the Patriarch of Jerusalem (also named Cyril) heard of what had happened and summoned a synod in 1867, which declared that the Great Church had no authority to interfere in anything that happened outside its own patriarchate, and that if there was any trouble on Mount Sinai the proper person to put things right was the Patriarch of Jerusalem. "If we acted otherwise," declared this synod, "people would think that we tolerate such anti-canonical interference, and that we acknowledge foreign and unknown authorities in the Church as well as the only lawful and competent high jurisdiction of the Œcumenical Synods."[1] Cyril of Jerusalem sent the Acts of his council to all the other autocephalous Churches, and once more they all rose up against the usurpation of the Phanar. He also deposed Cyril Byzantios for what he had done and, although Sophronios of Constantinople stood by him, the feeling against them both was so strong throughout the Orthodox world that Byzantios had to submit to his deposition and Sophronios had to resign.[2] However, Mount Sinai is recognized as an independent Church, and stands with its one bishop and handful of monks on just the same plane as the enormous Russian Church. Its archbishop lives at the Sinaitic metochion at Cairo; he rules over only the monastery and its fourteen metochia, and his authority is very much limited by the council of monks (ἱερὰ σύναξις), who share the government.[3] The present archbishop is Lord Porphyrios Logothetes, who was formerly the Orthodox priest in Paris. His Beatitude has brought from the land of the Latins a great dislike for their Church, and when he was consecrated at Jerusalem on October 30, 1904, he took the opportunity of speaking very bitterly against Catholics, a proceeding that was the less graceful in that a number of Catholic priests had been invited to the ceremony and, with the easy
- ↑ For this story see Kyriakos, Ἱ.Ε. iii. p. 62, seq.
- ↑ Gregory VI, who had been deposed in 1840 and who had seen eleven Œcumenical Patriarchs succeed him, was then appointed for the second time (1835–1840, 1867–1871).
- ↑ For the constitution of the Synaxis, see E. d'Or. viii, p. 182. The diocese of Pharan, originally joined to the monastery, no longer exists. The only remnant of the old jurisdiction of Jerusalem is that the name of that patriarch is mentioned in the Holy Liturgy on Mount Sinai.
