carried out with some modifications, and gradually. The patriarch of Constantinople in 1850 acknowledged the independence of the church, which gradually grew to be more independent of the state. The provisional sees were not all merged in the ten proposed dioceses. Greece at present is divided into four exarchies: (1) the Continent and Eubcea divided into eight sees, of four archbishops and four bishops ; (2) the Peloponnesus divided into twelve sees, of six archbishops and six bishops; (3) the islands of the jEgean Sea governed by one archbishop and three bishops; and (4) the Ionian Islands governed by five archbishops. The Greek Church in Greece includes a good many monasteries ; but the number has been diminished since the war of liberation, and a great many of those that remain have been made use of for the purposes of educa tion. Many of these convents are dependent on the celebrated ancient monasteries of Athos, Sinai, and Jerusalem. The Greek Church has done and is doing a great deal for the cause of education in Greece.
The bitter enmity which subsists between the people of the Black Mountain and the Turks made them from the beginning repudiate the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, and the church is nominally independent. It is, however, very closely allied to the Russian Church. Up to the year 1852 the spiritual and the civil authority were vested in one individual, and the prince-bishops were always chosen from the family of Petrowitsch, but in that year the prince-bishop Dauilo married, and demitted his episcopal functions. Since then there has been a bishop of Montenegro who lias metropolitan functions. He has no suffragan bishops, but rules over three .arch-priests and a large number of inferior clergy. He is consecrated by the Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Church.
The Church of Bulgaria demanded independence about fifteen years ago, and has practically enjoyed it since 1858, although it has not yet obtained recognition. It is governed by an exarch who, while recognizing the supremacy of the patriarch of Constantinople, refuses to allow him to interfere in any way in the internal govern ment of the church. It is still under excommunication by the patriarch. The new rights which Bulgaria has acquired under the treaty of Berlin will probably lead to a rearrangement of the church.
Doctrines and Creeds.—The Greek Church has no creeds in the modern Western use of the word, no normative summaries of what must be believed. It has preserved the older idea that a creed is an adoring confession of the church engaged in worship ; and, when occasion called for more, the belief of the church was expressed more by way of public testimony than in symbolical books. Still the doctrines of the church can be gathered from these confes sions of faith. The Greek creeds may be roughly placed in two classes, the oecumenical creeds of the early undivided church, and later testimonies defining the position of the Orthodox Church of the East with regard to the belief of the Roman Catholic and of Protestant Churches. These testimonies were called forth mainly by the protest of Greek theologians against Jesuitism on the one hand and against the reforming tendencies of Cyril Lucaris on the other. The Orthodox Greek Church adopts the doctrinal decisions of the .<even oecumenical councils, together with the canons of the Concilium Quinisextum or second Trullan council ; and they further hold that all these definitions and canons are simply explanations and enforcements of the Nicaeo-Con- stantinopolitan creed and the decrees of the first council of Nicfea. The first four councils settled the orthodox faith on the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation ; the fifth supplemented the decisions of the first four. The sixth declared against Monotheletism ; the seventh sanctioned the worship (SovXeta not aXrjOivr) Aarpeta) of images ; the council held in the Trullus (a saloon in the palace at Constantinople) supplemented by canons of discipline the doctrinal decrees of the fifth and sixth councils. The Reformation of the 16th century was not without effect on the Greek Church. Some of the Reformers, not ably Melanchthon, expected to effect a reunion of Christen dom by means of the Greeks, cherishing the same hopes as the modern Old Catholic divines and their English sympa thizers. Melanchthon himself sent a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession to Joasaph, patriarch of Constantin ople, and some years afterwards Jacob Andrese and Martin Crusius began a correspondence with Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, in which they asked an official expression of his opinions about Lutheran doctrine. The result was that Jeremiah answered in his Censura