Church of the East

“ The future Church in the Far East must fight her own battles. She must solve her own problems. All we can do is to hand over to her the truth in all its fulness, and teach her to look for divine guidance, to forget such words as Protestant, Roman Catholic, Nonconformist, and Anglican; to learn merely the word "Christian" and the word "Love." If Far Eastern Christianity will have its battles to fight, it will have also its message to give to the West, "that they without us should not be made perfect." ”

“ The Eastern rites appear rather as exceptions. It would be a monstrous delusion and the gravest injustice to our fellow-Catholics in the East to look upon them as in any way less Catholic than we are in the West. Nor have we the slightest right to expect them to join our Patriarchate, to accept our specifically Latin ideas or ways of doing things. They are, in every way, on the same plane in the Church as we are. They have just as much right to their customs and liturgies as we have to ours. ”

“ When our thoughts turn to the East, instead of recollecting that there are Christian Churches there, we leave it to the Russians to take care of the Greeks, and the French to take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting a Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with helping the Jews to rebuild their Temple there, or with becoming the august protectors of Nestorians, Monophysites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or with forming a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and Romans together. ”

“ In uniting the East and the West, in uniting Asiatic and European faith and character, the Church of the New Dispensation works faithfully upon the lines laid down by Christ, and only seeks to amalgamate the Western Christ and the Eastern Christ. ”

“ In the East, where the name and tradition of old Rome was always preserved in the imperial government, the Church remained in that immemorial steadfastness to the orthodox faith which was a bond of unity such as no other idea could possibly supply. In the educational work which the emperor had to undertake in regard to the tribes which one by one accepted their sway, the Christian Church was their greatest support. In East as well as West, the bishops, saints, and missionaries were the true leaders of the nations into the unity of the Empire as well as the unity of the Church. ”

“ It may be enough to remark in regard to the major charges, that nowhere does the Eastern Church address worship, either to the Mother of our Lord, or to the saints and angels. They are venerated and invoked, but worshipped, never. Worship, as we understand it, is addressed to the Triune God, and to Him alone. ”

“ The catechumen turned his face toward the west in renouncing the devil and all his works, and to the east in making profession of his Faith. The early Christians were accustomed to turn to the east in their devotions, just as the Jews turned their faces toward Jerusalem when they prayed." Many churches, whenever it is possible, are built for this reason "east and west," as was the ancient custom. When not so placed, the chancel is considered to be constructively, if not in fact, "the east," and the clergy and choir {107} turn toward the Altar. ”

“ The Eastern Church is both the source and background of the Western. Christianity arose in the East, and Greek was the language of the Scriptures and early services of the church, but when Latin Christianity established itself in Europe and Africa, and when the old Roman empire fell in two, and the eastern half became separate in government, interests and ideas from the western, the term Greek or Eastern Church acquired gradually a fixed meaning. It denoted the church which included the patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Constantinople, and their dependencies. ”

“ Only those who have traveled in the Near East and studied there the aspirations of its peoples can fully realize the intense national feeling of the Eastern Churches. Similarly only those who have carefully studied the history of these various ecclesiastical bodies can duly appreciate their present attitude toward the great Latin Church of the West and understand that remarkable conservatism which has ever been one of their most striking characteristics. ”

“ Like many of the Eastern Christians, they allow the marriage of the clergy; but in the abbeys, where there are professors, they allow no priest to say Mass who is not a celibatarian by vow. "Among you," said an Ethiopian who had visited Europe, "the important practice is to go to church." "And among you," I answered, "the one thing necessary is to prolong your fastings." One is tempted to say that the active people of the West, and the slow and repose-loving nations of the East, have made the principal merit of a Christian to consist in those pious exercises which cost the least trouble. ”

“ The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicæa.
See ARIANISM:
and NICÆA, THE FIRST COUNCIL OF.
CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 330-1054.
The Eastern (Greek, or Orthodox) Church.
"'The Eastern Church,' says a well-known writer, 'was like the East, stationary and immutable; the Western, like the West, progressive and flexible. This distinction is the more remarkable, because at certain periods of their course, there can be no doubt that the civilization of the Eastern Church was far higher than that of the Western.'"
G. F. Maclear, The Slavs, page 25. ”

“ The nature of our mission to the east was peculiar, and required us to spend most of our time among the various branches of the church; however, as we had opportunity we proclaimed the gospel in every place where there was an opening, and truly there is an effectual door opened for good and faithful laborers among the intelligent and liberal people of the east. ”

“ The lively intercourse between the churches, which prevented the various doctrinal types from being restricted to particular countries, brought opposite views into contact and conflict with one another. The court, the people, the monks took parts, and so the church became the scene of passionate and distracting struggles, which led to the issuing of a canon of orthodoxy recognised by the whole Catholic church of the West and of the East, and to the branding every deviation therefrom with the mark of heresy. ”

“ It would be easy to attach the bishops and their congregations unto thyself as thou didst those of Africa, by secret aid to the churches, and by kind messages unto those who have experienced the tyrant's cruelty; for already all Christians regard thee as divinely raised up for their succor, and they are comforted by the hope that, when thou dost rule the world, the gospel shall be as free in the East as it is in the West. ”

