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| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
This subject will be treated under the following heads:
I. Explanation of Terms;
II. The Greek Orthodox Church and Its Divisions;
III. Greek Uniat Churches;
IV. Greek-Church History, subdivided into:
(1) The First Five Centuries;
(2) Decay of the Greek Churches of the East and Rise of the Byzantine Hegemony (451-847);
(a) Internal Organization of the Byzantine Churches;
(b) The Emperor; Relations between East and West; Liturgy.
(3) The Greek Schism; Conversion of the Slavs (ninth to eleventh century);
(4) Efforts towards Reunion; the Crusades (eleventh to fifteenth century);
(a) Internal Organization;
(b) Hesychasm.
(5) From 1453 to the Present Time -- Relations with the Catholic Church, the Protestants, etc.
In the East, when a Church is spoken of, four things must be kept distinct: the race to which the adherents of the Church belong; the speech used in their everyday life, and in their public devotions; the ecclesiastical rite used in their liturgy, and their actual belief, Catholic or non-Catholic. It is because these distinctions have not been, and are not, even now, always observed that a great confusion has arisen in the terminology of those who write or speak of the Eastern (Oriental) Churches and of the Greek Church. As a matter of fact, the usual signification attached to the words Eastern Churches extends to all those Churches with a liturgical rite differing from the Latin Rite. Let them reject the authority of the pope or accept it, they are none the less Eastern Churches. Thus the Russian Church, separated from Rome, is an Eastern Church; in the same way the Greek Catholics who live in Italy, and are known as Italo-Greeks, make up an Eastern Church also. The expression Eastern Churches is therefore the most comprehensive in use; it includes all believers who follow any of the six Eastern rites now in use: the Byzantine, Armenian, Syrian, Chaldean, Maronite, and Coptic.
What, then, do we mean when we speak of the Greek Church? -- Ordinarily we take it to mean all those Churches that use the Byzantine Rite, whether they are separated from Rome or in communion with the pope, whether they are by race and speech Greek or Slavs, Rumanians, Georgians, etc. The term Greek Church is, therefore, peculiarly inappropriate, though most commonly employed. For instance, if we mean to designate the rite, the term Greek Church is inaccurate, since there is really no Greek Rite properly so called, but only the Byzantine Rite. If, on the other hand, we wish to designate the nationality of the believers in the Churches following the Byzantine Rite, we find that out of fifteen or twenty Churches which use that rite, only three have any claim to be known as The Greek Church, viz., the Church of the Hellenic Kingdom, the Church of Constantinople, the Church of Cyprus. Again, it must be borne in mind that in the Church of Constantinople there are included a number of Slavs, Rumanians, and Albanians who rightly refuse to be known as Greeks.
The term Orthodox Greek Church, or even simply the Orthodox Church, designates, without distinction of speech, or race, or nationality, all the existing Churches of the Byzantine Rite, separated from Rome. They claim to be a unit and to have the same body of doctrine, which they say was that of the primitive Church. As a matter of fact, the orthodoxy of these Churches is what we call heterodoxy, since it rejects the Papal Infallibility, and the Papal Supremacy, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that of Purgatory, etc. However, by a polite fiction, educated Catholics give them the name of Orthodox which they have usurped. The term Schismatic Greek Church is synonymous with the above; nearly everybody uses it, but it is at times inexpedient to do so, if one would avoid wounding the feelings of those whose conversion is aimed at.
The term United Greek Church is generally used to designate all the Churches of the Byzantine Rite in communion with the See of Rome. Thus the Ruthenian Church of Galicia, the Rumanian Church of Austria-Hungary, the Bulgarian Church of Turkish Bulgaria, the Melchite Church of Syria, the Georgian Church, the Italo-Greek Church, and the Church of the Greeks in Turkey or in the Hellenic Kingdom -- all of them Catholic -- are often called the United Greek Churches. Again, the term is inappropriate, and belongs of right only to the last two Churches. As a matter of fact the Ruthenians and Bulgarians are Slavs who follow the Byzantine Rite, but use a Slavonic translation; whereas the Rumanians are Latins who follow the Byzantine Rite, but in a Rumanian translation, etc.
Instead of United Greek Church, the term Uniat (or Uniate) Church is often used; and in like manner the word Uniats is used instead of United Greeks. These words are by no means synonymous. Uniat Church, or Uniats, has a much wider signification than United Greek Church or United Greeks, and embraces all the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome, but following another than the Latin rite, whether it be Byzantine, Armenian, Syrian, Chaldean, Maronite, or Coptic. The Uniat Church is therefore really synonymous with Eastern Churches united to Rome, and Uniats is synonymous with Eastern Christians united with Rome.
The Greek Orthodox Churches are Churches separated from Rome and following the Byzantine Rite, i.e. the rite developed at Constantinople between the fourth and tenth centuries. In the beginning, the only language of this rite was Greek. Later, however (the exact date is uncertain), it was introduced among the Georgians, or Iberians, of the Caucasus and was translated into the Georgian vernacular of the country. In the ninth century, through the efforts of Sts. Cyril and Methodius and their disciples, the Moravians and the Bulgarians were converted to Christianity, and as the missionaries were Byzantines they introduced their own rite, but translated the Liturgy into Slav, the mother tongue of those nations. From Bulgaria this Byzantine-Slav Rite spread among the Servians and the Russians. In recent times the Byzantine Rite has been translated into Rumanian for use by the faithful of that nationality. Lastly, the Orthodox Syrians of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt have adopted a hybrid Byzantine Rite in which, according to the whim of the celebrant, either Greek or Arabic is used. Hence we have five divisions of the Byzantine Rite, and consequently five divisions of Orthodox Greek Churches: --
This Church is governed by a patriarch, a Holy Synod consisting of twelve metropolitans, and a mixed council of four metropolitans and eight laymen. It numbers in all 101 dioceses, of which 86 have metropolitan rank, and 15 are suffragan sees. Such were the official figures and were accurate until the month of October, 1908. As we write, however, this is no longer so. Since the proclamation of Bulgarian independence the five Greek metropolitans in their country have been suppressed by the Bulgarians. Bosnia-Herzegovina had four metropolitans depending more or less on Constantinople, but since Austria-Hungary has annexed that country they will no longer be dependent. Lastly, the Island of Crete is now almost independent of Turkey, and in consequence its metropolitan and his seven suffragan bishops have gone over to the Holy Synod of Athens. From the 101 dioceses, therefore, we may deduct 17, viz., 10 metropolitan sees and 7 suffragan sees, which leaves a total of 84 dioceses, 76 being metropolitan and 8 suffragan. Of these 84 dioceses, not including Constantinople, 22 are in Asia Minor, 12 in the Archipelago, and 50 on European soil. For want of reliable statistics, it is difficult to form an estimate of their population. The Greeks in the Ottoman Empire claim to number 6,000,000, but this figure is exaggerated. We shall be nearer the truth in computing 1,000,000 Greeks in Asia Minor, 400,000 in the Archipelago, 1,500,000 in Turkey in Europe, including the Albanians and Bulgarians. There are, moreover, 600,000 Slavs, either Bulgarians or Servians, who belong to the œcumenical patriarchate. All this gives a grand total of 3,500,000 souls. In consequence of the independence of Bulgaria, of the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary, and the secession of Crete to Greece, the œcumenical patriarchate has recently lost nearly a million subjects -- namely, 700,000 in Bosnia, 200,000 in Crete, and from 70,000 to 80,000 in Bulgaria.
