Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/849

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763

GREEK


763


GREEK


General Council, they condemned his memory and restored the cultus of images.

Degradation of will, and slavery of the whole epis- copate to the whims of the emperors — such are the main causes of these wretched tergiversations. No doubt there were some noble, though rare, exceptions among the bishops and among the monks. Be it imderstood, their knowledge is not in question. On this score bishops and monks, as a rule, were ahead of their brethren in the West. This is one of the things that startle the student of the ecclesiastical literature of the two Churches during this same period. In the East there is no such suspension of literary activity as we know to have lasted in the West from the period of the Germanic invasions to the magnificent efflores- cence of the Middle Ages. But the Latin Church had one incontestable superiority over its rival: it had one centre of gravity, Rome, and always recognized the papacy as the visible head of the Church. The ec- cle-siological doctrine of the Eastern Church, on the contrary, is very rudimentary; they do not appeal to Rome, and recognize its imprescriptible rights only very rarely and in extreme cases, ^^"ith the excep- tion of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Theodore the Studite, and a few other rare examples, the bishops and theologians of the Greek Church never touch on the primacy of Rome, except when they are imploring the pope's help to bring a dangerous adversary to rea- son. The danger past — the shock avoided — they have forgotten ever}ihing.

The primitive Church, Grseco-Syriac in speech, as we have said, adopted the liturgy of the sjTiagogue, which consisted of readings from the Bible, hymns, homilies on some subject furnished by the reading, and prayers. To this was added the sacred banquet of the Supper instituted by Christ, with pra.yers and ritual forms borrowed for the most part from the synoptic Gospels and from St. Paul. We first find somewhat precise indications of this liturgy in the "Teaching of the Apostles", the Epistle of Pope St. Clement, and the First Apology of St. Justin. "From these", says Duchesne (Origines du culte chretien, p. 53), "we must descend at once to the fourth cen- tury. It is about this period that we come upon docimients, of a kind that may be made use of, bear- ing upon the liturgical usages which were afterw-ards completed and diversified until they became what we see them." This same author adds that from that jjeriod it is possible to clas.sify all known liturgies imder "four principal types: the Syriac, the Alexan- drian, the Roman, and the Galilean. . . . The Syriac had already given way to many sub-types, each hav- ing its distinct characteristics." We shall here deal only with the Syriac and Alexandrian types, the only ones used in the East.

The Syriac type, properly so-called, followed in the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, as well as in the Church of Cj'prus, is mainly represented by the Greek or Syriac Liturgy of St. James and other anal- ogous liturgies. I^p to the .Arabic invasion Mass was said in Greek, except in the country churches, where Syriac w-as used. This latter speech was adopted by the Jacobites as their liturgical language when they separated from the official Church. In our day these heretics and the LTniat Syrians are the only ones who retain the Syriac rite, with some modifications especi- ally noteworthy in the Maronite Church.

A sub-type of the Syriac rite is represented by the liturgies used in the Syriac Churches of Mesopotamia and Persia; the liturgy of Sts. Addeus and Maris, still in use among the Nestorians and the Uniat Chaldeans, is another example. Another sub-type is represented by the .-Vrmenian Liturgy, also derived from that of Antioch, but modified since 491. when the Armenians separated from the Cireek Churches and marked the separation by adding to the divergencies of their rites. Lastly, a third sub-type is represented by the Cappa-


doco-Byzantine liturgy which is in the main a copy of the Syriac. It was by bishops who were natives of Syria or Cappadocia — Eusebuis, Eudoxius, Gregory Nazianzen, Nectarius, John Chrysostom, and Nestor- iu.s — that the Church of Constantinople was gov- erned at the time of its foimdation and definite organization, and it is this Byzantine liturgj' that has survived in all Greek Churches, whether Or- thodox or Uniat, in the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, in the Churches of Cyprus, Servia, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Rinnania, and others, just as the Roman Liturgy has predominated in all the Latin Churches. It should be noted, how- ever, that in the majority of these Churches Greek is not the liturgical language, but Arabic, or Slavonic, or Rumanian, into which the text of the Greek Liturgy has been literally translated. For the B)'zantine liturgy there exist, besides the Mass of the Presancti- fied, known to have existed since the year 615, two complete liturgies: that of St. Basil, in almost univer- sal use in the East about the year 520 (P. L., LXV, 449), and that of St. John Chrysostom, w-hich is the one mainly followed at present.

