question as to where the portion for the Mother of God should be placed on the paten, whether Requiem services may be held on Sunday as well as Saturday[1] which, as Diomede Kyriakos says, "show the simplicity of the monks." And there has been a great discussion about the portions of the holy bread which they put aside for our Lady and the Saints before consecration (p. 417, n. 1). Not only are they uncertain whether these portions are consecrated or not, but some of them have proposed the horrible theory that they are changed into the body of these Saints.[2] But these are less important matters; the heat of controversy they evoked is over now, and it would be ungenerous to insist on them. They have also silently given up many of the old accusations against us. One hears little now of the wickedness of unleavened bread that once so horrified them.[3] Nor are they any longer distressed that our bishops shave and wear rings. On the other hand, Latin bishops have put an end to another reproach in that they no longer go a-fighting. As for our celibacy, that, too, they have learnt to let alone.
The great weakness of Orthodox theology as a whole is that it falls between two ideals. They insist very much on the antiquity of their belief and rites. They indignantly deny that their Church has ever developed, and they are never tired of protesting against Latin "novelties." Antiquity pure and unchanged, and no modification for modern times, is their great cry. And yet their antiquity has already reached an advanced stage of development. It is certainly not that of the time of the Apostles. They accept the very definite decrees of seven councils, they print in their books the accurate analysis of the Athanasian Creed. Their hierarchy with Constantinople as the chief throne is quite a late development. Their sumptuous ritual, gorgeous vestments, and exact rubrics all represent,
- ↑ Kyriakos, iii. pp. 74, seq.; E. d'Or. ii. pp. 321-331, La grande controverse des Colybes. Strange that the question of frequent communion agitated the Orthodox Church at the same time that the Jansenists were arguing against it in France.
- ↑ E. d'Or. iii. pp. 65-78, La préparation des Oblats dans le rite grec.
- ↑ But Anthimos VII remembered this too, in his answer to Leo XIII (see p. 435).