This Church dates back to 1833, when 36 bishops proclaimed their independence of Constantinople and established a Holy Synod; its authority was not recognized until 11 July, 1850, by the œcumenical patriarch. At the present time this Church is controlled by a Holy Synod of five members: the Metropolitan of Athens as president and four bishops chosen in regular succession. The Hellenic Kingdom contains 32 dioceses, of which one -- that of Athens -- is a metropolitan see; it is not, however, rare to find one-third of the sees vacant for economic reasons. The Church of Greece numbers 2,500,000 members in Greece and many thousands of believers in other countries, especially in the United States. By an arrangement arrived at between Athens and Constantinople in 1908, all the Greek Churches of the dispersion, save that of Venice, must, look to Athens as their head.
Ever since the Council of Ephesus, in 431, recognized its autonomy, which was confirmed in 488 by the Emperor Zeno, the Church of Cyprus has remained independent. The hierarchy consists of the Archbishop of Constantia and his three suffragans, the Bishops of Paphos, Cytion, and Cyrenia. Nearly ten years ago the archbishop died, and so far his successor has not been agreed on. The Church has about 200,000 adherents.
The Orthodox population of this patriarchate is hardly Greek any longer. They are a Syrian race whose speech is Arabic, and as a rule the liturgical offices are celebrated in Arabic. Since 1899 the Greek element, which had up to then monopolized the superior clerical positions, has been definitively driven out of Syria. The patriarch lives at Damascus and governs with the aid of a Holy Synod and a mixed council. At the present time this Church has 13 dioceses, all of metropolitan rank, and numbers 250,000 souls.
This patriarchate was cut off from that of Antioch in 451. If it were not for the sanctuaries of the Holy Places, which draw so many pilgrims and such considerable alms, its importance would be nil. All the superior clergy are Greek, and, in accordance with a rule made in the early part of the eighteenth century, the clergy of Syrian birth and Arabic speech are eligible for the lower clerical positions only, although the whole membership of this Church is Syrian. There has been a revolt recently against this slavery, and it is not unlikely that before long the Greeks will be expelled from Jerusalem as they have been already driven from Antioch. The only extant dioceses are Jerusalem, Nazareth, and St. Jean d'Acre, but a number of titular metropolitans and archbishops aid the patriarch in the administration of his Church. The liturgical languages in use are Greek and Arabic; the number of subjects of this patriarchate cannot exceed 50,000 souls.
This patriarchate is made up of only one diocese under the personal care of the patriarch. According to decisions arrived at in 1867 he ought to be assisted by a Holy Synod composed of four members who were to be honorary Metropolitans of Pelusium, the Thebaid, Pentapolis, and Lybia. This synod is being formed. Church-membership numbers about 80,000 persons, made up mostly of strangers from Syria and Greece, among whom far from harmonious relations prevail. The liturgy is celebrated in either Greek or Arabic, but for the most part in Greek.
The titular of this see has jurisdiction over the convent of St. Catherine and about fifty Bedouins. Its autonomy was proclaimed in 1575 and confirmed in 1782. At the present time the tendency is to consider it rather as a diocese in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The various national Churches of Iberia, Mingrelia, and Imerethia no longer exist since Russia has extended her dominion over the Caucasus provinces. In the Liturgy the Georgian tongue has been replaced by the Slavonic. The number of dioceses was formerly twenty, but is now only four, all in the hands of the Russians. It has a metropolitan, with the title of Exarch of Georgia and three suffragan bishops. The number of the Orthodox in Georgia, including the Russian colonists, is reckoned at about 1,600,000.
This is but a continuation since 1721 of the Patriarchate of Moscow, which had been established in 1589 by the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremias II, who up to that time had ruled the Russian Orthodox Church. The Holy Synod instituted by Peter the Great and composed of seven members, is the head of this Church. The Russian Church counts 63 dioceses, ruled by 3 metropolitans, 13 archbishops, and 47 bishops. In many of the dioceses, where the distances are enormous, it is customary for the bishop to take one or more auxiliary bishops, known as episcopal vicars, for the governing of parts of the diocese. At the present time there are 44 of these episcopal vicars. The number of members of this Church must be about 70,000,000, or half the population of the Empire. There are at least 25,000,000 more believers who separated from the official church in the seventeenth century and make up the great Raskol sect (see RUSSIA). The remainder of the population of Russia is made up of about 12,000,000 Catholics together with Protestants, Armenians, Jews, Mussulmans, Buddhists, and even pagans.
