on their conservatism, and eagerly maintain that they and they alone still hold the faith of the seven councils unchanged and entire. That and that alone is the faith of the Orthodox. "Our Church knows no developments," as a Russian archimandrite told Mr. Palmer. For all that, since the meaning of many decrees of the seven councils is a matter of discussion (Latins see in some of them quite plain acknowledgement of the Pope's primacy), and since there certainly are points which these councils have not explicitly defined (they say nothing about seven Sacraments, nor the Epiklesis, for instance), the Orthodox have been just as much obliged as every one else to draw up more modern forms declaring quite plainly how they understand the old faith and establishing their position in regard to later controversies. And this already involves development.
The symbolical documents of the Orthodox Church[1] are these: 1. The Confession of Gennadios. This is Gennadios Scholarios, who was a determined enemy of the Florentine Union, and who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 1453 (p. 241). Sultan Mohammed II, who was well disposed towards him, asked for an account of the faith of his Church. In answer he drew up a "Confession of the true and genuine faith of Christians" in twenty paragraphs.[2] It was translated into Turkish by Ahmed, Kadi of Berrhœa, and has been continually reprinted and edited since. Gennadios's Confession has traces of the Platonic
- ↑ They will be found in Greek and Latin in Kimmel: Monumenta fidei ecclesiæ orientalis, and in Greek in Michalcescu: Die Bekenntnisse … der griech.-orient. Kirche.
- ↑ Kimmel, i. pp. 11–23; Michalcescu, pp. 17–21. Kimmel also prints a probably unauthentic Dialogue between Gennadios and Mohammed II, i. pp. 1-10.
it be only an "Œcumenical Synod of the Eastern Church," or as universal as the first seven? According to their own claims and profession they should say the latter. As they feel no great need of being consistent and have a sort of shyness about saying quite plainly that the whole of the enormous Catholic body is a negligible institution, they will probably say the former. It is curious that an accident of fate has given the Orthodox one more example of the holy number. They have not only seven Sacraments, seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, seven deadly sins, and seven days in the week, but seven general councils, dimly foretold long ages ago by the seven-branched candlestick.
