75 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Union of the Churches
which, excepting that first Arian sehism, have eontinued to exist unchanged century after century to the present time. The Syrian, the Coptic (including the Abyssinian), and the Armenian Churches,
historically the national churches of
7. Present those ancient countries, although they Positions of reject, under a misconception of mean-
Greek and ing, the Chalcedonian canons (see Latin Curistotoey, IV.), can not be con- Churches. clusively charged with the error of monophysitism (see MonopuysirTms). All these primitive parts of the Christian Church in the East are in communion with each other, and the Syrian Church, which is now represented in the hierarchy of the Western patriarchate, has lately officially denied the imputation of this Christological error. The Greco-Russian Church, now numbering nearly 100,000,000 members, both by reason of its peculiar geographical position in Europe, and its rapid extension throughout the North American continent, seems destined to become more and more the mediating influence between the non-Roman divisions of the Western Church and the federated Orthodox Greek Churches of the East; just as the Syrian Church of Antioch already occupies a similar position toward those other primitive national churches which mutually recognize each other. The Russian Church.deserves great praise, not only for its sturdy stand on the subject of the validity of Western sacraments, especially baptism by affusion, in opposition to those Eastern prelates who doubt or deny their spiritual efficacy, but even more for its earnest efforts to aid, in every way consistent with its traditional orthodox teaching, the future recognition of the non-Roman communions of the West, and their eventual coordinate confederation with the churches of the East, in which it is deservedly the dominating division. The Roman Church, by accepting the dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council of 1870, compelled its many ultramontane controversialists to prove the asserted apostolic origin of the papal power, and the historical orthodoxy of this modern addition to its preceding contradictory definitions of the papal primacy and irreconcilable interpretations of the traditional apostolic teaching of the undivided Catholic Church.
All these are, however, denounced as erroneous doctrines no less uncompromisingly by the several Orthodox Greek Synods than by the Old Catholic theologians of Europe and by the scholars of the Reformed Western communions. Furthermore, as
a direct result of the Vatican decrees
8. Orthodox of 1870, there are to-day in almost Catholic every country of Europe, and also in Church as America, Catholic bishops independa Solution. ent of the Roman Church in both the Latin and the Syrian successions, pre-
siding over nascent autonomous national Catholic Churches, thus offering equally valid sacraments and orders to all Christians of the Latin rite who can not consistently accept these and previous dogmatic Roman rulings which they regard as additions to the orthodox Catholic faith. The proposed theses of the union conference at Bonn, in 1874, presided over by the great opponent of infallibility, J. J. I. von Ddllinger (q.v.), and attended by the Old Cath-
olic leaders and theologians and by clerical and theological representatives from both the Russian and the Greek Churches, besides clergy from the Anglican communions and other reformed communions of the West, offering, as they do, an orthodox synopsis of the traditional Catholic teaching of the undivided Church, and also a definite basis of doctrinal union in theological essentials of dogma, with consistent freedom in all related non-essentials, are a determining, force in aiding the coming recognition and future coordinate confederation of all non- Roman communions of the West, both with each other, and with the national Orthodox Greek, Syrian, Coptic, and Armenian Churches of the East. These theses, moreover, as an orthodox summary of the fundamental Christian faith of the undivided Catholic Church, can not fail to serve a double purpose. On the one hand, they indicate by contrast in which particular dogmatic declarations the differing reformed confessions of faith are deficient in over or under statement, or are in essential error in their respective interpretations of the traditional apostolic teaching of the primitive Christian Church. On the other hand, they indicate, with more or less certainty, the elements of a common future creed which will ultimately be developed, defined, and accepted, through a coming ecumenical council of the entire Catholic Church, by all Christian communions both in the Hast and in the West. The restoration, by the reformed non-episcopal communions, of that primitive apostolic hierarchy of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, rejected and repudiated too hastily by their Puritan forefathers, is necessarily a sine qua non of ecclesiastical recognition, not only by the several Orthodox Catholic bishops independent of the Roman Church in the western patriarchate, but also by the entire eastern episcopate, the Orthodox Russian and Greek churches, the Syrian, the Coptic, and the Armenian. The unexpected events of the present period foreshadow unmistakably the trend of the times. The continued disestablishment of the Roman Church in the Latin nations of Europe, aided by Modernism (q.v.), may result eventually either in fundamental reforms of its distinctive doctrines, especially the theory of the papacy; of ritual, especially the perversions of the sacraments and the cult of the saints; and in polity, especially the enforced celibacy of the clergy and the suppression of the diaconate; or it may, through the increasing loss of its political power, become eventually resolved into its former components, which were in the past separate and subordinate churches in the several divisions of the Western Empire, but which will be in the future independent and confederated national churches of the historic Western patriarchate, now including the American continent, in communion both with each other and with the confederated national churches of the Eastern patriarchates. Ernest C. MARGRANDER. III. Protestant Position: Since the Protestant Reformation repeated attempts have been made to bring about the reunion of the churches. The Reformers were not at first willingly separatists from the Roman Church; and in England the Nonconformists left the Established Church only after the
Union of the Churches