It was not till November, 1879, that this Church secured its independence of the Œcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since then it has been governed by a Holy Synod comprising the Metropolitan of Belgrade and the four suffragan Bishops of Nich, Uchitzé, Timok and Chabatz. Its members number about 2,500,000 souls, and its liturgical language is the Slavonic. -- The Servian Church of Montenegro. -- It is ruled by the Metropolitan of Cettinjé, who goes to Russia for consecration. Until 1852 the bishop, or Vladika, was temporal as well as spiritual head of the principality. Since then the authority has been divided. The membership is about 250,000. -- The Servian Patriarchate of Carlovitz in Hungary. -- This Church was founded in 1691 by Servian emigrants from Turkey. It became a patriarchate in 1848. Besides the patriarchal diocese, there are six others: Bracs, Buda, Carlstadt, Pakray, Temescaz, and Versecz. Its membership numbers about 1,080,000 souls. It is governed by a Holy Synod and a national Parliament, or Assembly, of which one-third of the members are clerics and the remainder laymen. It meets every three years. -- The Servian Church of Bosnia-Herzegovina. -- Theoretically this Church still belongs to the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, but since the annexation of these provinces by Austria-Hungary (6 October, 1908) it may be looked on as autonomous. It has four metropolitan sees. Seraiero, Mostar, Doinja-Touzla, and Banialouka, and numbers 700,000 souls. -- Two other Servian groups have not yet acquired autonomy. That in Dalmatia belongs to the Rumanian Metropolitan of Tchernovitz; it has two dioceses, Zara and Cattaro, and numbers 110,000 souls. The other group, in Turkey, in the vilayet of Uskub, acknowledges the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople. It has two dioceses, Prizrend and Uskub, and numbers 250,000 souls.
After having concurrently two patriarchates, one at Tirnovo, suppressed in 1393, and another at Ochrida, suppressed in 1767, the Bulgarians have organized an independent Church, recognized by the Sublime Porte, 11 March, 1870. The exarch, head of all Bulgarians in Turkey and Bulgaria who may be disposed to admit his authority, resides in Constantinople. He has subject to him in Turkey 21 dioceses, of which about two-thirds are still waiting for the nomination of their bishops, and in Bulgaria 11 metropolitan dioceses. The faithful of the exarchate number about 4,000,000, of whom 2,900,000 are in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, and 1,000,000 in Turkey in Europe. The proclamation of Bulgaria as an independent kingdom will bring about modifications in the ecclesiastical domain, for it is hardly likely that Turkey will accept an outsider as spiritual head of its Ottoman subjects.
This church has existed since 1864, though it was not recognized by the Phanar as independent until 13 May, 1885. It obeys a Holy Synod composed of two metropolitans and six bishops -- its whole episcopate. Its membership numbers 4,800,000 souls.
This Church, formerly under the Servian Patriarchate of Carlovitz, secured its independence in 1864. It is governed by a national Assembly composed of 90 members (30 ecclesiastics and 60 laymen) who meet every three years. The Metropolitan of Sibiu has two suffragans, the Bishops of Arad and of Karambes. Its computed membership is 1,750,000. (c) Servo-Rumanian Church of Tchernovitz. -- This Church secured independence in 1873. It comprises three dioceses; Tchernovitz, the metropolitan see, situated in Bukovina, Zara and Cattaro in Dalmatia (its two suffragan sees). The population of this Church, which in Bukovina is mainly Servo-Rumanian and in Dalmatia Servian, is about 520,000 souls.
To sum up, there are seventeen Orthodox Churches of various tongues and nationalities, knit together more or less by a common Byzantine Rite and a vague basis of doctrine that becomes more and more imbued with Protestant ideas. Their total membership does not exceed 100,000,000 souls; the exact figure is 94,050,000, of whom about three quarters (70,000,000) are in the Russian dominions.
Nearly every one of the Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine Rite has a corresponding Greek Catholic Church in communion with Rome. As we saw in the majority of the Orthodox Churches, so in the case of the Uniat Churches, they are Greek only in name. Altogether eight divisions are recognized:
The total membership of these various Churches does not exceed 6,000,000 souls; the exact figure is computed at 5,564,809, of whom 4,097,073 belong to the Ruthenians and Servians, 8488 to the Bulgarians, 1,271,333 to the Rumanians, 138,735 to the Melchites, and 49,180 to the Italo-Greeks and Pure Greeks. The number of Catholic Georgians is unknown, but it is small. These are the figures furnished by the 1907 edition of "Missiones Catholicæ", published at Rome (p. 743).
Their Church has not yet been organized, it is under the Apostolic Delegate at Constantinople. Parishes and missions exist at Constantinople, Cadi-Keui, Peramos, Gallipoli, Malgara and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. The faithful number about 1000, under the care of a dozen priests, of whom seven are Assumptionists. There are also Catholics of this rite in Greece. They are subject to the Delegation at Athens.
These Catholics are of Greek or Albanian origin, and use the Byzantine Rite. They live mainly in Sicily and Calabria, and have some fixed colonies in Malta, at Algiers, Marseilles, and Carghese in Corsica. Their number is not more than 50,000. Ecclesiastics in Calabria and Sicily are ordained by two Italo-Greek bishops. Their liturgical language is Greek, but for the most part the vernacular of the faithful is Italian.
Russia, unwilling to tolerate within her dominions an Orthodox Georgian Church distinct from the Russian, is all the more opposed to the creation of a Catholic Georgian Church. Out of from 30,000 to 35,000 Georgian Catholics, about 8000 follow the Armenian Rite, the remainder having adopted the Latin Rite. The only Catholic Georgian organization in existence is at Constantinople.
All these are under a patriarch who bears the titles of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, and who, moreover, has jurisdiction over all the faithful of his rite in the Ottoman Empire. Their number amounts to about 140,000 and they are subject to twelve bishops or metropolitans. The liturgical language is either Arabic or Greek.
The Uniat Church of Russia has disappeared. Its last two bishoprics, those of Minsk and Chelm, were suppressed in 1869 and in 1875 respectively. Since the disorders of 1905 many have availed themselves of the liberty of returning to the Catholic Church, but as a precautionary measure they have adopted the Latin Rite.
In Austria-Hungary the ancient Ruthenian Church has survived with a little more than 4,000,000 members. It has six dioceses, of which three are in Galicia (the Archbishopric of Lemberg, and the Bishoprics of Przemysl and of Stanislawow) and three in Hungary (the Bishoprics of Munkács and of Eperies under the Latin Archbishop of Grau, and the Bishopric of Crisium, or Kreutz, in the archiepiscopal province of Agram, and of which the Catholic population is mainly Servian).
