The Greek Church comprised within its ancient limits, anterior to the Mohammedan conquests, Greece properly so called, the Peloponnesus, Eastern Illyri- cum, the Islands, and Asia Minor, as also Syria and Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and parts of Mesopotamia and Persia. Her territory' in Asia and Africa was in the course of time almost wholly lost in consequence of the advance of the Mohammedans, and with the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century nearh' all the ancient sees of the Church in Europe came likewise under the rule of a Mohammedan government. Other portions became subject to the Catholic governments of Austria and Poland, leaving onh' one single gov- ernment, that of Russia, as the protector of the inter- ests of the Greek Church. In Austria and Poland the Greek Church suffered some losses in consequence of the efforts of the governments of those two countries to induce the Greek bishops to accept the sujiremacy of the pope. In European Turkey the Church main- tained, on the whole, her ground, as the Turks, though oppressing them in many ways, did not deny them re- ligious toleration. More than from the Turkish gov- ernment, the Greek Church in Turkey suffered from internal corruption, especially from the simony pre- vailing in the appointments to episcopal sees and other ecclesiastical positions. See Turkey.
While the territory of the Greek Church in Africa, Asia, and Soutii-eastern Europe was greatlj' reduced l)y the advance of JMohammedanism. it received a most
important increase by the conversion of the Russians. The first missionaries were sent to this people f.om Constantinople in the 9th centurj'. In 955, princess Olga, the saint, was baptized at Constantinople, and in 956 the first Christian church was built at Kief. Vla- dimir, at the close of the lUth centurj^, was especiallv eager for the suppression and destruction of pagan- ism. The first attempt to sever the connection of the J Russian Church with the patriarch of Contantinople I was made by Yaroslav I, who, in 1051, commanded '
the Russian bishops to elect the new metropolitan of Kief without the co-operation of the patriarch. His successors, however, again conceded to the patriarch the right of appointing the metropolitan of Kief. In 1164 the patriarch of Constantinople sent a new metro- politan to Kief without even asking for the consent of the prince ; but prince Rostislav, though willing to ac- cept the metropolitan for once, declared that in future the election of the metropolitan would require the sanction at least of the government. Negotiations of the princes of Russia and the metropolitans of Kief with the pope for a union of the Russian Church with Rome began in the 11th centur)'. Some of them, in particular several princes of the Russinians and Ruthe- nians in Galicia, and the metropolitan Isidore, who took part in the Council of Florence, really joined the union, but among the mass of the people and clergy it never gained ground. In 1588 the metropolitan Job of Moscow was consecrated by the patriarch of Con- stantinople the first patriarch of Russia, and was rec- ognised by the other Oriental patriarchs as the fifth patriarch of the ortliodox Church. At the close of the IGth century an attempt was made to establish a union between the Russian Church and those of Georgia and Armenia, but it failed in consequence of the intolerance of the Russian patriarch. The atti- tude of the patriarch towards the metropolitan of Kief induced the latter, with a number of other bishops of South Russia, and a population of about ten millions, to enter in 1594, at the Council of Brzesk, into com- munion with Rome. The breach between the Rus- sians and the Church of Rome was greatly widened b}' the elevation of the house of Romanoff' to the throne and by the consolidation of the Russian nationality in its hereditarj' struggle against Catholic Poland. In 1G57 and the three following j'cars the Russian ambassador in Constantinople obtained from the patriarchs of Con- stantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem an official recognition of the right of Russia to have the patriarchs of Russia elected by the Russian clergy, without obtaining the previous sanction of the Ori- ental patriarchs. After the death of the eleventh Rus- sian patriarch in 1702, Peter the Great left the pa- triarchal sec vacant, and in 1721 put the administra- tion of the Church in the hands of a board of bishops called the Holy Synod. Since then the Church of Russia has been eminently a state church. Though in doctrinal union with the other branches of the Greek Church, it is, in point of ecclesiastical adminis- tration, entirely unconnected with them. At home it has been unable to prevent the growth of numerous dissenting sects; but the rapid growth of the Russian empire has made it not onh' liy far the most numerous and important branch of the Greek Church in the present age, but tiie largest state church in the Chris- tian world. (For a fuller account of the inner historj' of the Church, see Russia.)
The establishment of the independence of the Hel- lenic kingdom at the beginning of the ]iresent century created another independent Greek state church. In 1833, the regency of (ircece, at the request of thirtj'- six metropolitans, declared the orthodox Oriental Church of Greece independent of everj' foreign eccle- siastical authority,. and, after the model of the Russian Church, organized for the administration of the Church a " Holy Synod." Tliis indcp?ndent constitution was recognised by the patriardi of Constantinople in 1850.