The clergy of Constantinople have not hesitated to resort to forgery in order to do away with the legal and binding force of the act of their own predecessors in subscribing and promulgating throughout their entire jurisdiction the act of union established at the Council of Florence. Gennadius, the first patriarch elected after the Turkish conquest, was one of the prelates who signed the decree of the Council of Florence, a learned and virtuous man, and is believed to have lived and died in the [{6}] communion of the Holy See. Actual communication between Constantinople and Rome was, however, rendered absolutely impossible by the deadly hostility of the conquerors to their principal and most dangerous foe. The slightest attempt at any intercourse with the Latin Christians would have caused the extermination of all the Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire. It is difficult to discover, therefore, when and how it was that the supremacy of the Roman Church, whose actual exercise was thus at first impeded by the necessity of the case, was again formally repudiated by the patriarchs. There is a letter extant, written in the year 1584 by the Patriarch Jeremiah to Pope Gregory XIII., in which he says that "it belonged to him, as the head of the Catholic Church, to indicate the measures to be employed against the Protestants," and requests him in virtue of this office to point out what measures can be taken to arrest the advance of Protestantism. This is the last official act of the kind of which there is any record. The patriarchs and their associates have relapsed into an attitude toward the Holy See which is equally schismatical and arrogant, though through their degraded condition far more ridiculous than that which was assumed by their predecessors before the Council of Florence. In order to nullify, as far as possible, the legal force of the act of union promulgated by that council, they have resorted to a forgery, and have published the acts of a pretended council under a patriarch who never existed and whom they call Athanasius. There is no precise date attached to these forged acts, but they are so arranged as to appear to have been promulgated soon after the return of the emperor and prelates from Italy, and before the Turkish conquest; and in them, some of the principal prelates what signed the decrees of the Council of Florence are represented as abjuring and begging pardon for what they had done. They are said to have been moved to this by the indignation of their people and a sedition in Constantinople in which the rejection of the act of union was demanded. The forgery is too transparent to be worthy of refutation, and could never have been executed and palmed off as genuine in any other place than in Constantinople. They have also put out a book called the "Pedalium," in which they revive all the frivolous pretexts on account of which the infamous Michael Cerularius and his ignorant ecclesiastical clique of the Bas Empire pretended to prove the apostacy of the Bishop of Rome and all Western Christendom from the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and the consequent succession of the Bishop of Constantinople to the universal primacy. The clergy of the patriarchate have taken the position that the Catholic Church at present is confined to the limits of what we call the Greek Church. They claim for themselves, therefore, that place which they acknowledge formerly belonged to the See of Rome, and thus seek to justify and carry out the usurpation of supreme and universal authority indicated by the title of ecumenical patriarch. The absurdity of this is evident, from the very grounds on which the title was originally assumed, and the traditional maxims which directed the policy of the ambitions Byzantine prelates throughout the entire period of the Greek empire. The original and only claim of the bishops of Constantinople, who were merely suffragans of the Metropolitan of Heraclèa before their city was made the capital of the empire, to the patriarchal dignity, was the political importance of the city. Because Constantinople was new Rome, therefore the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be second to the Bishop of ancient Rome; and not only this, but he ought to rule over the whole East with a supremacy like that which the Bishop of Rome had always exercised over the whole [{7}] world. This false and schismatical principle is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic church organization, viz., that the subordination of episcopal sees springs from the divine institution of the primacy in the See of St. Peter, and is regulated by ecclesiastical canons on spiritual grounds, which are superior to all considerations of a temporal nature. The Patriarch of Constantinople has long ago lost all claim to precedence or authority based on the civil dignity of the city as the seat of an empire. According to the principles of his predecessors, the primacy ought to have been transferred to the Patriarch of Moscow, when the Russian patriarchate was established by Ivan III. Nevertheless, he still continues to style himself ecumenical patriarch, and the eight metropolitans who form his permanent synod continue to keep the precedence over all other bishops of the patriarchate, although their sees have dwindled into insignificance, and other episcopal towns far exceed them in civil importance. In point of fact, the baselessness of his claim to universal jurisdiction has been recognized by the Eastern Church. His real authority is confined to the Turkish empire, where it is sustained by the civil power. Russia has long been independent of him. The Church of Greece has completely severed her connection with him. The schismatical Greeks of the Austrian empire, and those of the neighboring provinces, are severally independent. The false principle that produced the Eastern schism in the first place thus continues to work out its legitimate effect of disintegration in the Eastern communion itself, by separating the national churches from the principal church of Constantinople, which would itself crumble to pieces if the support of the Ottoman power were removed. The privileges of the See of Constantinople have now no valid claim to respect, except that derived from ecclesiastical canons ratified by time, general consent, and the sanction of the Roman Church. The instinct of self-preservation ought to compel its rulers to fall back on Catholic principles, and submit themselves to the legitimate authority of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Catholic Church throughout the world. They are following, however, the contrary impulse of self-destruction, to which they are abandoned by a just God as a punishment for their treason to Jesus Christ and his Vicar, and in every way seeking to strengthen and extend the barrier which separates them from the Roman Church.