The movement for union with Rome, very strong in 1860, was, owing to political reasons, not a success. To-day there are hardly 10,000 Catholics between the two Apostolic vicariates of Thrace and Macedonia. The seminary of Thrace is under the care of the Assumptionists, that of Macedonia under the Lazarists.
The Rumanian Catholic Church uses the Byzantine Rite, but the liturgical language is Rumanian. It is established only in Hungary and counts four dioceses, viz., the Archdiocese of Fogaras with the suffragan Dioceses of Armenopolis, Gross-Wardein, and Lugos, having in all 1,300,000 members.
The Uniat-Rumanians of the Kingdom of Rumania have no ecclesiastical organization. In this summary I have omitted the other Oriental Churches in communion with Rome, e.g. the Armenian, the Coptic, the Abyssinian, the Syriac, the Maronite, the Chaldean and Malabrian Churches, because they do not use the Byzantine rite, and have no claim to be considered as Greek Churches, even in the wider meaning of the word.
The Gospel, preached by the Apostles and by their disciples, who were converts from Judaism, spread first of all among the Jewish communities of the Roman Empire. These Jewish settlements were mainly in the towns, and as a rule spoke the Greek tongue; and thus it came to pass that the earliest Christian communities were in the towns and used the Greek tongue in their liturgical services. Gradually, however, Christian converts from among the Gentiles began to increase and, as the author of the so-called Second Epistle of Clement says, "The children of the barren woman outnumbered those of the fruitful one". The original differences between the Judæo-Christian and Helleno-Christian communities quickly disappeared, and soon there existed only Christians, with a certain number of heretical sects which either held aloof of their own accord or were constrained to do so. At the end of the fourth century, at least in the East, nearly all the cities were Christian, but the villages and country places, as in the West, offered a more stubborn resistance to the new religion. The government of the Church was monarchical; as a rule every city had its bishop, and the priests were his assistants; the deacons and lower ministers attended to the ceremonial and to charitable works. Even before the Council of Nicæa (325) ecclesiastical provinces had begun to appear, each having a metropolitan and several suffragan bishops. The size of these provinces generally corresponded to the extent of the civil provinces.
The fourth canon of Nicæa expressly refers to such provinces. But were there also Churches whose high jurisdiction was recognized by a number of ecclesiastical provinces, and did they correspond with the future patriarchates and exarchates? We must reach the third century before we find conclusive proof of this. At that time the Bishop of Alexandria was looked up to as the Primate or Patriarch of all Egypt. In a somewhat similar way, though in a lesser degree, the Bishop of Antioch had authority in the provinces of Syria and Asia Minor. For instance, at the end of the second century Serapion of Antioch exercised his authority at Rhossos, a town of Cilicia, and this same Serapion appears to have ordained Palout, the third Bishop of Edessa. During the latter half of the third century we see assembled at Antioch the bishops of all Syria and eastern Asia Minor, soon to become the civil diocese of Pontus. As early as 251. we know of a synod that was to be held at Antioch because Fabius, the bishop of that town, seemed to be leaning towards Novatianism. The promoters of this meeting were the Bishops of Tarsus, Cæsarea in Palestine, and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. A few years later, in 256, Dionysius of Alexandria, treating of the Eastern Churches that had been disturbed by this quarrel, mentions Antioch, Cæsarea in Palestine, Ælia (Jerusalem), Tyre, Laodicea in Syria, Tarsus and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Somewhat later, again, from 264 to 268, the affair of Paul of Samosata was the occasion of many meetings of bishops at Antioch, and in the interests of that Church. They always came from the same provinces, viz., those extending from Polemoniac Pontus (Neo-cæsarea) and Lycaonia (Iconium) to Arabia (Bostra) and Palestine (Cæsarea and Ælia). "Immediately after the persecution of Galerius and Maximianus a celebrated council was held at Ancyra, presided over by the Bishop of Antioch, at which some fifteen bishops from the same countries, were again present; this time, however, the Provinces of Galatia, Bithynia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia are represented, but Asia, properly so called, still remained outside the group" (Duchesne, "Christian Worship", London, 1904, p. 20). On the other hand, in Proconsular Asia no Church had yet succeeded in asserting authority over the others; Ephesus, the most famous of them, had merely a primacy of honour over its rivals in influence and wealth, Smyrna, Pergamus, Sardis, and others.
To sum up, then, during the opening years of the fourth century we find three principal ecclesiastical groups in the Eastern Empire:
The Councils of Nicæa (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) legalized the existing state of things, created new Churches and established the ecclesiastical hierarchy as it has remained ever since. But in order to understand the situation properly, we must first briefly review the civil organization of the Roman Empire, which had such an influence over early Church organization.
From Diocletian to the accession of Theodosius the Great (379) the Empire of the East included the civil dioceses of Egypt (after its separation from Antioch), Asia, Pontus, and the two Mysias, or Thrace. The remaining dioceses formed part of the Empire of the West. On 19 January, 379, Gratian, Emperor of the West, ceded to his colleague, Theodosius I, the Prefecture of Eastern Illyricum, which included the dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia. Soon afterwards, between 424 and 487, Western Illyricum, or the diocese of Pannonia, became part of the Empire of the East.
Among the canons of Nicæa (325) that do not specifically deal with the ordinary ecclesiastical provinces, canons 6 and 7 confirm the rights accorded by immemorial custom to certain great Churches, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and the other eparchies. It is not easy at first sight to determine what rights the council referred to. Nevertheless it is a general opinion that the sixth canon aimed at securing to the Bishop of Alexandria an exceptional rank, and at endowing him with powers over the metropolitans and bishops of the four civil provinces of Egypt, Thebaid, Libya, and Pentapolis, as ample as those exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the various provinces of the Patriarchate of the West. Thus the Bishop of Alexandria had the right to consecrate all the metropolitans and bishops of Egypt, and from this some historians and canonists would have us conclude that he was, as a matter of fact, the only metropolitan in Egypt, and that his entire patriarchate was a single diocese. This is an evident exaggeration. At the Council of Nicæa there were four Egyptian metropolitans, one for each of the civil and ecclesiastical provinces; later their number rose to nine, or even ten, according as the emperors increased the number of civil provinces. The number of suffragan bishops rose at one time to a hundred. The organization of the Egyptian Church really followed the same lines as the others. But the Patriarch, or Bishop, of Alexandria had the right of consecrating all his bishops, once their election had been confirmed by the metropolitan, whereas in the other greater Churches the metropolitan himself discharged this function.
