Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/480

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438
THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH

a gentleman. In this last official communication between the Churches one sees once more the old story. It is not, it has never been, Rome that is haughty or unconciliatory. Constantinople since Photius has always assumed a tone of arrogant defiance and insolent complacency that argues complete satisfaction with the horrible state of things produced by her schism. "Evidently," says Mgr. Duchesne, "they are still sore and hurt, will have nothing to do with us, and are not at all embarrassed in saying so quite plainly." One does not, then, see in the leaders of the Orthodox Church any great desire to heal this lamentable breach. And yet, one asks oneself at the end of the whole story, what real reason can there be for the schism now? One can understand the original causes. Photius was so anxious to remain Patriarch. It was so hard for him to be deposed when the Emperor and all the court were on his side. Cerularius wanted to be a sort of Pope-Emperor himself, and the Crusaders behaved so badly to the Byzantine people. But now, after all these years, who cares any longer for those quarrels? The dusts of ten centuries have gathered over Photius's unknown grave; it is nine hundred years since Cerularius, who had been so rude and insubordinate to his over-lord, went to give his account to the over-Lord of all patriarchs. Cannot one even yet let the dead bury their dead? The schism came about through the jealousies and ambitions of the old Roman court on the Bosphorus. And that court and all the Byzantine world has been dead so long. Who cares now for the Cæsar in his gorgeous palace, or for the political rivalries of Old Rome and New Rome? The Turk swept New Rome away; and only here and there a student, peering through the mists of centuries, will call up again the pale ghosts of the men who intrigued and fought, plotted and murdered around the gorgeous halls, the stately basilicas, and the crowded streets of the city whose marble quays rose above the Golden Horn. Her watchwords are silent and her causes are forgotten, as the world moves through the changing ages. But for all of us, for the children of dead New Rome as well as for us who stand around the fisherman's throne in the eternal Old Rome, there is a cause that does not die, there is a great