RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Eastern Church
twenty articles, and the latter a confession in twenty-three chapters (given in full by Michalcescu). A. H. N.]
The doctrinal system of the Eastern Church is, upon the whole, more simple and less developed than that of the Roman, though in some respects more subtle and metaphysical. The only serious doctrinal difference is that on the 2. The- procession of the Holy Spirit (see ology. Filioque Controversy). The Greek Church holds to the leading principles, but rejects many of the consequences or results of Roman Catholicism. It adheres to the theology of the Greek Fathers down to John of Damascus, and ignores the succeeding scholastic theology of the schoolmen, who completed the Roman system. The Eastern theology remains rigidly in the fragmentary state of the old councils. The resistance to the Western -filioque implied a protest against further progress both in truth and in error, and meant stagnation, as well as faithful adherence to the venerable Nicene symbol. The Greek theology is most full on the doctrine of God and of Christ, but very defective on the doctrine of man and the order of salvation. The East went into all sorts of theological and Christological subtleties, especially during the long and tedious Monophysite controversies, which found little or no response in the West; but it ignored the Pelagian controversies, the development of the Augustinian and later evangelical theology. It took the most intense interest in the difference between ousia and hypostasis, the homoousion and homoiousion, the relations of the persons in the Trinity, the agennesia of the Father, the eternal gennesia of the Son, the eternal ekporeusis or " procession " of the Spirit, the perichoresis, the relation of the two natures in Christ, the Nestorian, Eutychian, Monophysite, and Monothelite heresies, but was never seriously troubled with questions about predestination, vicarious atonement, justification and imputation, conversion and regeneration, faith and good works, merit and demerit, vital union with Christ, and cognate doctrines, which absorbed the attention of Western Christendom. The cause for this difference must be sought in the prevailing metaphysical, rhetorical, and objective character of the Eastern Church, — inherited partly from Asia, partly from Greece — as distinct from the practical, logical, and subjective tendency of the Western Churches, which is derived from the Roman and the Teutonic nationalities. The difference is illustrated as early as the Nicene Creed, with its metaphysical terms about the Son, as compared with the more simple and popular Apostles' Creed , which originated in the West, and is very little used in the East.
The Greek Church is a patriarchal oligarchy, in distinction from the papal monarchy. The episcopal hierarchy is retained, the papacy rejected. Centralization is unknown in the East. The patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, are equal in rights, though the first has a primacy of honor. The czar of Russia, however, exercises a sort of general protectorate, and may be regarded as a rival to the pope of
3. Government.
Rome, but has no authority in matters of doctrine, and can make no organic changes. The Eastern hierarchy resembles the Jewish type. The Greek priest within the veil of the sanctuary is concealed from the eyes of the people; but in social respects he is nearer the people than the Roman priest. He is allowed, and even compelled, to marry once, but forbidden to marry twice. Celibacy is confined to bishops and monks. Absolution is given only in the form of a prayer, " May the Lord absolve thee," instead of the positive form, " I absolve thee." The confessional exists, but in a milder form, with less influence and abuse, than in Romanism. The laity are more independent; and the Russian czar, like the Byzantine emperor of old, is the head of the Church in his dominion. The unction of confirmation is made to symbolize the royal priesthood of every believer. The monastic orders, though including many clergy, are not clerical institutions as the Latin orders have been since the thirteenth century. The community of Athos (q.v.) is a lay corporation with chaplains.
The administration of the churches as developed in the Byzantine Empire is most complicated, and involves, besides the regular clergy, an army of higher and lower ecclesiastical officers, from the first administrator of the church property (6 fttyas o'iKov6fiog)t the superintendent of the sacristy (o cnevo<pv'ka^)J the chancellor or keeper of ecclesiastical archives (o xaPT0(P^a^), down to the cleaners of the lamps (ol "kainra&apmi), and the bearer of the images of saints (6 Paarayapiog), These half-clerical officers are divided into two groups, — one on the right, the other on the left: each is subdivided into three classes, and each class has again five persons. Leo Allatius and Heineccius enumerate fifteen officials of the right group, and even more of the left. But many of these offices have either ceased altogether, or retain only a nominal existence.
In worship and ritual the Eastern Church is much
like the Roman Catholic, with the celebration of
the sacrifice of the mass as its center, with an equal
and even greater neglect of the sermon,
/f anc^ *s addressed more to the senses
_.. , and imagination than to the intellect and the heart. It is strongly Oriental, unintelligibly symbolical and mystical, and excessively ritualistic. The Greeks reject organs, musical instruments, and sculpture, and make less use of the fine arts in their churches than the Roman Catholics; but they have even a more complicated system of ceremonies, with gorgeous display, semibarbaric pomp, and endless changes of sacerdotal dress, crossings, gestures, genuflexions, prostrations, washings, processions, which so absorb the attention of the senses, that there is little room left for the intellectual and spiritual worship. They use the liturgy of St. Chrysostom, which is an abridgment of that of St. Basil, yet very lengthy, and contains, with many old and venerable prayers (one of the finest is incorporated in the Anglican liturgy under the name of Chrysostom), later additions from different sources to an excess of liturgical refinement.
The most characteristic features of Greek wor-
Eastern Church