Although the sixth canon, in as far as it refers to Antioch, is far from clear, it would seem that the Nicene Council recognized and granted to the Bishop of Antioch the same jurisdiction over the provinces of the civil diocese of the East (Diœcesis Orientis) that it had recognized and granted to the Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria over the Provinces of the West and of Egypt respectively. Therefore it attributes to Antioch a supremacy over many provinces, each having its own metropolitan, in such a way as to constitute them into a patriarchate. It is thought that the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch was coextensive with the aforesaid civil diocese of the East, but it may very likely have extended also over certain provinces in Pontus and Asia Minor.
The same canon requires that the rights of the other eparchies be maintained. The meaning of the word eparchies is not clear and has been variously interpreted. According to some, it refers to ordinary ecclesiastical provinces, but this is hardly probable, seeing that the council had already dealt with them in its fourth canon. Others are of opinion that the council intended to grant the Bishops of Heraclea, Ephesus, and Cæsarea the same privileges and rights over the provinces of the civil dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus that the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch enjoyed over the provinces of the civil dioceses of Egypt and the East. The second canon of the Council of Constantinople (381) seems to support this interpretation, where it says: "The Bishops of the Diocese of Asia must watch over the concerns of Asia only; those of Pontus, over what concerns Pontus, and those of Thrace over what concerns Thrace." Perhaps the council simply meant to enfranchise the provinces of these three civil dioceses from the jurisdiction of Antioch, Alexandria, or any other Church, without, however, raising any particular see -- Ephesus for instance, or Cæsarea -- to a particular rank like that of Antioch or Alexandria.
As for Jerusalem, or Ælia, according to the seventh canon, it remained a simple bishopric under the jurisdiction of Cæsarea Maritima, its metropolitan see, but enjoyed the right to certain honours on the occasion of œcumenical councils, when its bishops sat next to those of the greater Churches of the empire.
The Council of Constantinople (381) confirmed and defined, in its second canon, what the Council of Nicæa had attempted to outline. It was understood that the Bishop of Alexandria should be the head of the Church of Egypt, and the Bishop of Antioch head of the Church of the East. As for the remaining two Asiatic dioceses, those of Pontus and of Asia, the ambiguous phrases of the second canon, and the interpretation thereof given by the historian Socrates (Church History V.8), do not permit us to infer the supremacy of any one Church over all the other Churches of a civil diocese. That Ephesus in Asia and Cæsarea in Pontus held privileged positions is certain, but that either Ephesus or Pontus was at the head of the episcopate of Asia or of Pontus, as Antioch was at the head of the Eastern episcopate, is a position which we have no documentary evidence to support. The third canon of this council of Constantinople brings another Church on the scene, that of the imperial capital itself, to which Nicæa had made no reference. The silence of the First Œcumenical Council is easily understood when we remember that in 325 Byzantium, or Constantinople, was still an undistinguished bishopric, with Heraclea, in Thrace, as its metropolitan, and that its first bishop, St. Metrophanes, had died as recently as 314. In consequence of the transfer of the seat of imperial government to Byzantium, the city increased in importance, even from an ecclesiastical point of view; in 339 and 360 we find two Arian bishops, Eusebius and Eudoxius, leaving their metropolitan Sees of Nicomedia and Antioch to occupy this bishopric, which they had already begun to consider the first episcopal see of the Empire. The Council of 381 encouraged this attitude, and its third canon asserts that "the Bishop of Constantinople ought to have a pre-eminence of honour next to the Bishop of Rome, for that city is the new Rome".
It would be hard to protest too strongly against the spirit of this canon, which attempts to measure the ecclesiastical dignity of a see by the civil importance of the city. But although the popes refused to recognize it, all the bishops of the East accepted it, and Constantinople considered itself henceforward as the premier see of the Empire of the East.
Novella cxxxi of Justinian approved this decision of the council: "Ita sancimus . . . . veteris Romæ papam primum esse omnium sacerdotum . . . . archiepiscopum Constantinopolis, novæ Romæ, post sanctissimam apostolicam sedem veteris Romæ secundum locum habere." Did this honorary pre-eminence carry with it a wider jurisdiction? and can the Bishop of Constantinople be henceforward looked on as a patriarch? We have no juridical text in support of such a thing, but Socrates (Church History V.8) assures us that Constantinople did exercise authority over Thrace, while Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Church History V.28) attributes to St. John Chrysostom (398-404) a superior's authority over twenty-eight provinces. Now the "Notitia dignitatum", a document dating from about 410, reckons six provinces in Thrace, eleven in the diocese of Asia, and eleven in that of Pontus. Constantinople was actually at the head of these three dioceses, whose twenty-eight provinces officially made up its patriarchate in 451. In any case, if a superior jurisdiction over these twenty-eight provinces did not belong de jure to the Bishops of Constantinople from 381 to 457, it is quite certain that de facto they exercised such jurisdiction. (For a number of instances in proof of this see the article "Constantinople" in Vacant and Mangenot, "Dictionnaire de théologie catholique", II, 1323-25.) Furthermore, their aim at this time was to have only one Eastern Church, only one patriarchate, of which they should be the chiefs, and this was to be brought about by the annexation of the provinces of Illyricum, subject to the pope, and the suppression of the rights enjoyed by the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. Thus, on 14 July, 421, the Emperor Theodosius II issued a law whereby Illyricum was brought under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Byzantium (Cod. Just., I, ii, vi; Cod. Theod., XVI, ii, xlvi), but in consequence of the protests of Pope Boniface I and of Honorius, Emperor of the West, this law never was enforced.
