The old glories of the free Greek States, vague memories of Marathon and Salamis, the majesty of the Roman Empire, their cause against Persian and Arab, Frank and Turk—it is all gathered together and still lives in the Holy Apostolic Orthodox Catholic Church of the Seven Councils. So one can understand how they feel about a renegade from that Church: he betrays the true faith of Christ, and he betrays the cause of the Fatherland. And one can understand, too, how the Church resents attempts at seducing her children. She trained them, protected them, and cared for them all through the long, dark days that are at last just passing, and now people come over from across the seas to try to make them leave her. And yet the Orthodox Church is unceasingly harried by missionaries of other religions. The Catholic missions—Jesuits, Franciscans, and so on—have been her bugbear for centuries. Of course, the Catholic Church cannot act otherwise. Since the basis of her whole position is that she is the only true Church, to which God wishes all men to be called, she will never, and can never, cease sending out missionaries, whose work is to try to convert any and every human being who is outside her communion, whether heathen, Mohammedan, Protestant, or Orthodox. It is the obvious and perfectly consistent policy she follows throughout the world, and which any reasonable person who understands her faith must always expect. At any rate, one must expect the Holy See to believe in the Roman Catholic claims, and to complain of the Pope because he does not act according to theories which are the exact contrary of his faith is mere foolishness. But one must see an Orthodox paper to understand what they think of the Roman Propaganda,[1] which, instead of converting the heathen (!), sends out wolves and serpents to ruin other Christian Churches. And when Protestant missioners began to come out, too, to help their Catholic enemies rend Orthodox lambs, then even the precious bond of the fact that they were all against the Pope was no longer enough to make Orthodox and Protestants friends. The trouble began with the Bible societies. Various English, American,
- ↑ They will not translate this word, but they spell it out in Greek letters, ἡ προπαγάνδα, which, for some unaccountable reason, looks perfectly fiendish.