This policy has led them to do all in their power to establish a dogmatic difference between the Oriental Church and the Church of Rome. Not only do they represent the difference in regard to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as expressed by the "Filioque" of the Creed, which was fully proved at the Council of Florence to be a mere verbal difference, as a difference in regard to an essential dogma, but they have brought in others to swell their list of Latin heresies. The principal dogmatic differences on which they insist are three: the doctrine of purgatory, the quality of the bread used in the holy eucharist, and the mode of administering baptism. Only the most deplorable ignorance and factiousness could base a pretence of dogmatic difference on such a foundation. In regard to purgatory, the Roman Church has defined or required nothing beyond that which is taught by the doctrinal standards of the Eastern Church. The difference in regard to the use of leavened or unleavened bread, and the mode of baptism, is a mere difference of rite. In regard to the last-mentioned rite, however, the clergy of Constantinople have even surpassed their usual amount of ignorance and effrontery. They pretend that no baptism except that by trine immersion is valid, and consequently that the vast majority of Western Christians are unbaptized. This position of theirs, which will no doubt be [{8}] very satisfactory to our Baptist brethren, makes sweeping work, not only with the Latin Church, but with Protestant Christendom. Where there is no baptism, there is no ordination, no sacrament whatever, no church. What will our Anglican friends say to this? The clergy of Constantinople rebaptize unconditionally every one who applies to be received into their communion, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, clergyman or layman. It would be folly to argue against this sacrilegious absurdity on Catholic grounds. It is enough to show their inconsistency with themselves, by mentioning the fact that the Russian Church allows the validity of baptism by aspersion, and that even their own book of canons permits it in case of necessity. But why look for any manifestation of the learning, wisdom, or Christian principle which ought to characterize prelates from men who have bought their places for gold, and who sell every episcopal see to the highest bidder? The simony and bribery which have been openly and unblushingly practised by the ruling clerical faction of the Turkish empire since the time when the monk Simeon bought the patriarchal dignity from the sultan, make this page of ecclesiastical history one of the blackest and most infamous in character. As we might expect under such a system, virtuous and worthy men are put aside, and the episcopate and priesthood filled up from the creatures and servile followers of the ruling clique. Such men naturally disgrace their holy character by their immoral lives, and bring opprobrium on the Christian name. The history of the patriarchate of Constantinople, therefore, since the period of Gennadius and the first few successors who followed his worthy example, has been stained with blood and crime, and darkened by scenes of tragic infamy and horror. We will relate one of the most recent of these, as a sufficient proof and illustration of the heavy indictment we have made against the patriarchal clergy.