Again, according to Socrates (Church History VII.28), Bishop Atticus of Constantinople obtained from Theodosius II a decree forbidding the consecration of a single bishop in the East without the consent of the Bishop of Constantinople, but, owing to the opposition it encountered, this decree was hardly ever observed, except in the civil dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus. The struggle undertaken against the See of Alexandria brought nothing but disaster for Constantinople. In less than fifty years three of its bishops, St. John Chrysostom in 403, Nestorius in 431, St. Flavian in 449, were deposed by the primates of Egypt, Theophilus, St. Cyril, and Dioscurus. On the other band, in the Patriarchate of Antioch the Byzantine interference became more and more successful, as was proved in the case of Ibas, in the partition of Phœnicia, and at the time of the consecration of the Patriarch Maximus. In 431, at the Council of Ephesus, a fourth Greek Church, that of Cyprus, took its place side by side with Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Its subjection to Antioch never having been clearly defined, it had profited by the Arian disputes and the famous schism of Antioch (330-415) to proclaim its own autonomy. Once the schism ended, the Patriarchs of Antioch tried to reassert their authority; Cyprus resisted and even took advantage of the absence of the Syrian patriarch to have its independence recognized by the œcumenical council. Later, this independence was reaffirmed by the Emperor Zeno and by a council held at Constantinople in 488. The head of the Cypriot Church has never had the title patriarch, but only that of Archbishop. The acknowledgment of an independent Cypriot Church was a serious loss for the Patriarchate of Antioch; following on this blow came two others in quick succession, the one beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire, the other within those boundaries, which greatly diminished the influence of Antioch and the extent of its jurisdiction. Beyond the frontier, in the Persian kingdom of the Sassanides, were many Christians of Syrian speech, governed by a number of bishops. The Gospel had come to them from many points, principally from Edessa and other Churches subject to Antioch. There was, therefore, a certain bond of affection and gratitude between these Syrian Churches of the Persian Empire and those of the Roman Empire. In order to impose his authority on all the bishops of Persia, Papa bar Aggaï, Bishop of Seleucia Ctesiphon, the capital of the kingdom, had recourse to the Syrian bishops of the Roman Empire during the early years of the fourth century. They hastened to aid him, and by methods whose nature is unknown to us succeeded in placing the Bishop of Seleucia Ctesiphon at the head of the Persian Church, and in bringing that Church under the jurisdiction of Antioch. The bishops of the other important sees in Persia accepted very unwillingly the primacy of the Bishop of Seleucia, and there were continuous revolts against it. The Bishop of Seleucia always fell back on the support of the western Syrian bishops subject to Antioch, especially in 410, when Marutas of Maiphergat in this way overcame all opposition. The Bishops of Seleucia had had recourse to Antioch only as an expedient for imposing their supremacy upon their Persian brethren; that end once attained, they, in their turn, shook off the tutelage of Antioch. The Council of Seleucia, held in 424 laid down that the bishops of Persia "could bring no complaint against their patriarch before the patriarch of the Westerns (Antioch), and that every cause which could not be settled by their own patriarch was to be reserved for the tribunal of Christ". That ended the matter. By this council the Church of Persia cut itself off definitively from the Greek Churches. The pity is that a few years later, by adopting Nestorianism as its national doctrine, it also cut itself off from the Catholic world.
In 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, another Church was set up to the detriment of Antiochene prestige, viz., that of Jerusalem. The bishop of the Holy City had obtained from the Council of Nicæa (325) the purely honorary rights which his successors had endeavoured to turn into tangible realities. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and especially Juvenal, tried to shake off the yoke of Cæsarea Maritima, the religious capital of Palestine, and, after Cæsarea, the yoke of Antioch, the patriarchal see of the East. Juvenal, elected in 424, acted, indeed, as if he were already independent. Afterwards he sought official approbation for the usurpations he had been guilty of. He applied first to the Council of Ephesus (431) and put forward forged documents, which St. Cyril of Alexandria refused to admit. Next he turned to the "Robber Council" of Ephesus (449), and his demands were conceded. At the same time he extorted a decree from Theodosius II granting his Church jurisdiction over the three provinces of Palestine, also over Arabia, and a part of Phœnicia. Two years later, at Chalcedon, through fear of losing more, Maximus, Patriarch of Antioch, came to an understanding with Juvenal whereby the Church of Jerusalem was to remain in possession of the three provinces of Palestine. In consequence of this agreement, which was ratified by the council, Juvenal became patriarch of Jerusalem.
The same Council of Chalcedon, by its twenty-eighth Canon, drawn up in the absence of the papal legates, regularized the situation at Constantinople; it promulgated anew the third canon of the Second Œcumenical Council, which had made Byzantium the first see of the East and the second of the Christian world, giving it effective jurisdiction over the twenty-eight provinces of the three dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus, whose metropolitans it was to have the right of consecrating, and further authorizing it to ordain bishops for barbarian lands, which was the germ of its subsequent policy towards the Slav nations. Moreover, the council reserved to the bishop of the capital the right to decide on all appeals brought to his tribunal by the clergy of the three Eastern patriarchates and of the Archdiocese of Cyprus.
Beginning from the year 451, then, we find four Greek patriarchates (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem) and one autocephalous Church (Cyprus) under the rule of an archbishop. Beyond and within the limits of the Roman Empire two other Churches had secured autonomy and broken with the Greek Churches; these were the Persian and the Armenian Churches, offshoots from the Church of Antioch. Lastly, in Europe the majority of the Greek-speaking Churches looked to the pope as their patriarch.
The definition of faith of the Council of Chalcedon (451) had curiously agitated the Byzantine Empire. The condemnation of Eutyches, Dioscurus, and their adherents amounted in the eyes of many to a condemnation of St. Cyril of Alexandria and of the Council of Ephesus, if not to a victory for Nestorius. It happened that these religious disturbances reached their climax in the remotest provinces of the empire, in those which, while willingly or unwillingly subject to the Byzantines, had still retained a lively memory of their former national independence and glory, together with their own language, liturgy, art and literature. Egypt, Syria, Armenia became for the most part Monophysite; Palestine also. Even the episcopate of Asia Minor, with the Metropolitan of Ephesus, who resumed, about 474, the title of Patriarch, was bitterly opposed to the new definition; in the end, however, order and orthodoxy prevailed in Asia Minor. Until the reign of Justinian (527-65) the doctrine for or against the two natures in Christ was officially triumphant according as the emperor happened to be Monophysite or Dyophysite, and lent to the accepted doctrine the support of his sword. Justinian, the Byzantine Louis XIV, finally caused Dyophysitism to triumph, but the violence he had to use lost him the support of all the Eastern and African portions of the empire. The Church of Alexandria and that of Antioch nominated Monophysite patriarchs, and thus began the Coptic and Jacobite Churches which exist even yet. In Egypt nine out of every ten of the faithful declared against the faith of the imperial Court; in Syria the proportion was not so great. It may be said that about one-half of the subjects of Justinian accepted the faith of Chalcedon. Efforts to impose a heterodox patriarch on Palestine were in vain; except in the region of Garza, the monks were powerful enough to successfully resist the Monophysites. To sum up, then, we find that, as early as the sixth century, of the Greek patriarchates in the East, one (Alexandria) had lost nearly all its subjects, another (Antioch) retained but one-half, while the third (Jerusalem) was too inconsiderable ever to dispute the primacy with Constantinople. The latter thus became the only real Greek patriarchate, to which the other three, surnamed Melchites (Imperialists), looked for favours and protection against Monophysite competition and later against the threatening domination of the Arabs.
