contest between the patriarch of Constantinople and the synods of the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Syria on the right to choose their patriarchs without reference to Constantinople, and the latter gained their point.[1] But the orthodox patriarch of Alexandria is still subject to the patriarch of Constantinople. He, however, is a merely titular official with but a shadow of a diocese, since the Copts of the national Church in Egypt are Monophysites, separated from the Greek Church. There are about 37,000 orthodox Greek Christians in Egypt, 28,000 under the patriarch of Antioch, 15,000 subject to the patriarch of Jerusalem.[2]
Melancholy as the story of the Greek Church during the later centuries of its history may be, it is cheering to observe signs of awakening life during quite recent years. These are to be traced in two directions.
In the first place there is a remarkable development of scholarship among the higher ecclesiastics. Learning was never allowed to die out in the leading monastic centres; but hitherto this has been patristic learning without the least recognition of critical scholarship. Now the criticism of the West is breaking into the mind of the East. Students from the Greek Church are now to be found in German universities. The result is that the studies of Berlin, and Heidelburg, and Strasburg are being transplanted to Constantinople and Athens. Already these studies have borne fruit, and the Greek Church is coming forward with its contributions to historical theology.
The other movement is of a more popular character. It consists of the formation of societies for Biblical study.[3] These societies are quite unecclesiastical in form and are chiefly maintained by laymen. At first they were frowned upon by the clergy. But their good effects in reformation of character are winning them recognition as truly Christian brotherhoods, that men who have the spiritual and moral