“ Lastly, in the East at any rate, it makes very little difference in what place a man may live, as far as his rite or the branch of the Church to which he belongs is concerned. Certainly, originally all depended on this. A man was not asked to which Patriarchate he would like to belong. That was settled for him by his birth as a native of some land, just as in the West the Ordinary you must obey is the bishop of the place in which you were born or now live. ”

“ The fact that the constitution of the Church gives the first place to our Patriarch is no doubt an honour for us; but it would ill beseem us to boast of this before Uniates. Let us rather understand that their loyalty is all the more splendid just because it is less easy for them. We take up the long quarrel between East and West, on the Western side, without difficulty, because we are Westerns. ”

“ Great was the revolution wrought in church planning by the determination that the laity, clergy, and celebrant should all alike face East. To the Catholic believer nothing was of more mystic import than the orientation of the church. He prayed toward the East, toward the Holy Land where his Lord lived and died and was buried; he looked forward to the dawn of that day when He should come from the East to judge the quick and dead.
"Our life lies eastward ”

“ The Western bishops were inevitably isolated from one another, and could exercise none of that constant surveillance over each other’s orthodoxy which was, for evil as well as for good, so marked a feature of the Church life of the East. ”

“ For the moment, the Empire and the Papacy, Germany and the new temporal State in the hands of the Roman bishop, were united to lead the Christian nations and to convert the heathen on their borders. In the East remained the magnificent fabric of the immemorial Empire, active still in missionary labour and setting an example of the union of Church and State in {203} agreement to which the West could never attain. The eleventh century was to bring to East and West alike, with new responsibilities, new difficulties in action and new problems in thought. ”

“ The final result of all this is then that, considering the gradual stagnation of the East while the West was growing, considering the flood of Islam, the schisms which cut so many Easterns away from the Catholic Church altogether, and the discovery of new countries, the Roman Patriarchate has become so enormously the most important part of the Church that our Canon Law has acquired the habit of considering it as the normal situation for a Catholic to be a Latin. ”

“ In order to protect its own members and clergy in East Germany, the Catholic Church generally avoids focusing international attention on the internal East German situation unless a specific issue is considered worth the risks involved. ”

“ Ingleby.—"Yes, Sir; our clergy who advocate high church principles talk like Papal priests, and breathe the same spirit; and, unless they can be checked, they will assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome. Regeneration and absolution, which the sacred writers ascribe to the grace of God, they [448] pretend to effect by their own delegated authority and power; and, as a necessary consequence, they require the people to look to them as holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on churches; but let the bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone, the privileges of the church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nicæa, being preserved; and let the bishops of the Asian diocese administer the Asian affairs only ”

“ The English Book of Common Prayer, translated into Arabic, is very often met with throughout the East, but it does not appear to have impressed the Oriental Churches, whether in communion with the See of Peter or not, very favorably respecting the Established Church of this country. The Thirty-nine Articles they regard with especial horror, as showing the church to be heretical at core. Nor have the members of the Anglican Church and Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem done much to remove this impression, but rather the contrary. ”

“ Some, I am aware, would urge you to prefer your parish church to a Dissenting chapel, even if the minister be an irreligious man, and to stay there till it shall please God to introduce the gospel into it; but as it is not in my power to reconcile such advice with the injunction of our Lord, Take heed what ye hear, you cannot expect that I can approve of such a course. The eminently devout Christian loves the habitation of the Lord's house, and the place where his honour dwelleth ”

“ Thou must perceive, also, with equal clearness, that the splendid ecclesiasticism which I have established throughout the Western Empire in place of the primitive religion is vastly better for mankind than any system ever before attempted, and that it should be speedily extended over all the East. ”

“ I can go with you to church on a Christmas morning, to celebrate the birth of my Saviour—on a Good Friday, to commemorate his death—and on an Easter Sunday, to rejoice in his resurrection. And though some may censure this as a dereliction of principle, I do not so view it. It gives me greater pleasure to unite with my fellow-Christians, than to live in a state of alienation from them: and while I would condemn all superstitious attachment to these days, I would reprobate the spirit which treats them with contempt. ”

“ Why not, Sir, act on the same principle, on the more important question relating to your soul—its peace, and its salvation? Your attendance at the church has been in vain. Why not dismiss your prejudices, and go to the village chapel? You have ocular demonstration, that the people who worship there are happy, and live in the anticipation of future happiness. Why not make the experiment, which can subject you to no loss, and may lead to a glorious issue? ”

“ While the Trinitarian and Christological controversies had their origin in the East and there gave rise to the most violent conflicts, the West taking indeed a lively interest in the discussion and by the decisive voice of Rome giving the victory to orthodoxy at almost every stage of the struggle, it was in the West that a controversy broke out, which for a full century proceeded alongside of the Christological controversy, without awakening in the East more than a passing and even then only a secondary interest. ”

“ Still the points of contact with the East were so many and so vital that however much inclined to stability the West might be, it could not altogether remain unmoved and without enrichment from the theological movements of the age. ”