This leads us to a consideration of the second cause that completely ruined the hopes of the three Greek Churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, namely, Islam. It came from Arabia and spread like an oil-stain over Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and finally Egypt. It even made great efforts to cross the Taurus range and enter the Greek world, but in this was everywhere defeated. For the moment its conquests were limited to provinces where the country folk had remained for the most part aloof from Hellenic speech and civilization. Thus the Syrian Jacobites gladly welcomed the Arab conquerors as their brethren in race and in speech, and, it would seem, often aided them in their conquests. Their complaisance towards the new régime brought them many favours not shown to the Melchites, who, because of their origin, or at least because of their relations with foreign Byzantium, were everywhere watched, hunted down, and proscribed. Without the help of Constantinople and Rome, from whom they begged help and assistance, it is very probable that these Melchite Churches would have disappeared. At the very time when the great Arab invasion and the spread of Islam was taking place, Byzantium was emerging from a disastrous war with Persia which had almost brought about the ruin of the Christian power, and its emperor was occupied in rallying the various Monophysite Churches to the official Church by means of the ad captandum formula of one will and one energy in Christ. The attempt failed owing to the splendid resistance set afoot by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem and St. Maximus of Constantinople; its net result was a fresh loss for the Melchite Patriarchate of Antioch, from which the monks of the convent of St. Maro on the Orontes seceded, to found, with the aid of the villagers of Syria and the Lebanon, the Maronite Church, Monothelite in doctrine, but which at a later date accepted Catholicism.
The growing weakness of the three eastern patriarchates and of the Archbishopric of Cyprus, whose titular had for a while to take refuge in Cyzicus, soon forced them to seek the moral and material support of Constantinople. It was eagerly granted, and Constantinople, thus freed from a rival in the East, turned its attention towards Rome in the West. As we have seen, the civil diocese of Thrace was the only one in Europe subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople; the provinces of Achaia, Macedonia, Thessalia, Epirus (old and new), which formed the civil dioceses of Macedonia, Dacia, and Pannonia, were included in the Patriarchate of Rome. Over these remote provinces the pope exercised his spiritual supremacy through the Bishop of Thessalonica, appointed vicar Apostolic about 380, and the Bishop of Justiniana Prima (Uskub), appointed in 535. Until the eighth century this arrangement worked without much opposition on the part of Constantinople, and the ecclesiastical provinces of Illyricum were considered as forming part of the Roman Patriarchate. The Emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, seems to have been the first to interfere with the custom, when, in 733, after his excommunication by the pope, he increased the tribute from Calabria and Sicily, confiscated the patrimony of the Roman Church in those regions, and aimed a blow at the authority of the pope by depriving him of the obedience of Illyricum and Southern Italy, which were thenceforth attached to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Such, at least, is the usual interpretation of an obscure text in the Chronicle of Theophanes (Hubert in "Revue Historique" (1899), I, 21-22); it is confirmed by an observation of the Armenian ecclesiastic Basil, who, in the ninth century, speaking of the metropolitan cities of Illyricum and Italy, asserts that they had been made subject to the authority of Constantinople "because the pope of ancient Rome had fallen into the hands of the Barbarians" (Georgii Cyprii Descriptio Orbis Romani, ed. Gelzer, p. 27). The popes protested against this high-handed robbery, but no attention was paid to their protests, and since about 733 Illyricum has been attached to the Byzantine Patriarchate. In this way it gained about one hundred bishoprics, nor was this all: starting with the principle that no bishopric in the Byzantine Empire could be in any way dependent on an outside patriarch, the Iconoclast emperors took away from the Patriarch of Antioch, on the plea that he was a subject of the Arab caliphs, the twenty-four episcopal sees of Byzantine Isauria, and from the pope of Rome the fifteen Greek bishoprics in Southern Italy. Consequently, the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople became co-extensive with the limits of the Byzantine Empire.
Besides this increase of jurisdiction, the establishment of a permanent synod (synodos endemousa) and the addition to his title of the adjective Œcumenical rapidly placed the Patriarch of Byzantium in the front rank. The permanent synod dates most probably from the patriarchate of Nestorius (381-97). It was a sort of ecclesiastical tribunal permanently in session at Constantinople, made up, as a rule, of many bishops whom business or ambition had called to the capital; the patriarch himself presided over the tribunal. It attended to the solution of all ecclesiastical affairs submitted to the judgment of the emperor, so that the Patriarch of Constantinople, as its president, became ex officio arbiter between the Court and the bishops of the empire; it was a privileged position due to the very force of circumstances, and in the last resort it subjected all the great metropolitans, and even the patriarchs, of the East, to the judicial authority of the Byzantine Bishop. The ninth and seventeenth canons of Chalcedon confirmed and consolidated this state of things, and the insertion of those canons in the Civil Code gave them thenceforward equal authority with any other imperial decrees. The title Œcumenical was granted for the first time at the Robber Council of Ephesus (449) to the Patriarch Dioscurus of Alexandria, and at the time it looked like a dangerous innovation, and was repudiated at the Council of Chalcedon. Soon afterwards we find it applied to Popes St. Leo I, Hormisdas, and Agapitus, and to the Patriarchs of Constantinople, John II (518-520), Epiphanius (520-535), Anthimus (536), Menas (536-552). It was in 588, on the occasion of a council, that the Patriarch John IV, surnamed the Faster, seems to have restricted the use of the honorary title to his own see. This gave rise to a fresh quarrel with Rome, which saw therein a new evidence of ambition. Pope Pelagius II annulled the acts of this council and his successor, St. Gregory the Great (590-604), began a lengthy correspondence on the matter with the Byzantine Patriarchs John IV and Cyriacus, but nothing ever came of it. The popes went on protesting, but the Byzantine patriarchs, supported by the Court, the bishops, and the clergy, also by the other Greek patriarchs, refused to forego the title, which they have borne ever since, and which has given them a colour of honorary supremacy over all the Churches of the East.
