Eastern Orthodox Church

“ The Orthodox Church is the heir of all the Greek traditions. The old glories of the free Greek States, vague memories of Marathon and Salamis, the majesty of the Roman Empire, their cause against Persian and Arab, Frank and Turk—it is all gathered together and still lives in the Holy Apostolic Orthodox Catholic Church of the Seven Councils. So one can understand how they feel about a renegade from that Church: he betrays the true faith of Christ, and he betrays the cause of the Fatherland. And one can understand, too, how the Church resents attempts at seducing her children. ”

“ In this, as in other departments of national activity, the spring of action has lain not in the people, but in the Government.
It is only fair to the monks to state that in their dislike to progress and change of every kind they merely reflect the traditional spirit of the Church to which they belong. The Russian Church, like the Eastern Orthodox Church generally, is essentially conservative. Anything in the nature of a religious revival is foreign to her traditions and character. ”

“ There are, besides the Orthodox Church, other Eastern Churches, which are no more in communion with her than they are with us. To the Orthodox Christian an Armenian, a Copt, a Jacobite is just as much a heretic and a schismatic as a Latin or a Protestant. Though no other Eastern Church can be compared to the Orthodox for size, nevertheless at least some of them (that of the Armenians, for instance) are large and important bodies. ”

“ In the case of others, one sees so much that would have to be changed—false doctrine, reckless mutilation of the old faith, and rival conventicles. But the Eastern schism has still left us on both sides with the same faith in almost everything. Of course they would have to accept the whole of the Catholic faith. In that, no desire for reunion, no spirit of conciliation, can ever make the Holy See waive anything. There can be no compromise in matters of faith. But the Orthodox already have, and jealously keep, practically all that faith. ”

“ We want the communion of the Christians to whom St. Paul brought the faith at Ephesus and Corinth, the children of the men of Antioch who first were called by the name in which we all glory. And we need, too, the righter balance that would be restored by reunion with the Orthodox. In spite of our loyalty to our own rite, and in spite of our natural pride in being not only Catholics but Latins and members of the greatest Patriarchate, we have to realize that the Latin Church is not, has never been, the whole Body of Christ. ”

“ So in Church matters Russian policy works out as being uniformity within, and the Orthodox Church in its Russian branch, with the Russian Liturgy and the rule of the Russian Holy Synod, without. We shall come back to the way in which uniformity in Russia is procured, the abominable persecution of the Ruthenian Church, the crushing out of the Georgian Church, the harrying of the Armenians. As for the preaching of the Orthodox faith in other lands, one has only to look for the places where the Russian Government wants a sphere of influence, there is the Orthodox Russian faith preached. ”

“ They have set up centres all over the Near East, and no one prevents them from preaching; but every one now knows that to join them is to leave the Orthodox Church. In Russia, where other ideas of liberty prevail, the Bible Society was expelled, and its Bibles forbidden. These Protestants have made an infinitesimal number of converts, who call themselves Εὐαγγελικόι, and the Orthodox feel nearly as bitter towards non-Anglican Protestants (Διαμαρτυρόμενοι) as towards Catholics. [23] ”

“ Jesuit missionaries after the Reformation stirred up schisms in some parts of the Eastern Church, and in Austria, Poland and elsewhere large numbers of Orthodox Christians submitted, either willingly or under compulsion to the see of Rome (see Roman Catholic Church, section Uniat Oriental Churches) .
Doctrines and Creeds.—The Eastern Church has no creeds in the modern Western use of the word, no normative summaries of what must be believed. It has preserved the older idea that a creed is an adoring confession of the church engaged in worship ”

“ Most, indeed nearly all, of the work of the Orthodox theologians during this time has been written against the Pope and the Latins. One can understand this. To the Eastern Christians the enormously greater, more powerful, and more prosperous Catholic Church looms very large; the question why they are not in union with the bishop, who should be the first of the patriarchs, is always the burning one. And the Popes have never ceased trying to convert them back: papal missionaries and schools are to be found all over Eastern Europe (except, of course, in Russia) ”

“ In eastern Europe the Orthodox Church has similarly shrivelled up and ceased to be an intellectual force, but there it has at least retained the affection of the upper class, and is honoured for its fidelity during centuries of Musulman oppression. ”

“ The Easterns know quite well, of course, that all Anglicans do not think like this, but if what the Patriarch of Constantinople a year or two ago called "the Ritualist sect" ever becomes the whole Church of England, then, indeed, in faith there would be little to choose between Anglicans and Orthodox. ”

“ Except in Russia nearly all Orthodox bishops are metropolitans. A few have real provinces and suffragans (these suffragans are the only persons usually called bishops) , the great majority have no extra-diocesan jurisdiction, but all depend immediately on their Patriarch or Holy Synod, although they all bear the quite meaningless title metropolitan instead of that of bishop. [29] One does not often hear of an archbishop. The name occurs in the official title of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and in the case of one or two heads of autocephalous Churches. ”

“ This, although quite an artificial nation, is as dear to them as our fatherland is to us, while in comparison all matters of dogma and theology are quite secondary. For this reason it is that there are rarely any conversions from one Eastern Church to another. And for this reason, too, it is that—as has well been observed—“for a Jacobite to turn Orthodox would be like a Frenchman turning German.” ”

“ The break between the eastern and western Churches—between Constantinople and Rome—at the end of the ninth century also contributed, in a way, to weaken the allegiance of the faithful to the orthodox Church, and the manner in which the Orthodox vilified the Catholics must have been quite sufficient to reconcile the people to heterodox doctrines. ”

