according to their use, and that they shall observe their other rites which are not opposed to the Catholic faith, which the Roman Church holds."[1]
After the union of Lyons, in 1278, Nicholas III writes to Bartholomew, Bishop of Grosseto, then his legate at Constantinople, that the now united Greeks are to say the Filioque in the Creed;[2] "but concerning the other rites of the Greeks, you are to answer that the Roman Church intends the Greeks to follow them, as far as they can under the favour of God; and that they are to keep these rites, concerning which it appears to the Apostolic See that the Catholic faith is not offended, nor the laws of the sacred canons disobeyed."[3]
Our next example shall be the Council of Florence (1439). It is significant that this Council, after centuries of wild abuse of our Latin use of azyme on the part of the Byzantines, so far from any attempt to retort, should again solemnly defend the equal rights of either custom, and disclaim any idea of imposing one only on the whole Church. "So also, whether in azyme or in leavened bread, the Body of Christ is truly present; and priests must consecrate the Body of the Lord in either, each according to the use of his Church, whether Western or Eastern."[4] At the time of the fall of Constantinople many Greeks fled to Italy. Here they were received with the most generous hospitality; the Popes again never thought of changing or blaming the rites they used, as we shall see when we come to the Italo-Greeks (p. 136).
From this time, we have a large number of documents, Bulls and Briefs, by which one Pope after another defends the use of the Byzantine rite in Italy, and forbids any attempt at latinizing the Greek colonies there.
Leo X (1513-1521) and Clement VII (1523-1574) blame Latins who despise the Byzantine rite. Pius IV (1555-1559) proclaims the inviolability of that rite; Gregory XIII (1572-1585) founds the Greek college at Rome in 1577, and orders that its students shall be carefully instructed in their own rite. Clement VIII (1592-1605) and Paul V (1605-1621) defend the Ruthenians of Poland against the Latin government. Benedict XIII (1724-1730), in approving the Synod of Zamoisk, inserted a special clause that nothing was to be allowed
