DNION
149
UNION
groups of the Greek-Slav Rite keep on establishing
themselves, anti give promise of a wider extension of
the apostolate for reunion" (Difesa del Cristianesimo,
C. 199). It is perhaps the spectacle, which can now e seen in many places in the Eiust, of Catholics of the Greek and Latin Rite working side by side in cordial co-operation, while on terms of friendly intercourse with the Orthodox of the same neighbourhood, which is chieflj' helpful in removing prejudice by the object lesson it offers of what reunion would bring to pass in all parts of the world in these days, when Easterns as well as Westerns are spreading and mingling in many lands. Especially impressive in this way seems to have been the object-lesson of the Eucha- ristic Congress held at Jerusalem in 1S93 in which the Catholic clergj- and laity of both rites took part under the eyes of numerous adherents of the separated communions. The solemn Eucharistic Liturgies, according to the rite of St . John Chrysostom celebrated at St. Peter's in the presence of the pope on 14 Feb., 1908, and that celebrated later in the same year at Westminster Cathedral in the presence of his legate, were examples of similar import. Moreover, if Leo XIII's letter of 20 June, 1894, addressed to "the Princes and Peoples", received a rude answer from the patriarch Anthimus VII and his Synod (Duchesne, "Eglises separces"), there were not lacking devout minds in the East who contrasted the patriarch's brutal language with the exquisitely tender and con- ciliatory language of the pope. Padre Franco reports the accession of over a hundred thousand persons to the Uniat Churches as the han-est gathered from this episode dinging the years that followed.
B. In the West. — In the West the EngUsh-speaktng countries must be distinguished from the others, which, Uke them, have inherited the state of religious isolation. In the latter no general sense of the evils of division appears to have been as yet awakened, and even in the former as much must be said of the great mass of the population, even of that section of it which is in earnest about its spiritual condition. Still, in England and the L?nited States there are numerous groups of religious-minded persons who do take very much to heart the scandal of religious divi- sion which is brought home to them in diverse ways through their experience of the hindrances that block the path of Christian progress. Their sense of this scandal and the consequent desire for reunion goes back to the second quarter of the last century. It began with the Tractarians and sprang naturally out of the fuller reahzation, to which their Patristic studies had led them, of the nature and authority of the visi- ble Church. This scliool is still the home of the mo.st solid and fer\'ent asoiration after reunion, but the aspirat ion has spread during the last few decades from this to other parties in the national Church, and even to the Nonconformists, who have grown ashamed of the multiplicity of their sects and are now anxious to find some ba-sis on which they may coalesce among themselves. These latter, however, have no con- ception of unity in the Catholic .sense of the term, and contemplate only a federation on the ba.sis of sinking differences. The Free Church Council founded in England in 1S94, and chiefly notorious for its political campaigns against the Anglican Church, is their prin- cipal achievement so far. The Presbyterians of Scot- land have also felt the influence of the reunion ideal, but they too, except for some individuals, have not looked beyond the healing of their own intestine divisions.
The Anglicans (under which designation are in- cluded, as members of the same communion, the Episcopalians in America and elsewhere) have a wider vision, and have even fancied that to their Church, as holding a central position between the ancient Churches and the modern Protestant sects, ia as- signed the providential mission of bringing these two
extremes together, and serving the cause of reunion by
enabling them to understand each other. During
t he last half-century, under the spreading influence of
the High Church movement, thi.s sense of vocation
has been specially cherished, and has found frequent
expression in the pulpit and religious Utcrature. It
has also given birth to some well-meant undertakings.
Thus the A. P. U. C, or Association for Promoting the Unity of Christendom — by which is meant
the union of the Roman, Eastern, and Anghcan
"branches", others not excluded — is a league of
prayer, founded in 1857, which is said to have by
now many thousand members, drawn from various
rehgious communions, though, as being under non-
Cathohc management. Catholics are not allowed to
join it; the Eastern Church As.sociation (E. C. A.)
and the recent 1\- founded Anghcan and Eastern Or-
thodox Church'Union (A. E. O. C. U.) both w^ork for
the union of the Anglicans with the Eastern.s, the
latter, "while in no way antagoni.stic to efforts for
reunion in other directions", confining itself to those
of the Eastern Churches which are in communion
with the Patriarch of Constantinople. This A. E. O.
C. U. is particularly active in the United States, where
the existence side by side of Westerns and Easterns
offers special facihties for mutual intercourse. It is
due mainly to its instances that the Orthodox Bishop
Raphael of BrookljTi recently sanctioned an inter-
change of ministrations with the Episcopalians in
places where members of one or the other communion
are without clergy of their own — a practice which, as
coming from the Orthodox side, seemed strange, but
was presumably justified by the "principle of econ-
omy" which some Orthodox theologians unaccount-
ably advocate (see Reunion Magazine, Sept., 1910).
This concordat did not, however, last verj- long:
Bishop Raphael seems not to have understood, at first,
the motley character of the EpiscopaUan communion,
but having come to reahze it, quickly revoked his
concession (Russian Orthodox American Messenger,
28 Feb., 1912).
Other societies of kindred aim are the Christian Unity Foundation, estabUshed in the United States in 1910; the Home Reunion Society, estabhshed in Eng- land in 187.5, of which the object is to reunite the vari- ous English religious bodies with the National Church; the Evangehcal Alliance for banding to- gether the Evangelical Protestants of all nations, which was founded in 1840, and is thoroughly Prot- estant in its principles and aims; the Christian L'nity -Association of Edinbiirgh which is under Presbyterian management. Apart from these, as being the only Anglican, or Protestant, Association which directly contemplates the union of the Anglican with the Catholic Church, is the Society of St. Thomas of Canterbury, founded in 1904. and undertaking as its special work to clear the way for this species of reunion by studying and making known the real doctrines of the Catholic Church held by its own members, as op- posed to the erroneous or coloured accounts of the same doctrines which prevail so widely. This society being thus based on sound principles, though at pres- ent in its infancy, is capable of doing valuable work for the cause.
The annual Church Congresses in England are wont to give a place in their discu.ssions to the reunion question, and even the decennial Pan-Anglican Con- ferences, in which the bishops of that communion come together from all lands, are increasingly affected by the movement; though, as consi-sting of prelates with very diverse views, they are always chary about committing themselves to definite statements. Their committees are allowed to be slightly more coura- geous, and in the Conferenceof 1888 the committee on Church Unity formulated four conditions as consti- tuting the neces.«ary and sufficient basis for all who might desire to enter into communion with them-