The superior hierarchy of a Greek Church at the period we are treating of, viz., from the fourth to the tenth century, was composed of a patriarch, a catholicos, the greater metropolitans, the autocephalous metropolitans, the archbishops and the bishops. The patriarch is at this period the highest prelate, at the head of a whole Church, and, as we have seen, there were only four such: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The catholicos exercised jurisdiction over a portion of the Church on an equality with the patriarch, save for the fact that he must originally have been consecrated by the patriarch. Such, we are told, was the position of the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and of the Catholicos of Armenia, with reference to the See of Antioch, and towards the same see, but at a later period, of the Catholicoi of Romagyris, of Irenoupolis, and of Georgia. The other patriarchates, except perhaps Alexandria, never had such an ecclesiastical dignitary.
The greater metropolitans ruled each an ecclesiastical province and had under their authority a certain number of suffragan bishops. Their position was similar to that of the Latin archbishops. The number of these metropolitans varied in the various patriarchates according to the actual number of ecclesiastical provinces. For a long period Jerusalem had three, in the sixth century Antioch had twelve, in the fifth century Alexandria had ten, in that same century Constantinople had twenty-eight, which rose to thirty-two about 650, and to forty-nine about the beginning of the tenth century. The "autocephalous" metropolitans had no suffragan bishops, and depended directly on the patriarch. Latin canon law knows no such dignitary. These prelates had each his own diocese; they were not metropolitans in partibus infidelium. The number of these prelates, small at first, increased in the East to such a degree that at the present time one rarely meets with any of another rank. In the sixth century there was only one, that of Chalcedon, in the Patriarchate of Constantinople; in the tenth century only two, those of Chalcedon and Catania. We have no documentary evidence as to how things stood in this respect in the Patriarchates of Alexandria and of Jerusalem. The archbishops do not differ from autocephalous metropolitans, except as being inferior to them in the hierarchy. They depend directly on the patriarch, and have the real government of a diocese. This title, which corresponds to the exempt archbishoprics, was formerly very common in the Eastern Church. About 650 the Church of Constantinople reckoned thirty-four archdioceses of this sort; in the tenth century, we know, on the evidence of three documents, it had fifty-one; at the end of the eleventh century the number stood at thirty-nine, and since then it has gone on decreasing in the East, so that at present the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem alone possesses this institution.
The position of suffragan bishops is too well known to require any explanation. In the sixth century there were fifty-six of them in the three provinces of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, one hundred and twenty-five in the twelve provinces of Antioch. About 650 there were three hundred and fifty-two in the thirty-two provinces of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and in the early part of the tenth century, when the number of its provinces rose to forty-nine, Constantinople had five hundred and twenty-two suffragan sees. As in the West, the number of suffragan sees in a province was not always the same in the same patriarchate. Thus, in 650 the provinces of Asia and of Lycia had each thirty-six such sees, but the province of Europe, or Rhodope, had only two. In the sixth century, again, in the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Metropolitan of Dara had three suffragans, while the Metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria had twenty-four. To gain a collective idea of this hierarchy it should be remembered that in 650 the Patriarchate of Constantinople counted thirty-two metropoles, or capitals of ecclesiastical provinces, one autocephalous metropolis, thirty-four autocephalous archbishoprics, and three hundred and fifty-two bishoprics -- a grand total of four hundred and nineteen dioceses. A century earlier the Patriarchate of Antioch could boast of twelve metropolitans, five autocephalous metropolitans, two exempt bishoprics (a peculiar institution of this Church), and one hundred and twenty-five bishoprics -- a grand total of one hundred and forty-four dioceses. For want of accurate information it is impossible to give similar details for the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria.
Below the bishops came the other ecclesiastical dignitaries -- priests, deacons, deaconesses, subdeacons, lectors, cantors, and others. Ecclesiastical functionaries were very numerous. After the patriarch in the capital, and in their dioceses after the metropolitans and bishops, the chief dignitary was the archdeacon, a sort of vicar-general having direct control over the clergy, if not over the faithful of the diocese. The title soon disappeared and was replaced by that of protosyncellus, which has remained to our own times. There were, moreover, referendaries who carried important messages and looked after the business of the diocese in the bishop's name; apocrisiarii (in the Latin Church responsales, i.e. nuncios), or representatives of the patriarchs at the emperor's Court, of the metropolitans to their patriarch, and of the bishops to their metropolitans; œconomoi, or bursars, who looked after church property and who entrusted the administration of such property in outlying districts to delegates of various names and titles: a kimeliarchos, in charge of the church treasury and also known as the skeuophylax; a chartophylax or archivist; a chancellor, or master of ceremonies, etc.
During this period the Greek episcopate was, as a general rule, recruited by election. The notables united with the clergy drew up a list of three candidates which they submitted to the choice of the patriarch, the metropolitan, or the bishops, according as the see to be filled was a metropolitan see or a simple bishopric. In practice, the patriarch and, most of all, the emperor interfered in these elections. The nomination of a patriarch belonged in the first instance to the clergy of Constantinople, then to a committee of metropolitans and bishops; in reality the choice was always settled by the emperor. From the list of three candidates presented by the bishops he selected one as patriarch, and if none of the names presented was agreeable to him he put a new name before the electoral college, which the bishops could only confirm.
The status of the lower clergy was much the same as now. In the cities and populous centres there were many learned and often exemplary priests, who, for the most part, had been through the monastic schools; but in the rural districts they were generally ignorant and of evil repute. Becaus