[140] proskunoumen kai timomen to xulon tou timiou tou zoopoiou staurou, k.t.l.
[141] ten eikona tou Kuriou hemon Iesou Chr. kai tes huperagias theotokou kai panton ton hagion proskunoumen kai timomen kai aspazometha.
§ 18. The Synods of Constantinople, A.D. 1672 and 1691.
Three months previous to the Synod of Jerusalem a Synod was held at Constantinople (January, 1672), which adopted a doctrinal statement signed by Dionysius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and forty-three dignitaries belonging to his patriarchate. [142] It is less complete than the Confession of Dositheus, but agrees with it on all points, as the authority and infallibility of the Church, the extent of the canon, the seven mysteries (sacraments), the real sacrifice of the altar, and the miraculous transformation [143] of the elements.
Another Synod was held in Constantinople nineteen years afterwards, in 1691, under Patriarch Callinicus, for the purpose of giving renewed sanction to the orthodox doctrine of the Eucharist, in opposition to Logothet John Caryophylus, who had rejected the Romish theory of transubstantiation, and defended the Calvinistic view of Cyril Lucar. The Synod condemned him, and declared that the Eastern Church had always taught a change (metabole) of the elements in the sense of a transubstantiation (metousiosis), or an actual transformation of their essence into the body and blood of Christ. [144]
[142] It is called Dionysii, Patr. Const., super Calvinistarum erroribus ac reali imprimis præsentia responsio, and is published in some editions of the Confession of the Synod of Jerusalem; in Harduini Acta Conciliorum, Tom. XI. pp. 274-282; and in the second volume of Kimmel's Monumenta, pp. 214-227.
[143] On this the document teaches (Kimmel, P. II. p. 218) that when the priest prays, 'Make (poieson) this bread the precious blood of thy Christ,' then, by the mysterious and ineffable operation of the Holy Ghost, ho men artos metapoieitai (transmutatur) eis auto ekeino to idion soma tou soteros Christou pragmatikos kai alethos kai kurios (realiter, vere, ac proprie), ho de oinos eis to zoopoion haima autou.
[144] I have not been able to procure the proceedings of this Synod; they are omitted both by Hardouin and Kimmel. They were first printed at Jassy, 1698; then in Greek and Latin by Eusebius Renaudot, together with some other Greek writings on the Eucharist, Paris, 1709; in German by Heineccius, in his Abbildung der alten und neuen Griechischen Kirche, 2 Parts, Leipz. 1711. Appendix. p. 40. etc. So says Rud. Hofmann (in his Symbolik, Leipz. 1857, p. 135), who has paid careful attention to the Greek Church.
§ 19. The Doctrinal Standards of the Russo-Greek Church.
Literature.
I. Russian Doctrine and Theology:
The Catechisms of Platon and Philaret (see below).
R. W. Blackmore: The Doctrine of the Russian Church, etc., Aberdeen, 1845.
W. Guettée (Russian Priest and Doctor of Divinity): Exposition de la doctrine de l'église catholique orthodoxe de Russie, Paris, 1866.
Theophanes Procopowicz: Theologia Christiana orthodoxa, Königsberg, 1773-1775, 5 vols. (abridged, Moscow, 1802).
Hyac. Kirpinski: Compendium orthodoxæ theologiæ, Lips. 1786.
II. Worship and Ritual:
The divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (the Liturgy used in the Orthodox Eastern Church), Greek ed. by Daniel, Cod. Liturg. Tom. IV. P. II. p. 327, etc.; by J. M. Neale, in Primitive Liturgies, 2d edition, London, 1868; English translations by King, Neale, Brett, Covel, J. Freeman Young (the last publ. New York, 1865, as No. VI. of the 'Papers of the Russo-Greek Committee'). Comp. also the entire fourth volume of Daniel's Codex Liturg. (which gives the Oriental Liturgies), and Neale's Primitive Liturgies, and his Introd. to the History of the Holy Eastern Church (Lond. 1850).
