthodox, but by the Rumanian, Serbian and Bulgarian-speaking Orthodox as well; for they, too, on acquiring national independence, provided themselves with Universities and Theological Schools, and sent their graduates abroad, and especially to Russia, to complete their studies. For, before the cataclysmic advent of Bolshevism, Russia exercised a great attraction over the Orthodox peoples of the Balkans, especially the Serbs and Bulgarians, not only because she shared the same faith, but also because from the point of view of religious scholarship, she had reached an enviable state of development, maintaining as she did four excellent Theological Academies and possessing an ample supply of capable teachers and learned works. Today, however, the Academies closed; while of her scholars some are teaching outside like the eminent theologian Nicholas Glubakovski, who is now a professor at the University of Sophia, while others have congregated in Paris and founded there, as a temporary measure, the Institute of Russian Studies. The nineteenth century, at all events, gave a new impulse to Orthodox Theology both in breadth and depth; — in breadth, because theological writers no longer confined themselves, as formerly to purely polemical works, but embraced every branch of Theology; and in depth, because historical and critical research was henceforth recognized as the only reliable method. Here, again, are some of the most prominent names.

 

Christian Life and Worship.

 

The Holy Mountain.

   Monastic life still continued to flourish during later centuries, and provided the harassed Church with a constant supply of zealous and fearless clerics. Its chief center remains to this day the Holy Mountain (“Hagion Oros”) as Mount Athos is habitually called, which is the home of about 5,000 monks, mostly Greeks, but with a certain number of Russians, Rumanians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Georgians, or Iberians. They are distributed among twenty monasteries, twelve sketae, two hundred and four cells, and various other lonely hermitages; and are governed as a confederation by a “Community” of twenty members, each of whom also represents one of the twenty monasteries. The Community also recognizes the Patriarchate of Constantinople as its supreme head, and accepts its decisions. As early as 1749, the “Athonias School” was founded for the education of the Hagiorite monks, and was staffed by such excellent teachers as Neophytos Kausokalybetes and Eugenius Bulgaris. Today, however, it lies almost idle; for, with a few exceptions, both past and present, the monks have unfortunately no love of learning, and confine their activities to prayer, agriculture and light handwork.

 

Other Monastic Centers.

   Another and smaller center of monastic life than Athos is that upon Mount Sinai, whose monastery dates from as far back as the sixth century, when it was founded by Justinian the Great. This brotherhood is ruled by an abbot who is also an autonomous Archbishop, and only owes his ordination to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem may itself be considered as a center of monastic life; for the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher, which controls it, is nothing but a body of monks, living in communal life and acknowledging the Patriarch as their abbot. Other monasteries, notable for their perseverance in the faith, their richly-stocked libraries, or their struggles on behalf of national independence, were, during the past centuries, and in some cases continue to be, those of Meteora in Thessaly, of Eikosiphoenissa in Macedonia, of Sumela in Pontus, of the Theologos in Patmos, of the Holy Trinity in Halki, where the Theological Academy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is functioning, and of the Holy Virgin, also in Halki, in which the School of Greek Merchants used to be established, and many others. And as in Greek-speaking localities, so in Rumanian and Slavonic regions many convents and monasteries similarly flourished, or are still flourishing, extending hospitality to all, and offering a safe haven to many of life's castaways. But the secular powers do not look favorably on this mode of life, and have gradually but steadily pursued the course of closing the monasteries and confiscating their property. This practice was begun by the Greek Government as early as 1833, and has severely curtailed the list of 250 monasteries which then existed in Greece. The Rumanian Government did the same, when in 1862, through Couza, it seized the property owned by the Holy Land and other Sacred Institutions in Rumania; and a similar policy was adopted by the government of Tsarist Russia, which in 1876 laid hands on the property, which Greek monasteries owned in the Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia. It must be admitted, however, that in spite of all its services during the past, the monasticism of the Eastern Church is now an out-of-date phenomenon, and calls for reform along more practical and social lines.

 

Ecclesiastical Art.

   If any progress has been achieved in ecclesiastical art during recent centuries, it is in the powerful Russian Empire of the Tsars that we must seek it. It was mainly in Russia that magnificent churches continued to be built, still on the basis of the styles transplanted from Byzantium, but influenced by elements from Italian, Polish, Georgian and Persian art. Belfries topped by a crown, and peculiar vaulted towers decorated these churches, which were adorned within by icons, many of them lying concealed under precious metals, but many revealing their art naked and full of the expression of a mystic passion. Within them, too, the singing of the choirs rang out in rich, complex and moving harmonies, combining the old Byzantine airs with the polyphonic music of modern Europe. But in the enslaved East, the opposite was the case. There the Mohammedan conqueror would not allow the building of important churches, and for a long time even forbade the repairing of the old. He refused to let the Cross appear on their roof, and would not suffer bell-ringing and public choir-singing to take place. The Christians of the East in no wise differed from those who, in the first centuries of Christianity, used to worship their Savior in caves and catacombs. Only at the beginning of the nineteenth century did some slight impulse begin to stir in the ecclesiastical arts of the Balkans. Cathedrals are being built by native architects; iconography is cultivated by the Brotherhood of Josaphaei on Athos, and others; and the more polyphonic music of Chaviaras and Spathes is beginning to be introduced through the Greek communities in Europe. All these, however, are but tentative efforts, and have as yet produced no perfect results.

 

The Word of God.

   We may welcome as signs of good omen the religious fraternities, Catechetical Schools and Christian Associations of Young Men and Young Women, all of which have as their aim a revival of the religious spirit through study and the practical application of God's Word to daily life. The official Church steadily encourages these movements, although they are as yet but slight and spasmodic. And since the study of the Scriptures is the object of such movements, the Church has more than once contributed towards their publication in recent years. Thus, in 1843, with the assistance of the Bible Society of England, she published the Old Testament according to the Septuagint text; later she gave her blessing to the purely Greek edition, prepared by Martinus; in 1904, at the expense of the reigning Ecumenical Patriarch, Constantine Valiades, and under the supervision of Professor Basil Antoniades, the first critical edition of the New Testament appeared from the press of the Patriarchate; and in 1928 and 1929 that splendid society in Athens, known as ΖΩΗ (“Life”), which forms a kind of missionary body for work at home, put into circulation a new, careful, handy and inexpensive edition of the Old and New Testaments. But Greek editions of the Bible always confine themselves to the official text in the Alexandrian tongue, which differs only slightly from Greek as it is written today. Translations of the Scriptures are opposed neither by dogmatical nor by scientific reason, and are therefore accepted by the Russians and by others. They are not, however, considered without reluctance by the Greeks; — firstly, because they are reminiscent of the surreptitious efforts at conversion made by the Protestant missionaries; secondly, because the Greeks are proud of possessing the Scriptures either in the original text, as is the case with the New Testament, or in the first translation, made from a text centuries older than the Massoretico-Hebrew of today, as is the case with the Old Testament; and thirdly, because a valid translation into Modern Greek by men with both the literary and the theological equipment necessary for the task, has never yet been made. The last modern Greek translation of the Gospels was the work of a merchant living in England, who chose this means for propagating his theories on the vulgarization of the written Greek language.

 

Excerpts from the

"The History

Of the

Orthodox Church"

 

By Rev. Constantine Callinikos.

Дата: 2019-04-23, просмотров: 172.