Padua, and then became Patriarch of Alexandria (1590–1603). Leo Allatius had known him, and it was he who sent Lukaris to Poland (p. 264). His chief work bears the rather ponderous title: "A writing of the most blessed the Pope of Great Alexandria, Lord Meletios, concerning this: which is the true Catholic Church, and who is her legitimate and real Head, and concerning the origin of the Pope of Rome, dedicated to the most holy Silvester his (Meletios's) predecessor and elder."[1] As the title says, this book is a polemical work against the Pope's claim. The legitimate and true Head of the Church is our Lord; the true Catholic Church is made up of all those who acknowledge this, apparently including Latins and "those from Luther." It is the beginning of a sort of branch-theory that was not destined to survive among Orthodox theologians. Meletios Pegas also wrote an "Orthodox Christian Dialogue," a letter to Sigismund III of Poland in Latin against the Roman Primacy, and a number of other works, nearly all of which, except one treatise against the Jews, are directed against Catholic belief and rites. His idea of the origin of the patriarchates is curious. Constantine made Rome and Constantinople patriarchal sees. As they then were jealous of one another, and always quarrelled, Alexandria was also made a patriarchate to judge between them;[2] then Jerusalem was put in the lowest place among the patriarchal sees out of love for the holy places, but also because Christ who had lived there was so humble. He seems to have forgotten Antioch.[3] Jeremias II of Constantinople (1572–1579, restored 1580–1584; restored again 1586–1595) is famous chiefly because of his correspondence with the Tübingen Protestants (p. 252). But he also wrote against the Latins. He protested against the use of the Gregorian Calendar which Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) had introduced in the West, and which some Greeks
- ↑ Printed in the Τόμος χαρᾶς of Dositheos of Jerusalem, 1705, pp. 553–604.
- ↑ The title "Judge of the Universe" is borne by the Patriarch of Alexandria (see p. 349).
- ↑ In his second letter (to the Orthodox Russians in Poland, 1597), printed at Constantinople in 1627; see Leo Allatius, de perp. cons., p. 996, and Meyer, o.c. p. 64.
