EASTERN
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EASTERN
lions of Gregorian Armenians. Among their bishops
four have the title of patriarch. The first is the Patri-
arch of Etchmiadzin, who bears as a special title that
of cathoUcos. Etchmiadzin is a monastery in the prov-
ince of Erivan, between the Black and the Caspian
Seas, near Mount Ararat (since 1S2S Russian territory).
It is the cradle of the race and their chief sanctuary.
The catholicos is the head of the Armenian Church and
to a great extent of his nation too. Before the Rus-
sian occupation of Erivan he had unlimited jurisdic-
tion over all Gregorian Armenians and was something
very like an Armenian pope. But since he sits under
the shadow of Russia, and especially since the Russian
Government has begun to interfere in his election and
administration, the Armenians of Turkey have made
themselves nearly independent of him. The second
rank belongs to the Patriarch of Constantinople. They
have had a bishop at Constantinople since 1307. In
1461 Mohammed II gave this bishop the title of Patri-
arch of the Armenians, so as to rivet their loyalty to
his capital and to form a millet (nation) on the same
footing as the Rum miUet (the Orthodox Church).
This patriarch is the person responsible to the Porte
for his race, has the same privileges as his Orthodox
rival, and now uses the jurisdiction over all Turkish
Armenians that formerly belonged to the catholicos.
Under him, and little more than titular patriarchs, are
those of Sis in Cilicia (a title kept after a temporary
schism in 1440) and Jerusalem (whose title was as-
sumed illegally in the eighteenth century). The Ar-
menians have .seven dioceses in the Russian Empire,
two in Persia, and thirty-five in Turkey. They distin-
guish arclibishops from bishops by an honorary pre-
cedence only and have an upper class of priests called
Vartapeds, who are celibate and provide all the liigher
offices (bi.shops are always taken from their ranks).
There are, of course, as in all Eastern Churches, many
monks. In many ways the Armenian (Gregorian)
Church has been influenced by Rome, so that they are
among Eastern schismatical bodies the only one that
can be described as at all latinized. Examples of
such influence are their use of unleavened bread for
the Holy Eucharist, their vestments (the mitre is al-
most exactly the Roman one), etc. This appears to be
the result of opposition to their nearer rivals, the Orth-
odox. In any case, at present the Armenians are
probably nearer to the Catholic Churcli and better dis-
posed for reunion than any other of these commu-
nions. Their Monophysitism is now very vague and
shadowy — as indeed is the case with most Monophy-
site Churches. It is from them that the greatest pro-
portion of Uniats have been converted.
This brings us to the end of the Monophysite bodies and so to the end of all schismatical Eastern Churches. A further schism was indeed caused by the Monothe- lete heresy in the seventh century, but the whole of the Church then formed (the Maronite Church) has been for many centuries reunited with Rome. So Maron- ites have their place only among the Uniats.
We have, then, as schismatical Eastern Churches, first, the great Orthodox Cliurch, then one Church formed by the Nestorian heresy and five as the result of Monophysitism (those of the Copts, Abyssinians, Jacf)bites, Malabar Christians, and Armenians). Cor- responding to each of these is a Uniat Church, with one additional entirely ITniat community (the Maronitcs).
B. Uniat Churches. — The definition of a Uniat is: a Christian of any Eastern rite in union with the pope: i. e. a Catholic who belongs not to the Roman, but to an Eastern rite. They differ from other Eastern Chris- tians in that they are in communion with Rome, and from Latins in that they have other rites. A curious, but entirely theoretic, question of terminology is: Are Milanese and Mozarabic Catholics Uniats? If we make rite our liasis, they are. That is, they are Cath- olics who do not belong to the Roman Rite. The point has sometimes been urged rather as a catch than seri-
ously. As a matter of fact, the real basis, though it is
superficially less obvious than rite, is patriarchate.
Uniats are Catholics w'ho do not belong to the Roman
patriarchate. So these two remnants of other rites in
the West do not constitute Uniat Churches. In the
West, rite does not always follow patriarchate; the
great Galilean Churcli, with her own rite, was alwaj's
part of the Roman patriarchate; so are Milan and To-
letlo. This, however, raises a new difficulty; for it
may be urged that in that case the Italo-Greeks aie
not Uniats, since they certainly belong to the Roman
patriarchate. They do, of course; and they always
have done so legally. But the constitution of these
Italo-Greek Churches was originally the result of an
attempt on the part of the Eastern emperors (Leo III,
717-741, especially; see "Orth. Eastern Church", 45-
47) to filch them from the Roman patriarchate and
join them to that of Constantinople. Although the
attempt did not succeed, the descendants of the Greeks
in Calabria, Sicily, etc., have kept the Byzantine Rite.
They are an exception to the rule, invariable in the
East, that rite follows patriarchate, and are an excep-
tion to the general principle about Ihiiats too. As they
have no diocesan bishops of their own, on this groinul
it may well be denied that they form a Uniat Chin-ch.
An Italo-Greek may best bedefined as a memberof the
Roman patriarchate in Italy, Sicily, or Corsica, who,
as a memory of older arrangements, is still allowed to
use the Byzantine Rite. With regard to the funda-
mental distinction of patriarchate, it must be noted
that it is no longer purely geograpliical. A Latin in
the East belongs to the Roman patriarchate as much
as if he lived in the West; Latin missionaries every-
where and the new dioceses in Australia and America
coimt as part of what was once the patriarchate of
Western Europe. So also the Melkites in Leghorn,
Marseilles, and Paris belong to the (Uniat) Byzantine
patriarchate, though, as foreigners, they are temporar-
ily subject to Latin iiishops.
A short emmieration and description of the Uniats will complete this picture of the Eastern Churches. It is, in the first place, a mistake (encouraged by East- ern schismatics and Anglicans) to look upon these Uniats as a sort of compromise between Latin and the other rites, or between Catholics and schismatics. Nor is it true that they are Catholics to whom grudg- ing leave has been given to keep something of their national customs. Their position is quite simple and quite logical. They represent exactly the state of the Eastern Chm-ches before the schisms. They are en- tirely and uncompromisingly Catholics in our strictest sense of the word, quite as much as Latins. They ac- cept the whole Catholic Faith and the authority of the pope as visible head of the Catholic Church, as did St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom. They do not belong to the pope's patriarchate, nor do they use his rite, any more than ditl the great saints of Eastern Christendom. They ha\'e their own rites and their own patriarchs, as had their fathers before the schism. Nor is there any idea of compromise or concession about this. The Catholic Church has never been iden- tified with the Western patriarchate. The pope's position as patriarch of the West is as distinct from his papal rights as is his authority as local Bishop of Rome. It is no more necessary to belong to his patri- archate in order to acknowledge his supreme jurisdic- tion than it is necessary to have him for diocesan liishop. The Eastern Catholic Churches in miion with the West have always been as niucli the ideal of the Church Universal as the Latin Church. If somj of those Eastern Churches fall into schism, that is a mis- fortune which does not affect the others who remain faithful. If all fall away, the Eastern half of the Church disappears for a time as an actual fact; it re- mains as a theory and an ideal to be realized again as soon as they, or some of them, come back to union with Rome.