John Glen King (Anglican Chaplain at St. Petersburg): The Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, Lond. 1772. Very instructive.
III. History and Present Condition of the Russian Church:
Alex. de Stourdza: Considérations sur la doctrine et l'esprit de l'église orthodoxe, Weimar, 1816.
Strahl: Contributions to Russian Church History, Halle, 1827: and History of the Russian Church, Halle, 1830.
Mouravieff: History of the Church of Russia, St. Petersburg, 1840; translated by Blackmore, Oxford, 1842. Comes down to 1721.
Pinkerton: Russia, London, 1833.
Haxthausen: Researches on Russia, German and French, 1847-52, 3 vols.
Theiner: Die Staats-Kirche Russlands, 1853.
H. J. Schmitt: Kritische Geschichte der neugriechischen und der russischen Kirche, Mainz, 2d ed. 1854.
Prince Aug. Galitzin: L'église Græco-Russe, Paris, 1861.
Dean Stanley: Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, Lond. and N. Y. 1862, Lect. IX.-XII.
Boissard: L'église de Russie, Paris, 1867, 2 vols.
Philaret (Archbishop of Tschernigow): Geschichte der Kirche Russlands, transl. by Blumenthal, 1872.
Basaroff: Russische orthodoxe Kirche. Ein Umriss ihrer Entstehung u. ihres Lebens, Stuttgart, 1873.
Also the Occasional Papers of the 'Eastern Church Associations' of the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, publ. in Lond. (Rivington's), and N. York, since 1864.
The latest doctrinal standards of Greek Christianity are the authorized Catechisms and Church-books of the orthodox Church of Russia, by far the most important and hopeful branch of the Eastern Communion.
Russia received Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Cyril and Methodius, two monks of Constantinople, preached the gospel to the Bulgarians on the Danube after the middle of the ninth century, translated the Scriptures [145] into the Slavonic language (creating the Slavonic alphabet in quaint Greek characters), and thus laid the foundation of Slavonic literature and civilization. This event was contemporary with the founding of the Russian Empire by Ruric, of the Norman race (A.D. 862), and succeeded by half a century the founding of the German Empire under Charlemagne, in close connection with Rome (A.D. 800). As the latter was a substitute for the Western Roman Empire, so the former was destined to take the place of the Eastern Roman Empire, and looks forward to the reconquest of Constantinople, as its natural capital. The barbarous Russians submitted, in the tenth century, without resistance, to Christian baptism by immersion, at the command of their Grand Duke, Vladimir, who himself was brought over to Christianity by a picture on the last judgment, and his marriage to a sister of the Greek Emperor Basil. In this wholesale conversion every thing is characteristic: the influence of the picture, the effect of marriage, the power of the civil ruler, the military command, the passive submission of the people.
Since that time the Greek Church has been the national religion of the Slavonic Russians, and identified with all their fortunes and misfortunes. For a long time they were subject to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. But after the fall of this city (1453) the Metropolitan of Moscow became independent (1461), and a century later (January, 1589) he was raised by Patriarch Jeremiah II. of Constantinople, then on a collecting tour in Russia, to the dignity of a Patriarch of equal rank with the other four (of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem). Moscow was henceforward the holy city, the Rome of Russia.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Peter the Great, a second Constantine, founded St. Petersburg (1703), made this city the political and ecclesiastical capital of his Empire, and created, in the place of the Patriarchate of Moscow, the 'Most Holy Governing Synod,' with the Czar as the head (1721). This organic change was sanctioned by the Eastern Patriarchs (1723), who look upon the emperor-pope of Russia as their future deliverer from the intolerable yoke of the Turks.
