Popular education has made considerable progress since the estaldishment of independence. There were 750 primary' schools in 1856 ; 93 pro-gymnasia or Hel- lenic schools, with 105 teachers and 4990 pupils; 11 gj'mnasia (organized after the model of those of Ger- many), with 67 teachers and 1180 pupils ; an ecclesias- tical ("Rhisari") seminary, and a national university estalilished in 1837, with a library of more than 80,000 volumes, an observatory, and botanical garden. See Wiggers, KircJil. Stadsiik; i, 179 sq., 207 sq. (A. J. S.) Greek, a term not found in the A.V. of the 0. T., where either Javan is retained, or, as in Joel iii, 6, the word is rendered by Grecian. In ISIaccabees Greeks and Grecians seem to be used indifterenth' (comp. 1 Mace, i, 10; vi, 2; also 2 Mace, iv, 10, Gnekish). In the N. T., on the other hand, a distinction is observed, "EXXj;i' being rendered "Greek," and 'IvXAj/i'ifrr/yc "Grecian." The difference of the English termina- tions, however, is not sufficient to convey the differ- ence of meanings. (See Overkamp, De distlnciione in- fer Juchros et Grcscos, et inter Grcrc. et barharos, G\y\ b. 1782 ; Amnell, Hellas e N. T. illustrata, Upsal. 1752.) ''iv\\);j' in the N. T. is either a Greek bj' race, as in Acts xvi, 1-3; xviii, 17; Rom, i,14 ; or more frequent- 1}' a Gentile, as opposed to a Jew (Rom, ii, 9, 10, etc.) ; so fern. 'E/\\»/i'i'r, Mark vii, 26; Acts xvii, 12, 'EAX>;- j'((T7//c (properh' "one who speaks Greek") is a for- eign Jew ; opposed, therefore, not to 'lovcaloc, but to 'E/^pnloc, a home-Jew, one who dwelt in Palestine, So Schleusner, etc. : according to Salmasius, however,
GREEK CHURCH
983
GREEK CHURCPI
the Hellenists were Greek prose]3'tes, who had become Christians; so "Wolf, Parkhurst, etc., arguing from Acts xi, 20, where "EXXj/rirrrat are contrasted with 'lovcaToi in 19. The question resolves itself partlj' into a textual one, Griesbach having adopted tlie read- ing"E/\/\/ji'C((', and so also Lachmann, Tischendorf, and otiiers. — Smith, s. v. See Hellenist.
Greek Church, the name usually given to the largest branch of the Oriental or Eastern churches (q. v.). It comprehends all those Christians following the Greek or the Graico-.Slavonian rite, who receive the hrst seven general councils, but reject the author- ity of the Roman pontiff and the later councils of the Western Church. See Councils. The title " Greek Church" is hardly an appropriate one. A "commu- nion embracing several other nations and languages besides the Greek, each performing divine worship in its own tongue, and in which, out of sixty-six millions of Christians, perhaps fifty-nine millions are Slavoni- ans, and pray in the Slavonic tongue, cannot properly be called Gr-eek merely because its ritual is derived in great measure (by no means exclusively) from Greek sources, and because it was once united with the Grffi- co-Koman empire" (Palmer, Dissertations, p. 5). The Church calls itself the "Holj' Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church." The Greek Church has not, like the Roman Catholic Church, one head, but consists of eleven different groups, which, in point of administra- tion, are independent of each other (see below, Statis- tics), though they fully agree in point of doctrine.
I. History. — The proper history of the Greek Church as a separate body begins with the interruption of ec- clesiastical communion between the pope and the pa- triarch of Constantinople. After the establishment of the imperial residence at Constantinople, it was the natural ambition of botli the bishops of Constantinople and the emperors to enlarge the authority and prerog- atives of the see of Constantinople (q. v.). In 381 the first Qilcumenical Council of Constantinople gave to the bishops of Constantinople, because it was the New Rome {cib TO tlvai ai'Ti'jv v'tav 'Pwjk/;!'), the " prece- dence of honor" next after those of ancient Rome. The canon was not recognised iij' the churches of Rome and Alexandria, but the authority of the bishop of the impe- rial residence naturally rose, and in 451 the Council of Chalcedon not only confirmed the precedence already given, but placed under his jurisdiction the dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus, and grounded these ecclesias- tical privileges, in the case of the new as well as the old Rome, upon the political distinction of the two cities. The Roman legates protested against this canon, and pope Leo the Great did not recognise it, but when the empire was divided, the patriarch gradually acquired a kind of superiority over the other three patriarchs of the East, and assumed the title of Oecumenical Pa- triarch. The support given by patriarch Acacius of Constantinople (471-489) to the Henoticon (q. v.) led in 484 to the excommunication of Acacius, together with the emperor and the patriarch of Alexandria, by pope Felix III, who also charged him with encroach- ing upon the rights of the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem. For thirty-five years (484-519) the com- munion between Constantinople and Rome remained interrupted, most of the Eastern bishops siding with Acacius, while those of Illyria, bishop Kalandion of Antioch, and the convents in the vicinity of Constan- tinople, ranged themselves on the side of the pope. The withdrawal of the excomnnmication by pope Hor- misdas involved a complete acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Roman pontiflT, but the rivalry of the patriarchs of Constantinople continued, and pope Greg- ory the Great in vain cndearored to prevail upon the pious John the Faster of Constantinople to relinquish the title Ql^cumenical Patriarch. The antagonism of the two churches was increased by the support which several of the patriarchs of Constantinople gave to the iconoclast emperors, and by the complete political