great Orthodox Church, people who either remained faithful to Rome when the majority of Byzantine Christians went into schism at the time of Michael Cerularius, or who have been converted back from the Orthodox since. All these use the same Byzantine rite as the Orthodox; all have, except where some moral or really Catholic principle opposes, the same laws and customs as they. In short, this first group of Uniates represents what the Orthodox were before they went into schism. What shall we call these Uniates? They are less uniformly grouped than any other class; indeed, they are grouped in no one body at all, except in the one Catholic Church. This first set of Uniates has no common authority other than the supreme authority of the Pope. Nor is their origin from one source. They represent groups converted at different periods, in different countries, under different circumstances. A few of them have never been in schism, others have come back to the Catholic Church at various times, in countries distant from one another, as the result of different movements. The one connection between this group, separating them from the others, is that all these use the Byzantine rite in various languages. So far they do not seem to have had any common name. Some of them are Ruthenians, some Melkites, some Italo-Greeks.
It might seem convenient to call them all Melkites; but by universal custom, that name is used only for those who speak Arabic, in Syria and Egypt. No one ever calls a Ruthenian a Melkite. "Catholic Orthodox" suggests itself as a name. But this would lead to unnecessary confusion. From people who cannot grasp the principle of using technical terms as such, we should more than ever hear such questions as: "Are not all Catholics orthodox?" Moreover, this name does not proclaim what it means clearly, and it has never been used. It would also seem to suggest such absurdities as "Catholic Nestorians" and "Catholic Monophysites" for the others. Since then the use of the Byzantine rite is the one bond of union that connects these people among themselves and separates them from all others, the name Byzantine Uniates[1] seems the most reasonable as a general one for the whole group.
- ↑ The rite is called Byzantine because it was originally the local rite of the city of Constantinople. For an exactly similar reason our rite, wherever used, is called Roman. A Ruthenian or a Melkite is not, of course, Byzantine by blood or place of dwelling, any more than a German or a Pole is Roman in that sense. Yet each, when we classify ecclesiastical species, takes the name of the rite he uses.