At the time of the Greek revolution, the patriarch and principal clergy of Constantinople received orders from the sultan to use their power in suppressing all co-operation on the part of the Christians in Turkey with their brethren in Greece, and to denounce to the Ottoman government all who were suspected of conniving at the insurrection. Their political position no doubt required of them to remain passive in the matter, to refrain from positively aiding the revolutionists, and also to suppress all overt acts of the Christians under their jurisdiction against the government. Nevertheless, as a people unjustly enslaved by a barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, they owed nothing more to their masters than this exterior obedience to the letter of the law. They could not be expected to enter with a hearty and zealous sympathy into the measures of the government for suppressing the revolution; and, indeed, every genuine and noble sentiment of Christianity and patriotism forbade their doing so, and exacted of them a deep, interior sympathy with their cruelly oppressed brethren who were so nobly struggling to free their country from the hated yoke of the Moslem conqueror. The really high-minded Greeks of the empire did thus sympathize with their brethren. The ruling clergy, however, manifested a zeal for the interests of the Ottoman court so outré and so scandalous that it not only outraged the feelings of their own subjects, but, as we shall see, aroused the suspicions of the tyrants before whom they so basely cringed, and brought destruction on their own heads. They accused a great number of Christians of complicity in the insurrection, seizing the opportunity of denouncing every one who had incurred their hatred for any reason whatever, so that the prisons were soon crowded with their unfortunate victims, all of whom suffered the penalty of death. The patriarch pronounced a sentence of major excommunication against Prince Ypsilanti, and all the Greeks who [{9}] took part in the revolt. A few days afterward, on the first Sunday of Lent, during the solemnities of the pontifical mass, the patriarch, his eight chief metropolitans, and fifteen other bishops, pronounced the same sentence of excommunication, together with the sentence of deposition and degradation, against seven bishops of Greece, partisans of Prince Ypsilanti, and all their adherents, signing the decree on the altar of the cathedral church. Such a storm of indignation was raised by this nefarious act, that the prelates were obliged to pacify their people by pretending that they had acted under the compulsion of the government. A few days after, the patriarch and the majority of the bishops who had signed the decree were condemned to death and executed, on the charge of participating in the revolution. Even after the great powers of Europe had acknowledged the independence of Greece, the ruling clergy of Constantinople endeavored to curry favor at court by sending a commission, under the presidency of the metropolitan of Chalcèdon, to recommend to the Greeks a return to the Turkish dominion! It is needless to say that this invitation was declined, although we cannot but admire the self-control of the Greek princes and prelates when we are told that it was declined, and the ambassadors dismissed, in the most polite manner.
One more intrigue, the last one they have been left the opportunity of trying, closes the history of their relations with the Church of Greece. The clergy and people of the new kingdom were equally determined to throw off completely and for ever the ecclesiastical tyranny of Constantinople. At the same time they were disposed to act with diplomatic formality and ecclesiastical courtesy, as well as in conformity with the laws and principle of the orthodox church of the East. The second article of the constitutional chart of the kingdom defines in a precise and dignified manner the position of the national church. "The orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is perpetually united in dogma with the great Church of Constantinople and every other church holding the same dogmas, preserving, as they do, immutably the holy canons of the apostles and councils, and the sacred traditions. Nevertheless, it is autocephalous, exercising independently of every other church its rights of jurisdiction, and is administered by a sacred college of bishops." This article was established in 1844. In 1850, the clergy obtained from the government the appointment of a commission, composed of one clergyman, the archimandrite Michael Apostolides, professor of theology in the University of Athens, and one layman, Peter Deligianni, chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, to establish concordats with the patriarchate and the governing synod of Russia, on the basis of the above cited article of the Greek constitution. In lieu of this proposed concordat, the Greek commissioners were duped by the patriarchal synod into signing a synodal act, in which the Patriarch of Constantinople, qualifying his see as the vine of which other churches are the branches, and styling himself and his associates
--"Watchful shepherds and scrupulous guardians of the canons of the church"--pretends by his own authority to grant independent jurisdiction to the Church of Greece as a privilege. At the same time he designates the Archbishop of Athens as the perpetual president of the synod, ordains that the holy chrism shall always be brought from Constantinople, and imposes other obligations intended to serve as signs of dependence on the Patriarchal Church. The Greek parliament, however, annulled this concordat, and the synod of Greek bishops at Athens determined that henceforth there should be no relation between the Church of Greece and that of Constantinople, subsequently even forbidding priests ordained out of [{10}] the kingdom to officiate in the priesthood. Although the Greek clergy had shown themselves so forbearing and patient, it seems that the arrogance and perfidy of the clergy of Constantinople had at last roused their just indignation. The learned archimandrite Pharmacides published a book against the synodal act and the policy of the Constantinopolitan clergy, entitled "Antitomos; or, Concerning the Truth," in which he ridicules the pompous pretensions which they make to pastoral vigilance and fidelity in these words:
"Since you obtained the sacerdotal dignity by purchase, if you had really the intention in becoming bishops to watch and to fatigue yourselves by guarding the Church, no one of you would be a bishop; for you would not have spent your money in buying vigils and labors."
