THE
UNIATE EASTERN CHURCHES
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
CONCERNING UNIATES IN GENERAL
- 1. What is a Uniate?
The now commonly used word "Uniate"[1] may be defined by taking the idea of "Eastern" as the genus and Catholicity as the species, or in the reverse order. So we may say that a Uniate is a member of any Eastern Church who is in communion with the Holy See, or that he is a Catholic of any Eastern rite. The name is not a very old one. Its use began insensibly. In Latin "Orientales uniti sanctæ sedi," or "Ecclesia unita ecclesiæ romanæ," would occur naturally as a description, before anyone thought of "Unitus" as a technical term. From "Unitus" the form "Uniat" was made, apparently first in Slav languages for the Ruthenians. So we got it in English. In French, German, and Italian it has hardly yet become a technical term. They say "les églises unies," "die unierten Kirchen," "le chiese unite," using the common word for "united";[2] though when used thus alone without further qualification it always means "united with Rome."
We have, then, under the genus "Catholic," a first great division into "Roman" and "Uniate." It is hardly necessary to point out that this division in no way implies two or more separate Churches. There is only one Catholic Church; the test of membership in it is to be in communion with all the other members. In any society the test of unity is the mutual acknowledgement of all the members. Where there are separate groups, which do not recognize one another, we have not
- ↑ I prefer "Uniate" to "Uniat" (which sometimes occurs in English) because it corresponds to the usual English form of such words ("cognate," "delegate," etc.). "Uniat" looks odd and foreign in English. There is, of course, no Latin word "Uniatus"; our form comes from the Russian Uniyatu.
- ↑ German Uniert is almost a technical term; in ordinary speech we say Vereinigt.