[Note.--Since the revolution of 1917 and the assassination of the Czar, the position of the Russian Church has undergone a radical change. The Soviet government has passed from a law abolishing the union of Church and State to a relentless war against all religion and religious exercises, the confiscation of Church property, the suppression of religious liberty, the imprisonment and execution of clerical personages, and even to a policy of active atheistic propaganda. Conforming to the new civil order, the Holy Sober--council--met, August, 1917, with 564 delegates present, of whom 278 were laymen, and constituted Tikhon (1866-1925) Most holy Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, thus re-establishing the patriarchate after an interval of two centuries. Tikhon resisted the Soviet acts instituting civil marriage and disestablishing the Church, and placed the state officials under excommunication. The government replied by further legislation hostile to the Church, and Tikhon was put under arrest and resigned the patriarchate, 1922. In the mean time a 'reforming' organization, calling itself the 'Living Church,' was effected, which acknowledged the Soviet revolution and made the 'white clergy'--in contrast to the monks--eligible to the episcopal office. The Sober of April, 1924, received greetings from Dr. Blake of the Methodist Episcopal Church, disavowed Tikhon's anti-Soviet deliverances, endorsed the separation of Church and State, and granted to widowed and divorced priests the right of remarriage. A third Sober affirmed that supreme ecclesiastical authority resided in itself and not in the patriarch, a declaration accepted by Gregory VII, oecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, other Eastern patriarchs dissenting. The Tikhon wing was continued under Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsky, whom Tikhon had designated as his successor. Peter was banished for anti-Soviet policies, and his place filled by Abp. Sergius, who himself was imprisoned but released, 1927, after promising to support the existing civil government. The émigré bishops, with Serbia as a rallying-place, have favored the restoration of the empire, and June 30, 1930, Sergius deposed Eulogius from the post of so-called supreme bishop of the Russian Church outside of Russia. Soviet legislation, 1930, confirmed all previous acts calculated to blot out religious convictions and ritual. It forbids the teaching of religion to persons under eighteen, the organization of meetings of women and children for purposes of prayer and biblical and literary study or for sewing, the organization under Church influence of libraries and reading-rooms, and even measures intended to give sanitary and medical assistance. It prohibits the teaching of any form of religious belief in educational establishments, and the formation of all boys' and girls' clubs in church buildings. Religious teaching is treated as "anti-revolutionary activity." The secret propaganda of religion among the masses is forbidden, and ministers of religion, including rabbis and nuns, who continue to follow their religion are disfranchised and made ineligible for public office. Bibles and prayer-books are confiscated. Church buildings are put at the State's disposal. Articles of gold and silver and precious stones are to be given up upon the discontinuance of a house of worship, and places of worship having a historic or artistic value pass to the State. Processions on festival days are forbidden, as also is the observance of Christmas, Easter, and other Church feasts. In addition to such laws, the Soviet has carried out its destructive policy by films and posters ridiculing and blaspheming Christianity. By governmental order or the populace, multitudes of icons have been destroyed and pretended bodies of saints dishonored and shown to be made of wax or straw. The treatment of the Russian Church and clergy has called forth from the pope and the Church of England resolutions against the government's policy, and letters of sympathy. Since 1914, friendly gestures have been made from Rome calculated to win favor for the Roman Church. In 1920, Ephraem of Edessa was enrolled among the doctors of the Church. The Oriental College in Rome has been enlarged. In 1921, Benedict XV. addressed the Russians as 'our distant children who, though separated from us by the barriers of centuries, are all the nearer our paternal heart, the greater their misfortunes are.' In 1929, Pius XI. issued an appeal in Italian for prayer for 'our brethren in Russia,' which spoke of 'the sacrilege heaped upon the priests and believers, and the violence done to the conscience by the Soviets.' The pontiff appointed a solemn mass to be celebrated over St. Peter's tomb, March 19, 1930, and called for the help of 'the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, her most chaste spouse, St. Joseph, patron of the Church universal, John Chrysostom and other patron saints of the Russians, and of all saints, especially St. Therèse of the Cradle of Jesus, the sweet thaumaturge of Lisieux.' In the form of prayer which Pius added for general use, the petition was made that the Russians may return 'to the one fold and the communion of the Catholic Church,' and an indulgence of 300 days offered to all making the prayer piously. Resolutions passed by the Convocations Canterbury and York, 1930, called for special prayers in the churches at the morning and evening services, March 16.--Ed.]