Such being the nature of the solicitude of these watchful pastors and scrupulous guardians of the canons for the welfare of those over whom they claim a patriarchal authority, we need not be surprised at any amount of reckless contempt which they may show for the general interests of Christendom, and the admonitions they from time to time receive from the veritable pastor of the flock of Christ. Nevertheless, we cannot but wonder that the respectable portion of the Oriental episcopate should permit themselves to be compromised by an act which seems to cap the climax of even Byzantine stupidity and effrontery. We refer to the reply to the noble and paternal encyclical of Pius IX. to the Oriental bishops, put forth by Anthimus, the late patriarch. Anthimus himself was notorious throughout the city for his habits of drunkenness, which were so gross as to incapacitate him from all business and expose him to the most ignominious insults even from his own subordinates. The letter which he and several of his bishops subscribed and sent to the Holy Father was written by the monk Constantine OEconomus, and, in answer to the earnest and affectionate appeals of the Holy Father to return to the unity of the Catholic Church, makes the following astounding statement:
"The three other patriarchs, in difficult questions, demand the fraternal counsels of the one of Constantinople, because that city is the imperial residence, and this patriarch has the synodal primacy. If the question can be settled by his fraternal co-operation, very well. But if not, the matter is referred to the government (i.e., Ottoman), according to the established laws."
We think that the reason of the grave charge of schism, heresy, and apostacy from the fundamental, constitutive principles of the Catholic Church, which we have made against the higher clergy of Constantinople, will now be apparent to every candid reader. The history of their action in relation to the Church of Greece proves that their principles and policy tend to disintegrate within itself still more that portion of Christendom which they have alienated from the communion of Rome and the West, and thus to increase the force of the movement of decentralization, and to augment the number of separate, local, mutually independent, and hostile communions. That the natural tendency of this principle is to produce dogmatic dissensions, and to efface the idea of Catholic unity, is too evident from past history to need proof. It is only neutralized in the East by the stagnation of thought, and the consequent immobility of the Oriental mind from its old, long established traditions. The essentially schismatical virus of the principle is in the subordination of organic, hierarchical unity to the temporal power and the civil constitution of states, or the church-and-state principle in its most odious form, which was never more grossly expressed than in the letter above cited of Anthimus. This principle not only tends to increase disintegration in the church, but to bar the way to a reintegration in unity, and to destroy all desire of a return to unity, as is also amply proved by the acts of the clergy of Constantinople. A schismatical principle held [{11}] and acted on in such a way as to make schism a perpetual condition, and thus not merely to interrupt communion for a time but to destroy the idea of Catholic unity, becomes heretical. Moreover, when doctrinal forms of expressing dogmas of faith, or particular forms of administering the rites of religion, are without authority set forth as essential conditions of orthodoxy, and made the basis of a judgment of heresy against other churches, those who make this false dogmatic standard are guilty of heresy. This is the case with the clergy of Constantinople, who make the difference respecting the use of "Filioque" in the Creed the pretext for accusing the Latin Church of heresy, and who deal similarly with the doctrine of purgatory, and the questions respecting unleavened bread in the eucharist and immersion in baptism. They have constantly persisted in their effort to establish an essential dogmatic difference between the Latin and Greek Churches and to make the peculiarities of the Greek rite essential terms of Catholic communion, in order to widen and perpetuate the breach between the East and West, and to maintain their own usurped principality. They have been the authors of the schism, its obstinate promoters, the principal cause of thrusting it upon the other parts of the Eastern Church, and the chief instrument of thwarting the charitable efforts of the Holy See for the spiritual good of the Oriental Christians. They have done it in spite of the best and most ample opportunities of knowing the utter falsehood of all the grounds on which their schism is based, in the face of the example and the writings of the best and most learned of their own predecessors, and with a recklessness of consequences, and a disregard of the interests of their own people and of religion itself, which merits for them the name not only of heretics, but of apostates from all but the name and outward profession of Christianity.