enjoy as much liberty as those of any land anywhere. The story of the Poles and of the Ruthenian Church shows how Russia treats Catholics. In Austria, on the other hand, the Orthodox enjoy every advantage they could possibly wish for; the Government pays their bishops, subsidizes their schools, and has made a Concordat with the Œcumenical Patriarch for their advantage. However, the inveterate habit the Balkan Slavs have of confusing Catholicism with Austria-Hungary is the great hindrance to Catholic missions there.
One of the most interesting questions concerning a religious body is that of its size. Statistics in this case are specially difficult, because the Turk has no idea of such things, and the Russian persecution of dissenters makes it impossible to know how the figures would show if the people were free to profess what faith they like. I find the total number of Orthodox Christians reckoned at from ninety-five to one hundred millions,[1] of which between four-fifths and nine-tenths belong to the Russian Church. Something must now be said about each of the sixteen branches.
Ἡ μεγάλη ἐκκλησία (the Great Church) is the official name for the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which still takes precedence of all the others. What is now left of this patriarchate after all the national Churches have been cut off from it, covers as much of the present Turkish Empire as is not occupied by the other patriarchates or Cyprus, that is to say, Turkey in Europe and Asia Minor; although even in this greatly reduced territory wherever there are Bulgars the Patriarch's jurisdiction is disputed by their Exarch. As we shall see, in the Great Church the title "Metropolitan" has become the common one for bishops, even when they have no suffragans. The Œcumenical Patriarch rules over seventy-four metropolitans and twenty other bishops.[2] Canonically he has no jurisdiction outside of his own
- ↑ Hickmann (Karte der Verbreitungsgebiete der Religionen, Vienna, Freytag u. Berndt): ninety-five millions; Kattenbusch (Orient. Kirche, o.c. p. 445): "Something over one hundred millions."
- ↑ The Metropolitans of Ephesus, Heraclea, Thessalonica, Crete, and Smyrna divide these twenty bishops among their provinces. The other metropolitans have no suffragans. For the list of sees land their revenues, see Silbernagl: Verfassung u. gegenwärtiger Bestand'sämtlicher Kirchen des Orients, p. 35.