Orientalis Ecchsice condemning the distinctive principles of Lutheranism. The reformatory movement of Cyril Lucaris brought the Greek Church face to face with Reformation theology. Cyril was a learned Cretan, who, having travelled exten sively in Europe, and having become acquainted with and devoted to the Reformed faith, was afterwards elected patri arch of Alexandria in 1602 and patriarch of Constantinople in 1621. He conceived the plan of reforming the Eastern Church by bringing its doctrines into harmony with those of Calvinism, and by sending able young Greek theologians to Switzerland, Holland, and England to study Protestant theology. His scheme of reform was opposed chiefly by the intrigues of the Jesuits. He was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. In the end he was murdered by the Turks at the instigation of the Jesuits. The church anathematized his doctrines, and in its later testimonies repudiated his confession on the one hand and Jesuit ideas on the other. The most important of these testimonies are (1) the Orthodox confession or catechism of Peter Mogilas, confirmed by the Eastern patriarchs and by the synod of Jerusalem (1643), and (2) the decree of the synod of Jerusalem or the confession of Dositheus (1672). Besides these, the catechisms of the Russian Church should be con sulted, especially the catechism of Philaret, which since 1839 has been used in all the churches and schools in Russia. Founding on these doctrinal sources the teach ing of the Orthodox Greek Church is :—
Christianity is a Divine revelation communicated to mankind through Christ ; its saving truths are to be learned from the Bible and tradition, the former having been written, and the tatter main tained uncorrupted through the influence of the Holy Spirit ; the interpretation of the Bible belongs to the Church-, which is taught by the Holy Spirit, but every believer may read the Scriptures. According to the Christian revelation, God is a Trinity, that is, the Divine Essence exists in Three Persons, perfectly equal in nature and dignity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; THK HOLY GHOST PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER ONLY. Besides the Triune God there is no other object of divine worship, but homage (v-n-fp- Sovia) may be paid to the Virgin Mary, and reverence (Sovia) to the saints and to their pictures and relics. Man is born with a corrupt bias which was not his at creation ; the first man, when created, possessed IMMORTALITY, PERFECT WIS DOM, AND A WILL REGULATED BY REASON. Through the first sill Adam and his posterity lost IMMORTALITY, AND HIS WILL RECEIVED A BIAS TOWARDS EVIL. In this natural state man, who even before he actually sins is a sinner before God by original or inherited sin, commits manifold actual transgressions; but he is not absolutely without power of will towards good, and is not always doing evil. Christ, the Son of God, became man in two natures, which in ternally and inseparably united make One Person, and, according to the eternal purpose of God, has obtained for man reconciliation with God, and eternal life, inasmuch as He by His vicarious death has made satisfaction to God for the world s sins, and this satisfac tion was PERFECTLY COMMENSURATE WITH THE SINS OF THE WORLD. Man is made partaker of reconciliation in spiritual regeneration, which he attains to, being led and kept by the Holy Ghost. This divine help is offered to all men without distinction, and may be rejected. In order to attain to salvation, man is justified, and when so justified CAN DO NO MORE THAN THE COMMANDS OF GOD. He may fall from a state of grace through mortal sin. Regeneration is offered by the word of God and in the sacraments, which under visible signs communicate God s invisible grace to Christians when administered cum intentione. There are seven mysteries or sacraments. Baptism entirely destroys original sin. In the Eucharist the true body and blood of Christ are substantially present, and the elements are changed into the substance of Christ, whose body and blood are corporeally partaken of by communicants. ALL Christians should receive the bread and the WINE. The Eucharist is also an expiatory sacrifice. The new birth when lost may be restored through repentance, which is not merely (-1) sincere sorrow, but also (2) confession of each individual sin to ihc priest, and (3) the discharge of penances imposed by the priest for the removal of the temporal punishment which may have been imposed by God and the Church. Penance accompanied by the judicial absolu tion of the priest makes a true sacrament.
1 Tliis summary has been taken, with corrections, from Winer. Small capitals denote differences from Roman Catholic, italics differences from Protestant doctrine.
