UNION
130
UNION
joined by many priests and religious, especially from
the Dioceses of Paris and Reims. I'd swell the hst
of appellants the names of lajTnen and even women
were accepted. The number of appeDants is said to
have reached 1800 to 2000, pitifully small, if we con-
sider that about 1,500,000 livres ($300,000) were spent
by them as bribes.
On 8 March, 1718, appeared a Decree of the Inquisi- tion, approved by Clement XI, which condemned the appeal of the four bishops as schismatic and heretical, and that of Noailles as schismatic and approaching to heresy. Since they did not withdraw their appeal within a reasonable time, the pope issued the BuU "Pastoralis officii" on 28 Aug., 1718, excommuni- cating aO that refused to accept the Bull "Unigeni- tus". But they appealed also from this second Bull. NoaiUes finally made an ambiguous submission on 13 March, 1720, by signing an explanation of the BuU "Unigenitus", drawn up by order ofithe French secretary of State, Abbe Dubois, and, later, approved by ninety-five bishops. After much pressure from the king and the bishops he made pubhc this ambigu- ous acceptance of the BuU in his pastoral instruction of 18 Nov., 1720. But this did not satisfy Clement XI, who required an unconditional acceptance. After the death of Clement XI, 19 March, 1721, the appel- lants continued in their obstinacy during the pon- tificates of Innocent XIII (1721-24) and Benedict XIII (1724-30). Noailles, the soul of the opposition, finally made a sincere and unconditional submisssion on 11 Oct., 1728, and died .soon after (2 May, 1729). The Apostolic See, in concerted action with the new Archbishop Vintiraille of Paris and the French Gov- ernment, gi-aduaUy brought about the submission of most of the appeUants. (See Jansenius and J.\n- senism: The Conimlsionaries, Decline and End of Jansenism.)
ScHiLL, Die Constitution Unigenitus (Freiburg im Br.. 1876); Lafiteau. Histoire de la constitution Unigenitus (Avignons, 1737) ; Ckousaz-Ch^tet, L'eglise et I'etat au XVIII' siicle (Paris, 1893) ; Le Rot, Le gaUicanisme au X VIII' Steele, la France el Rome de 1700 a 1715 (Paris, 1892); Thuillier. La seconde phase du jansenisme (Paris, 1901) ; SfecHE, Lesderniers Jansenistes (Paris, 1891); DuHAND, Le jansenisme au XVIII' siicle et Joachim Col- bert, iv^que de Montpellier (Toulouse, 1907); Gilardone, La Bulle Unigenitus et la fin du jansenisme en Champagne (Vitrj', 1892) ; Bauer, Quesnel und die Bulle Unigenitus in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, VI (Freiburg im Br., 1874). 147-64; Idem, Der Kardinal Noailles und die Appellanten, ibid., VII, 167-87, 492- 518; Barthelemt, Le cardinal Noailles (Paris. 1888); Dcbois, Collecta nova actorum publ. constit. Clem. Unigenitus (Leyden, 1725) ; Pfaff, Acta publico constitutionis Unigenitus (Tubingen, 1728) ; Procis-verbaux des assemblies du clerge de France, VI (Paria, 1774); dementis XI pontificis maximi opera omnia, ed. Cardinal Albani (Frankfort. 1729). The titles of the immense number of Jansenistic pamphlets that were directed against the Bull "Uni- genitus" are found \n Dictionnaire des livres jansenistes (.Antwerp, 1752).
Michael Ott. Union, Hypostatic. See Hypostatic Union.
