Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/296

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258
THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH

to restore everywhere a primitive liturgy, to be specially drawn up. The Bishop of New Rome is to be in every way equal to his brother of Old Rome, and the Church of England (that is themselves) is to be recognized as an independent branch. The whole plan is curiously Protestant and reckless of tradition. Arsenios and Gennadios then take this paper with them to Peter the Great, who sends it on to Constantinople. The Patriarchs answer as might have been expected. Their Church has always kept the Orthodox faith intact and has nothing to modify; they insist on her teaching about the procession of the Holy Ghost, and proceed to instruct the Non-jurors on the other points, as one would instruct catechumens. The idea of making the Patriarch of Jerusalem first bishop is absurd and revolutionary. If the Anglicans like to put themselves under his jurisdiction, of course they may, and he would then appoint bishops for them (this was the last thing the Non-jurors, with their hope of being an equal branch, wanted). As for a primitive liturgy, there is one already, the Byzantine rite, which the Anglicans would do well to adopt. Without Chrism, they say, no one is a perfect Christian, and so on. They do not wonder that Englishmen brought up in the principles of Luther and Calvin should be so mistaken as the Non- jurors are, but they should now be converted to the Orthodox faith; and the Patriarchs end with a tremendous curse against all who deny it. In spite of so great a snub, however, the correspondence dragged on till 1725. Then Archbishop Wake of Canterbury (1716–1737) found out what was going on, and wrote to warn the Patriarchs against these "schismatic presbyters"; "we," he says, "are the true bishops and clergy of the Church of England." That was the end of the negotiations.[1] The abortive Anglican-Lutheran Bishopric at Jerusalem in 1841 (to 1881) of course gave great offence to the Orthodox, and confirmed them in their conviction that there is nothing much to choose between Anglicans and any other Protestants.[2] In 1840, William Palmer of Magdalen

  1. See for this story G. Williams, The Orthodox and the Non-jurors; G. B. Howard, The Schism between the Orthodox and Western Churches, and the Échos d'Orient, viii. pp. 321–328.
  2. There is another Anglican Bishopric "in" Jerusalem now, of quite a different type, which gives no offence to anyone.