Of the Alexandrian Liturgy, omitting certain later or doubtful copies, we have three complete texts: the Greek Liturgy of St. Mark, which seems to have been drawn up by St. Cyril; the Coptic Liturgy, said to be by St. Cyril of Alexandria, and the .\bj-ssinian Lit- urgy of the Twelve Apostles. Each of these repre- sents a different group of the same rite, and all are fundamentally alike.

Bevrmer, Sitrles vestiges du culte imperial a Byzance in Revue des Questions Historiques (1892). LI, 5-56; Gasquet, L' Auto- rilr imperiale en matiere religieuse a Byzance (Paris, 1879); Gel- ZER. Das Verhaltnis von Staat und Kirche in Byzanz in Histor- isrhr /.rtlxchrifl ( 1901 ). 19.i-2.3J: Briuhtman, Liturgies Eastern ,i,ni II, '. ,/ (ixf.,,.!, I'Kii, , l;<.i I 1,1 ,,,\, The Divine Liturgies ',/ / , , - / , ,, chrysostom, Basil the

',,, ' ' '■ I ,,l'>n, 1894); FoRTEScnE,

77,, /), ,,, /,',,„,;,,,/,,, /,,,'/,,; <un,.,i the Saints, John Chrys- oslnin (l.oiiiloTi, UJOSi ; I\ENArintT, Lilurgiaru7norientalium col- lectio (Frankfort, 1S47); Habert, Archicraticon, Liber pontifi.- cali'i Ecclesice Grcecw (Paris. 1643); Goar, Euchologion, sive Riluale Gra;corum (Paris, 1647); Denzinoek. Ritus orientalium . . . in administrandis sacramatli , W iir 'Init l:, 1.S63); Daniel, Codex liturgicus ecclesice oriental i ,' , , ,/(,s- (Innsbruclc.

1896); Charon, Les saintes et ,/, , ' ,,, de . , . Jean Chrysostome, Basilele Grand, et (h ,, ,,,/ (Paris, 1904);

Mee.ster, La divine liturgie de .^,, ' ' tr^o^ilome (Paris,

1907); Duchesne, Oriffines du . , Paris, 1898); tr.

Christian Worship {Ijondon, \Q<)\ I'l > , .' 'irgic des vierten Jahrhujiderts und deren Reformiyi'i'i-^'^ . [^ ^ ; Clugnet.Dic- tionnaire grec-francais des noms liturgiqurs rn usage dans I'eglise grecque (Paris, 1895). See also Leclercq in Diet, d'arckeol. chretiennc et de liturgie, s. vv. Alexandrie; Antioche,

(3) The Greek Schism: Conversioyi of the Slavs (Ninth to Eleventh Century). — The Greek Schism, about which space permits us to say very little (see Photius; Michael C.,\lod.\rius), was caused by something that must have seemed trivial at Constantinople. On 23 November, 858, the Patriarch Ignatius was depo.sed, and on 25 December in the same jear Photius succeeded him. Ignatius was deposed be- cause he had refused Communion to the Emperor Bardas, who was living openly in sin with his daugh- ter-in-law. It was not the first time at Byzantium that for more or less lawful actions an orthodox patri- arch had been deposed and another appointed in his place. Thus, among other examples, Macedonius II had succeeded Euphemius in 496; John III had suc- ceeded Eutychius in 565; Cyrus had succeeded Callini- cus in 706, and John VI had replaced Cyrus in 712, without causing any great commotion. Ignatius might then have let things take their course and waited in his retreat till fortune turned his way once more. This he did not do, and, if he was somewhat lacking in suppleness, his right was incontestable. Once he had refu.sed to consent to his deposition. Pope Nicholas I was bound to uphold him and to condemn Photius, w'ho was an outright usurper. Photius was clever enough to see that a rupture with Rome on this point would not satisfy even the Greeks, so he cast