“ The Orthodox Eastern Church acknowledges no other guide and source of doctrine or faith than the Holy Scriptures, as contained in the Old and New Testaments, which are open to all—not proscribed, as is the case in the Romish Church—and are printed in all the languages of the various countries in which the Greek Church has adherents. ”

“ In the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy are four Orthodox Churches—Carlovitz, Hermannstadt, Czernovitz, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. The monastery of Mount Sinai is also an independent Church. There has been great friction about the establishment of most of these bodies; in the case of the Bulgars the schism still lasts. Meanwhile, Russia has entirely destroyed the old Georgian Church. Questions of politics and rival nationalities lead to endless quarrels among the Orthodox bishops, while Russia is steadily trying to absorb the whole body into her sphere of influence. ”

“ They stretch out from either side and leave no very wide chasm between them. In feeling, sympathy, and attitude of mind there is no great difference between the Latin-favouring Orthodox and the Uniate. ”

“ One of the most interesting questions concerning a religious body is that of its size. Statistics in this case are specially difficult, because the Turk has no idea of such things, and the Russian persecution of dissenters makes it impossible to know how the figures would show if the people were free to profess what faith they like. I find the total number of Orthodox Christians reckoned at from ninety-five to one hundred millions, [16] of which between four-fifths and nine-tenths belong to the Russian Church. ”

“ It is easy to understand their mutual good feeling. Of course the ordinary Greek layman still calls Anglicans Protestants, and the average British tourist in the East is quite content to accept that respectable name. But the extreme High Churchmen represent their Church to the Orthodox authorities as something very different. Their ideal is Catholicism without Popery, which sounds exactly like that of the Eastern Churches. Diomedes Kyriakos tells us that "the Eastern Church rejects both the Roman Church because of her errors and the Protestant Churches because of their opposite errors ”

“ Both hold to the only two standards of faith required by the orthodox Church—the Bible and the Nicene Creed; nor do they differ at all in their interpretations of Scripture or creed.
These old dissenters therefore have nothing in common with Protestantism. Their origin is in no way comparable with the contemporary rise of various sects in Western Europe. They are Russian of the Russians. ”

“ The Russian government since the time of Alexander I. has sought amid many difficulties to advance the education and enlightenment of the people, and to elevate the orthodox church by securing a more highly cultured clergy, and to increase its influence upon the life of the people ”

“ As a result of the frequent application of this principle the Orthodox Church has shared the fate that never fails to overtake schism and heresy. In consequence of political and ecclesiastical jealousies and antagonism; of excommunications and counter-excommunications by rival bishops; of divisions and subdivisions, the once great and powerful Orthodox Communion now finds itself divided into sixteen independent Churches whose jurisdiction ranges in extent from that of the Independent Church of the monastery of Mount Sinai to that of the once great Empire of Russia. ”

“ Of the Orthodox Church it may be truly said that the desolation has no bounds. It has no bounds because already the principle has been established that the church of each state ought to be independent, and that each separate nation also ought to have its distinct and independent church. ”

“ A strong and, I think, an unanswerable case might be made out to show that the religion of the Orthodox Church beneficially influenced the conduct of men and women in their individual capacity and in their relations one with another. ”

“ With such dim fears the Old Believer opposed to the orthodox hierarchy a blind fidelity to orthodoxy. Their dread of seeing the Church corrupted inspired people and clergy with suspicion of all foreigners, even of their brethren in the faith whom the czars or the patriarchs had invited from Byzantium and from Kief. The Russian alone, of all the orthodox nations, had maintained his independence against infidel and pope, and he held himself the people of God, chosen to preserve the true faith. ”

“ No clergy of our Church have ever gone to Russia to learn what they could for themselves, or give lectures, or act as members of deputations, and come into touch with the Orthodox clergy and been disappointed with their reception ”

“ It is on such occasions as these—and they are many—that the attitude of the people towards their church may be studied with advantage, and the beholder will realise how strong is the affection of the orthodox for all that pertains to their religion. ”

“ Their religion appears to be a Protestantism of a very decided type, and in the few church ceremonies which they retain, such as a second baptism for adults, they resemble the Anabaptists and Mennonites of Germany. They reject external observances, fasts, images, the invocation of the saints, and all the rites of Orthodox worship as simply useless and unnecessary; they seem to be animated more by a spirit of calculation and of economy, of indifference to outward form, rather than by religious scruples or any deep-seated repugnance to church ceremonies ”

“ To whom will they refer the latter to authenticate the validity of their mission, to propose objections, or to lodge complaints? If we except Russia, Turkey, the Hellenic kingdom, Roumania, Servia, and some provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the rest of the world is missionary ground for the Orthodox Church, just as much as is China for the Catholic Church. Let us suppose the Russian Church wishing only to undertake the conversion of France. Paris already possesses a Russian temple; it is now the Synod, in concert with the government, which nominates the persons attached to this temple. ”

“ In its intimate nature Russia differs from Europe. The contrast between the two civilisations is determined by religious and ecclesiastical differences. It is the contrast between faith, and knowledge inimical to faith; between tradition and criticism; between eastern Orthodoxy, on the one hand and Roman Catholicism and predominantly German Protestantism, on the other. Orthodoxy is for Russia the buckler of revealed religion; the Orthodox creed is the mystical expression of absolute and divinely revealed religious truth. ”

“ On the other hand the growth of Russian power throughout the nineteenth century, combined with the immense influx of Russian pilgrims to the Holy Places, gave the Orthodox Church a prestige that it had never before possessed. The interest of Protestant nations has also steadily increased. ”