3. The Orthodox and the Anglicans.
The relations of the Orthodox Church to the Church of England, of late years especially, have been very much more friendly than towards any other religious body, except, perhaps, the Armenians. The first connection was in the affair of Lukaris. Naturally, it has always been the High Church party in England that has wished for union with the Orthodox. In 1672 the Eastern Patriarchs sent a document to England to answer the question: "What are the sentiments of the Eastern Church?" In 1677 Henry Compton, Bishop of London, built a church in his own city (St. Mary, Crown Street, Soho) "for the nation of the Greeks," and in 1694 Worcester College, Oxford (then Gloucester Hall), was to be a Greek College, although nothing came of this plan. In 1710, Samuel Kapazules, Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, finding his see in great financial difficulties, sent out people to all parts of the world to collect alms for it. Two of these collectors, Arsenios, Metropolitan of the Thebais, and Gennadios, Archimandrite at Alexandria, come to England with letters from Samuel to Queen Anne. They arrive in 1714, and Anne gives them £200. Then, instead of going back at once, they wander about England collecting more money, and at last in 1716 they meet the Non-jurors. Archibald Campbell and Thomas Brett, who were leading men of that party, now conceived the project of a union with the Orthodox. Peter the Great of Russia (1689–1725) was to be the intermediary. So they draw up a document addressed to the Eastern Patriarchs, in which they describe themselves as the "orthodox and catholic remnant of the British Churches." The chief differences of belief and practice noted in this first document are that the Non-jurors fear to pay too much honour to the Blessed Virgin and Saints, say that the Real Presence is only subjective in the soul of the communicant, and prefer to have no images. They then make two most astonishing propositions, first that the Bishop of Jerusalem shall be the first bishop of Christendom,[1] and secondly, in order to secure uniformity of rites, they want
- ↑ It is just such a proposition as would naturally be made by Protestants who know a great deal about the Bible, but have no knowledge at all of the history and development of the hierarchy. How utterly opposed their idea is to the whole of Christian antiquity will be seen from Chapter I, pp. 25–27.
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