EASTERN
232
EASTERN
that of the Bulgars) is recognized by, and in commun-
ion with, the others.
These Churches are (1) Tlie Great Church, that is, the patriarchate of Constantinople that takes prece- dence of the others. It covers Turkey in Europe (except where its jurisdiction is disputed by the Bul- garian Exarch) and Asia Minor. Under the CEcu- menical Patriarch are seventy-four metropolitans and twenty other bishops. Outside this territory the Patriarch of Constantinople has no jurisdiction. He still has the position of civil head of the Roman Nation throughout the Turkish Empire, and he still inter- mittently tries to interpret this as including some sort of ecclesiastical jurisdiction — he is doing so at this moment in Cj-prus — but in modern times especially each attempt is at once met by the most pronounced opposition on the part of the other patriarchs and national Churches, who answer that thej' acknowl- edge no head but Christ, no external authority but the seven fficumenical Sjmods. The CEcumenical Patri- arch, however, keeps the right of alone consecrating the chrism (mi/ron) and sending it to the other Ortho- dox Churches, except in the cases of Russia and Ru- mania, which prepare it themselves. Bulgaria gets hers from Russia, Cireece has already mooted the question of consecrating her own myron, and there seems no doubt that Antioch will do so too when the present stock is exhausted. So even this shadow of authority is in a precarious state.
(2) Alexandria (covering all Egj'pt as far as it is Orthodox) with only four metropolitans. (3) Anti- och, extending over Syria from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates as far as any Orthodox live so far East, touching the Great Church along the frontier of Asia Alinor to the north and Palestine to the south, with twelve metropolitans and two or three titular bishops who form the patriarchal curia. (4) Jerusalem, con- sisting of Palestine, from Haifa to the Egj^atian frontier, with thirteen metropolitans. (5) Cyprus, the old autoeephalous Church, with an archbishop [whose succession (1908), after eight years, rends the whole Orthodox world] and three suffragans. Then come the new national Churches, arranged here according to the date of their foundation, since they have no precedence. (6) Russia (independent since 15S9). This is enormously the preponderating partner, about eight times as great as all the others put together. The Holy Sjmod consists of three metropolitans (Kiev, Moscow, and Petersburg), the Exarch of Geor- gia, and five or six other bishops or arcliimandrites appointed at the czar's pleasure. There are eighty- six Russian dioceses, to which must be added mission- ary bishops in Siberia, Japan, North America, etc. (7) Carlovitz (1765), formed of Orthodox Serbs in Hungary, with six suffragan sees. (S) Czernagora (1765), the one independent diocese of the Black Mountain. (9) The Church of Sinai, consisting of one monasterj' recognized as independent of Jerusalem in 1782. The hegumenos is an archbishop. (10) The Greek Church (1S50): thirty-two sees under a Holy Synod on the Russian model. (11) Hermannstadt (Nagy-Szeben, 1S64), the Church of the Vlachs in Hungary, with three sees. (12) The Bulgarian Church under the exarch, who lives at Constanti- nople. In Bulgaria are eleven sees with a Holy Synod. The exarch, however, claims jurisdiction over all Bulgars anywhere (especially in Macedonia) and has set up rival exarchist metropolitans against the patriarchist ones. The Bulgarian Church is rec- ognized by the Porte and by Russia, but is excom- municate, since 1872, by the Great Church and is considered schismatical by all Greeks. (13) Czerno- vitz (1873), for the Orthodox in .\ustria, with four sees. (14) Servia (1879), the national Church of that country, with five bishops and a Holy Synod. The Serbs in Macedonia are now agitating to add two more sees (Uskub and Monastir) to this Church, at the
further cost of Constantinople. (15) Rumania (1885),
again a national Church with a Holy Synod and eight
sees. (16) Herzegovina and Bosnia, organized since
the Austrian occupation (ISSO) as a practically inde-
pendent Church with a vague recognition of Constan-
tinople as a sort of titular primacy. It has four sees.
This ends the list of allied bodies that make up the Orthodox Church (see Fortescue, "Orthodox Eastern Church", x, 273-337). Xcxt come, in order of date, the old heretical Eastern Churches.
2. The Xestorians are now onlj' a pitiful remnant of w-hat was once a great Cliurch. Long before the heresy from which they have their name, there was a flourishing Christian community in Chaldea and Mesopotamia. According to their tradition it was founded by Addai and JIari (Addeus and Maris), two of the seventy-two Disciples. The present Xestorians count Mar Mari as the first Bishop of Ctesiphon and pretlecessor of their patriarch. In any case this com- munity was originally subject to the Patriarch of An- tioch. .\s his vicar, the metropohtan of the twin- cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon (on either side of the Tigris, north-east of Babylon) bore the title of catho- licos. One of these metropolitans was present at the Council of Xicsea in 325. The great distance of this Church from Antioch led in early times to a state of semi-independence that prepared the way for the later schism. Already in the fourth century the Patriarch of Antioch waived his right of ordaining the catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and allowed him to be ordained by his own sufTragans. In view of the great importance of the right of ordaining, as a sign of jurisdiction throughout the East, this fact is impor- tant. But it does not seem that real independence of Antioch was acknowledgetl or even claimed till after the schism. In the fifth century the influence of the famous Theodore of Mopsuestia and that of his school at Edessa spread the heresy of Nestorius throughout this extreme Eastern Church. Naturally, the later Xestorians deny that their fathers acceptetl any new doctrine at that time, and they claim that Xcstorius learned from them rather than they from him (" Nes- torius eos secutus est. non ipsi Xestorium ", Ebed-Jesu of Nisibis, about 1300. Assemani, " Bibl. Orient.", Ill, 1, 355). There may be truth in this. Theodore and his school had certainlj- prepared the way for Nestorius. In any case the rejection of the Council of Ephesus (431) by these Christians in Chaldea and Mesopotamia produced a schism between them and the rest of Christendom. When Baba?us, liimself a Nestorian, became catholicos, in 498, there were practically no more Catholics in those parts. From Ctesiphon the Faith had spread across the frontier into Persia, even before that city was conquered by the Persian king (224). The Persian Church, then, always depended on Ctesiphon and shared its heresy. From the fifth centur}' this most remote of the East- ern Churches has been cut off from the rest of Christen- dom, and till modern times was the most separate and forgottencommunityofall. Shut out from the Roman Empire (Zeno closed the school of Edessa in 4S9),but, for a time at least, protected liy the Persian kings, the Nestorian Church fiourislied around Ctesiphon, Nisibis (where the school was reorganized), and throughout Persia. Since the schism tlie catholicos occasionally assumed the title of patriarch. The Church then spread towards the East and sent missionaries to India and even China. A Nestorian inscription of the year 7S1 has been found at Singan Fu in China (J. Hel- ler, S.J., "Prolegomena zu ciner neuen Ausgabe der nestorianischen Inschrift von Singan Fu",inthe" Ver- handlungen des VII. intornationalen Orientalistencon- gresses", Vienna, 1SS6. pp. 37 sq.). Its greatest ex- tent was in the elcvrntli centurj', when twenty-five metropolitans obeyed the Nestorian patriarch. But since the end of the fourteenth centurj- it has gradu- ally sunk to a very small sect, first, because of a fierce
