Florence and gave the Jesuits, then first establishing their missions in the Levant, the charge of educating the boys of his Patriarchate. They were to teach these boys to "despise the sayings of the enemies of the Roman religion."[1] The Greeks of Constantinople persecuted him for this; so that he was called upon to pay a large fine to the Turks. He could not find the money and resigned. His successor, Eutychios (1643), also adhered to the Council of Florence.[2] Then came Makarios III (Za'īm, 1643). Lequien counts Makarios as a Catholic, and says that he made a formal profession of the Catholic faith in 1646.[3] However, in 1668 he was present at the Synod of Constantinople which approved the Confession of Peter Mogilas[4]; so he can hardly be counted as having remained one.
But all this time there was a very considerable Catholic movement throughout the Patriarchate. The Jesuits converted Euthymios, Metropolitan of Tyre, who "proclaimed loudly that the Church of the Franks and Maronites is most holy and the true Church. ... He allowed all those whom the missionaries brought to preach in his church."[5] Meanwhile at Damascus there were 7,000 recognized Uniates, with the most handsome church in all Syria.[6] It is noticeable that at this time there was still no external parting of the ways. The union of Florence had never been irretrievably broken; the local bishops were, apparently, recognized by the Jesuit missionaries as the Ordinaries; there was no opposition hierarchy. The point of view of the missionaries seems to be that all these people were, at least officially, Catholic, until any of them formally went over to schism. The missionaries' work was rather to purify these Catholics from schismatical tendencies.
After Makarios III came Cyril V († 1720). He appears to have come to a clearly Catholic position through a conference he held with the Maronite Patriarch Stephen II (1671-1704). One of the Jesuits writes at that time to his
- ↑ So the report of Fr. Queyrot, S.J., at Aleppo. Charon, Echos d'Orient, iv, p. 326. Rizk, Rev. des Églises d'Orient, ii, 412.
- ↑ Rizk, loc. cit., ii, 412.
- ↑ "Oriens Christianus," ii, 774.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Echos d'Orient, iv, 327, quoting Jos. Besson, S.J., "La Syrie Sainte" (Paris, 1660). This Euthymios (Aftīmūs ibnu-ṣṢaifi) is a very important person who forms the starting-point for the whole Melkite Church. He was uncle of the Patriarch Cyril VI, who brought about reunion, and founder of the first Uniate Congregation of monks (p. 205). It seems that nearly the whole movement in favour of reunion begins with him. We shall often have occasion to mention him (pp. 197, 201, etc.).
- ↑ Echos d'Orient, iv, 326 (again from Besson, op. cit.).
