Here are the most distinguished names among scholars of the eighteenth century: Elias Meniates (d. 1714), Bishop of Kalavryta, was an excellent linguist and a man of great eloquence. His Sermons, remarkable for their harmony and vivacity, are still read with enjoyment by the people; and in his work entitled The Mumbling-Block he demonstrates that Papal Supremacy was the chief cause of the Great Schism. Meletius of Athens (d. 1714) composed works on astronomy, geography and rhetoric, but he is chiefly famous for his Church History. His brothers, Johannikius and Sophronius Leihoudae (d. 1717 and 1730) were both priests, who, after a fruitful ministry in various centers of Hellenism, went to Russia at the invitation of the Tsar Theodore, and founded the Academy of Moscow, where they themselves taught literature, philosophy and theology. The Leihoudae brothers revised the Slavonic Scriptures, and also wrote various works in defense of the Orthodox Faith. Chrysanthos of Jerusalem (d. 1731) has left us a History and Description of the Holy Land, and a small but valuable work on the Ecclesiastical Offices. Eustratius Argentes (d. 1760), a learned doctor, wrote theological works, among which a treatise on Unleavened Wafers is notable for its wide learning and sound judgment. Eugenius Bulgaris (d. 1800), who was head of the schools of Janina and Athos, and was later promoted by Catherine II to the Archbishopric of Slavonia and Kherson, was the greatest and most erudite of modern Greek clerics. He spoke and wrote ten languages, translated Virgil into Homeric verses and introduced modern philosophy into Greece. He also edited the complete works of Theodoret, translated the work of Zoernikau on the Procession of the Holy Ghost, and is himself the author of The Orthodox Confession, Address on Tolerance, Dogmatic Theology, First Century from the Incarnation of Christ, Pious Talk, etc. Nicephorus Theotokis (d. 1800), who succeeded Eugenius as Archbishop of Slavonia, before being transferred to Astrachan, rivaled his predecessor in his knowledge of theology, philosophy and physics. Among other works, he published a Catena of notes commenting the Pentateuch; and his Sunday Courses, in which he interprets in beautiful modern Greek the extracts from the Gospels and Epistles appointed for each Sunday, are still extremely popular. Anthimus of Jerusalem (d. 1808) composed a Syntagma of theology and a Commentary on the Psalms. Nicodemus the Hagiorite (d. 1809) was a studious monk, whose pen is responsible for many works in hagiography, asceticism, mysticism, liturgies, canon law and practical exegesis. He wrote Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles and the Psalms, the New Martyrology, the Invisible Battle, the Spiritual Exercises, the Excellence of a Christian, the book of Confession, etc.; but his most important work is the Rudder of the Orthodox Church, which contains all the sacred canons together with a commentary on them.

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.