opponents of Russia in Syria. After having been Patriarch of Jerusalem for a short time, he was elected to Alexandria when the late Patriarch Sophronios died in 1899. It is said that the Russians sent him there to get rid of him.[1] He took possession of his see in September, 1900. But the Phanar would not have him there, and persuaded the Sultan not to give him the Berat, without which he could not reign. At last, in September, 1900, he got his Berat and took possession of his see. At once he was met by the complaints of the Orthodox Arabs, who would like a Patriarch of their own race. For a time the Œcumenical Patriarch, Constantine V, still refused to acknowledge him.[2] But since then Constantine has been deposed, and Joachim III restored at Constantinople. I believe that Joachim recognizes him, and that things have now quieted down. It is said that His Beatitude speaks Arabic quite well, and is conciliating his discontented subjects.[3]
3. The Patriarchate of Antioch.
The Orthodox Church of Antioch is now only a shadow of what the great "third see" was in the days before Ephesus. The Nestorian and Jacobite Churches are formed at her expense; she has lost Palestine and Cyprus; the Byzantine Patriarchate has filched all Asia Minor from her, and there are a large number of
- ↑ Echos d'Orient, iii. p. 185.
- ↑ That was still the case when the last edition of Silbernagl was published, p. 25. See the Echos d'Orient, iv. p. 183, seq.
- ↑ However, the troubles are not over yet. Lord Photios has just categorically refused to allow a legate of the Œcumenical Patriarch to reside at his court, and the Phanar still counts him as an enemy. A weak point in his position has been this: he has only three metropolitans. Now the Canons require, for the election of a bishop, a synod of at least three members besides the patriarch. As soon, then, as a metropolitan dies. Lord Photios only has two left, and cannot canonically elect a new one. So he has to send to Constantinople to ask the synod there to elect for him. Since the whole of his policy, as that of the other patriarchs, is to shake off any pretence of authority still claimed by the Phanar, this obviously very much weakens his position. The latest news from Alexandria is that His Holiness is about to reorganize the Church of St. Mark, so as to do away with this inconvenience. Of course, he has only to found two or three more titular sees.
