Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/860

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774

GREEK


774


GREEK


following places: Indiana Harbor, Illinois; (Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; Sawyer, North Dakota; Regina, Canada. Of their clergy — one archimandrite and four secular priests — three are from Transylvania and two from Rinnania. It is a noticeable fact that these two branches of the Greek Rite, Catholic and Orthodox, have harmonious relations and attend all Rumanian celebrations together, where matters of their race and language are concerned.

VI. BoLG.\RiAN Orthodox Church. — Bulgarian immigration into the United States has only recently been in any considerable numbers. While the major- ity come from the Kingdom of Bulgaria, a great many are also from Macedonia, in Turkey. They dislike the Greeks very much, and while the Turkish contingent of them is nominally under the Patriarch of C'onstanti- nople, they recognize only the Exarch of Bulgaria. Neither will they affiliate with the Russian Church authorities here. While there are considerable num- bers in New York City, yet they have settled chiefly in Illinois and Missouri, and are scattered also farther westward. The first Bulgarian Church (Sts. t'yril and Methodius) was built in 1908 by the Bulgarian monk Theophylact at Granite City, Illinois. There is also another one near St. Louis, Missouri, and one is being built at Madison, Illinois, while there are several mis- sion stations. There are about 20,000 Bulgarians and three priests in this country. They publish two papers in their language and have several church societies, but have no national organization.

VII. Albanian Orthodox Church. — The Alba- nians use the Greek language in their liturgy, there having been no version into their very difficult tongue. They come from Albania in the southern Balkans and from Epirus and northern Greece. They are also known as Arnauts and call themselves in their own language skipetar, "mountaineers" (see Albania). They are, of course, the same race which formerly emigrated into Italy, and whose descendants now form the majority of the Italian Greek Catholics. Albanian immigration to America has been quite recent, but there are now some 15,000 here, mostly settled in the vicinity of New York City and in New England. Although they use the Greek language in their fiturgy and have attended the Hellenic Orthodox Church, they have no love for the Greeks. In Febru- ary, 1908, the Russian Archbishop of Aleutia and North America ordained the Rev. F. S. Noli, a young Albanian, in New York City as an Orthodox priest and established him as missionary for his people in the United States. The Russian Holy Synod has taken steps on his initiative towards translating the Greek Liturgy into Albanian. They have a small chapel in Brooklyn and missions in New England, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. Endeavours have been made by them to attract the Italo-Greeks from their Uniat rite, on the ground of their being also of the Albanian race in America.

Pravoslavny Kalendar (New York, 1903-09); Matrosoff, Zaokeanskaya Rus in Istorichesky Viestnik, LXVII (St. Peter.s- burg. 1897) ; Svit and Pravoslavny Viestnik (New York, 1902- 09);'EA\i)TO-'Aj»epiK<i;.i«ds'OS),vcis (New York, 1909); Catendand Ziarxd Romanut (Cleveland. 1909); The Messenger, XLII (New York, 1904), for December; Eehos d' Orient. VII (Paris, 1904), for May and July.

Andrew J. Shipman.

Greek Rites. — (1) Rite, Language, Religion. — These are three things that must always be distinguished. A rite is a certain uniform arrangement of formuUe and ceremonies used for the Holy Eucharist, the Canonical Hours, the administration of other sacraments and eacramentals. These offices, as far as we know, have never been performed in the same way throughout Christendom. There are now, apparently there always have been, different rites, equally legitimate, used in different places l)oth by Catholics and other Chris- tians. Obviou.sly each rite was originally composed in some language. But rite is not language ; the vari-


ous rites cannot be classified according to their lan- guages. There are many different rites in the same language ; on the other hand the same rite, remaining the same in every detail, is constantly translated. Thus, in the West, the Roman and Galilean Uses are both written in Latin, but they are completely differ- ent rites. The Roman Rite is used in Dalmatia in an Old Slavonic version (written in Glagolitic letters), occasionally in Greek in Italy; but in any language it is always the Roman Rite. In the East this want of correspondence between rite and language is still more remarkable. Except those of the Armenians, Nestorians, and Abyssinians, all Eastern liturgies were originally written in Greek. Even the exceptions are only modified derivations from Greek originals. If, then, we take the language in which a rite was origi- nally composed as our test, we must describe all Eastern liturgies as Greek. Indeed, the two great Western parent rites (of Rome and Gaul) represent, as a matter of fact, modified developments from Greek originals too. So we should come to the conclusion that every rite in the Church, every historic liturgy in Christen- dom is a Greek Rite. If, on the other hand, we make our test present use in the Greek language, we must separate the Byzantine Liturgy said in Greek at C'on- stantinople from what is word for word the same ser- vice said in Old Slavonic at St. Petersburg. It is clear then that language is no clue as to rite. At the head of all Eastern liturgies, foundations of two great classes, are the Liturgies of Alexandria and Antioch. They are not only different rites, their difference un- derlies the fundamental distinction by which we divide all others into two main groups; and both are Greek. And the same Byzantine Liturgy is used unchanged in about fourteen different languages. A second false criterion that must be eliminated is that of religion. It would be convenient for classification if members of each Church used the same rite, different from that of any other Church. But this is by no means the case. The historic origin and legal position of the various rites is a much more complicated question. Catholics, joined of course entirely by the same faith, obeying the same laws (though in details there are different laws for different branches of the Church), united visibly to the same great hierarchy under the supreme rule of the pope at Rome, are divided accord- ing to rite, so that every Eastern liturgy is used by some of them. The same liturgies (but for a few modi- fications made by the Roman authorities in the inter- est of dogma) are shared by the various schismatical Churches. Indeed, Catholics and Schismatics often use the same books. The Orthodox Church, that has for many centuries aimed at an ideal of uniformity in the Byzantine Rite (in different languages\ till the thirteenth century used those of Alexandria and Anti- och too. Now she has restored the Antiochene Liturgy for certain rare occasions, and there are signs that the Alexandrine Rite may soon be restored too. Other schismatical bodies have, it is true, each its own rite, though this rite generally contains alternative litur- gies. It will be seen then that these three points are three quite different questions that must not be con- fused. In the case of any Christian bishop or priest we may ask: what is his Church or sect, what rite does he use and in what language? And the answers may represent all kinds of combinations. A Catholic may use the Roman Rite in Old Slavonic, the Alexandrine Rite in Coptic, the Byzantine in Georgian. An Ortho- dox priest may use the Byzantine Rite in Arabic or Japanese.

(2) The Essential Note of a Rite. — We have seen then that neither its language nor the .sect of people who use it can be taken as essential to a rite. The real note that defines it is the place where it was com))osed. All rites had their origin in some one place or city that was an ecclesiastical centre for the country round. After the service had been put together and used here.