Union of Brest. — Brest, in Russian, Brcst- Litovski; in Polish Brzesc; in the old chronicles, caUcd Brestii, or Brestov; a city in Lithuania, with some 50,000 inhabitants, famous in the history of the Cathohc Church and the Orthodox Church of Russia for the union of the Ruthenians with Catholicism. After the annexation of Red Ruthenia, or the Ukraine, to Poland, in 1569, the Ruthenians, who had become politically subject to Poland, began to compare the lamentable condition of their Church with the development and vitahty of Catholicism and to turn their eyes towards Rome. The Ruthenian clergy were steeped in immorality and ignorance; the bishops made no scruple of setting their flocks an evil example, living in open concubinage, and practising the most brazen simony. Russian documents of the sixteenth century bear witness to this melancholy decay of the Orthodox Church in the Polish provinces and to the impossibility of applying any remedy. Face to face with this spiritual ruin, the Catholic Church, reinvigoratcd by the accession of Jesuit missionaries,
was showing her immense religious and moral supe-
riority. Some loyal and honourable members of the
Orthodox clergy and laity graduaUy became con-
vinced that only a return to the Roman obedience
could secure for their Church anything hke sound
conditions.
The Jesuits, who had been established at Vilna in 1569, at Yaroslaff in 1574, and successively at Polotsk, Grodno, and other cities of Southern Russia, soon set about to conciliate the friends of union among the Orthodox and to second their efforts. They began publishing works of religious controversy, empha- sizing the spiritual, moral, and political advantages which must accrue to the so-caUed Orthodox Church from union with Rome. Eminent in this labour of preparing opinion for return to the Roman Church were Father Peter Skarga (153(5-1612), one of the greatest apostles, and a literary and political genius, of Poland, and Father Benedict Herbest (1531-93). The former published, at Vilna, in 1577, his famous work on "The Unity of God's Church under One Only Pastor" (O jedn6sci kosciola bozego pod jednym pasterzem), and it filled the Orthodox with confusion; they burned numerous copies of it, so that a new edition had to be published in 1590. Father Herbest then published, also in Polish, his "Exposition of the Faith of the Roman Church, and History of the Greek Servitude" (Cracow, 1856). These two works helped greatly to dispel the doubts of the Orthodox friends of union and bring them still nearer to Rome; a result that was greatly furthered by the writings and labours of Antonius Possevinus. However, the Orthodox remained still undecided. Jeremias II, Patriarch of Constantinople, visited Moscow in 15S8 and in 1599 arrived at Vilna, where he convoked a synod to find remedies for the most serious evils of the Ruthenian Church. Received by Sigismund III, King of Poland (1587-1632), with honour and costly gifts, he consecrated Michael Rahosa, Metropolitan of Kieff and HaUcz (1588-99). Findmg that some of the Orthodox Ruthenians did not conceal their desire for reconciliation with Rome, Jeremias II, to bind them more closely to his own authority and the Orthodox Church, by a decree of 6 August, 1589, appointed CjTil Terlecki, Bishop of Lutzk, his exarch for the metropoUtan jurisdiction of Kieff. The patriarch also imposed a precept that a sjmod of bishops must be held everj- year to remedy the dis- orders of the Ruthenian Church.
In 1590 the metropohtan, Rahosa, convoked a synod at Brest for 24 June. A few days before the Ruthenian bishops assembled, Terlecki had a con- ference at Bels with the Bishops of Lemberg (Bala- ban), Pinsk (Pelczycki), and Chelm (Zbiruiski), and they jointly drew up a document undertaking to "submit their wiU and their intelligence to the Pope of Rome", and begging that their rites and their ecclesiastical privileges should be preserved. This document was presented to the Synod of Brest, at which the metropolitan and the Bishop of Madimir assisted; it was accepted and approved, but kept secret, for reasons of prudence. Terlecki was charged to present it to Sigismund III and obtain the royal sanction for it, but a year and more passed before he fulfilled his charge. Sigismund III, having at last received the document, rephed to it on 18 March, 1592, expressing his joy at the decision of the Ruthenian episcopate, promising them his assis- tance against possible persecutions by the Orthodox, and assuring them that the national rite should be respected and safeguarded. Nevertheless, the pro- posal of union, though warmly approved by Terlecki, did not attain reahzation. Terlecki was soon sup- ported by Adam Pociej, who was consecrated Bishop of Vladimir in 1.593, in succession to Meletius Chreb- towicz, deceased. Pociej was a sincerely convinced advocate of the union, though he well understood
