V. THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
In the Byzantine or Orthodox Church of the East
the situation was seriously
affected by the fact that
the culture, the imperial system and religion
itself
enjoyed a continuity which the barbarian invaders had
badly
broken in the West. The Eastern Emperor re-
mained still in a sense the Pontifex Maximus; he could
virtually
choose the Patriarch of Constantinople, he
legislated on ecclesiastical
matters, initiated such leg-
islation, and
could behave tyrannically on occasion. It
gradually became explicit that
the ordinary adminis-
tration of the
Church was regarded as shared by the
five Patriarchates of Rome,
Constantinople, Antioch,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem; though a place of
special
honor was conceded to Rome, and, from the eighth
century it was true for the most part that the Patri-
archate of Constantinople covered the
area effectively
ruled by the Eastern emperor.
Elements of an earlier democracy continued in the
ecclesiastical system, the
laity having a part in the
election of a priest, the lower clergy in the
choice of
a bishop. The laity—and perhaps, in particular,
the
mob in Constantinople—were a force in religious
affairs, and were not regarded as incapable of holding
views on theology.
They were greatly under the influ-
ence of the
lower clergy and the monks, and able to
resist even a Patriarch, even an
emperor. Perhaps the
most effective practical difference from the West
came
from the continuance of secular education in the
Byzantine
Empire: the fact that high civil servants
might be more cultured than the
bishops and might
be appointed to high ecclesiastical office. On
doctrinal
matters Constantinople was disposed to have respect
for
Rome, but in the East, the final authority in this
field was an Ecumenical
Council, and there was a
greater desire not to allow minute differences of
doc-
trine to ruin charitable relations
with other parts of
the Church. Greater value was attached to
mysticism,
and there was less suspicion of it, than in the West,
the
emphasis being more definitely on the otherworldly
aspect of religion.
When the Church had settled down after the Icono-
clastic controversy in the eighth and early ninth cen-
turies, the missionary work amongst the
Slavs was
taken up, and with it went the general civilizing influ-
ences of Byzantium, producing a distinct
differentiation
in culture between the two halves of the whole conti-
nent. Soon after 860 Cyril and Methodius
carried to
the swollen Moravian empire the Slavonic literary
language
which they had constructed apparently on
the basis of a dialect in
Macedonia. Both here and in
the conversion of Bulgaria the competition
between
the Eastern and the Latin church is visible, and it
brought
out a tendency to mutual criticism, but did
not produce anything like the
serious schism once
associated with the name of Photius.
Over a century later the conversion of a Russian
prince and his marriage to
a Byzantine princess
heralded the Christianizing of Russia and brought
that
country into the orbit of Byzantium, though Latin
missionaries
had appeared there at an earlier date.
Earlier than all this the rule of
Byzantium in southern
Italy, and the policy of taking over for the
Orthodox
church that region, together with Illyrium (which had
been
part of the Roman Patriarchate), had begun to
lead to serious trouble.
Furthermore the conquests by
the Normans in southern Italy in the eleventh
century,
together with their threat to move into the Balkans,
complicated still further the relations between Latin
and Greek. The troubles of 1054, however, did not
produce the
real schism or the enduring estrangement
that the Western church later
alleged to have taken
place. Political events and purely ecclesiastical
rivalries
and disputes would lead to polemical quarrels between
Rome
and Constantinople over points where each side
had often been content to
allow differences. The em-
perors in
Constantinople, however, often needed help
from the West, and tended to be
an influence on the
side of reconciliation.
The chief difficulties had reference to some things
which had received
general recognition in the Western
church only comparatively recently, so
that in a sense
they were the result of the separate life that had
been
developing. This was true of the most serious theolog-
ical difference, the famous filoque clause, the Western
view that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Son as
well as from the Father. Fundamental differences in
mentality and language between the Greeks and the
Latins obstructed any
agreement on this; but in any
case the East had a still stronger hostility
to the West-
ern policy of adding to the creed
without reference
to a general council.
The reform of the Western church and the tremen-
dous advance of papal claims in the latter half of the
eleventh
century (at a time when conditions in Rome
for a long period had led
Easterners to have a low
opinion of the papacy) provided a substantial
cause
of further alienation, especially as the claims involved
the
right to appeal to Rome from ecclesiastical courts
in Constantinople. For
the rest the Orthodox Church
tended to feel strongly about the
comparatively recent
development which had brought the West to the use
of unleavened bread in the sacrament. And, once hos-
tility was awakened, there were numerous differences
in custom
that could be turned into debating points
against the West—the
fasting on Saturdays, the clerical
shaving of beards, the question of the
celibacy of the
clergy, etc.
Though the first Crusade was an answer to a call
for help from
Constantinople, it increased the es-
trangement. The establishment of a Latin bishop of
Antioch, while
the Orthodox one went into exile, pro-
duced a
real schism in one of those eastern Patri-
archates that had hitherto tried to avoid participation
in the
quarrels between Rome and Constantinople. The
Fourth Crusade, involving the
sack of Constantinople
and the establishment for a time of a Latin
empire
there, made the estrangement enduring and profound,
and marks
the fundamental breach.
From the thirteenth century Byzantine culture was
brilliant, as the empire
declined. The Emperor Michael
VIII Palaeologus in 1273-74, hoping to stave
off an-
other attack from the West, overbore
both the Patri
arch and the Synod and, in an agreement for ecclesias-
tical union, admitted the full
primacy of the Roman
See. But the Church refused to hold to this. The teach-
ing of Gregory Palamas, which gave
Orthodox
mysticism a dogmatic basis and was adopted as official
doctrine, provided a new obstruction to union; but the
need for help
against the Turks made the issue a live
one in the fourteenth century and
the Conciliar Move-
ment in the West produced a
situation somewhat more
favorable to the policy. Representatives of
Byzantium
appeared at the Council of Constance. In 1439 a union
was
achieved at the Council of Florence. The Russians
rejected this; however,
the Byzantines were unrecon-
ciled;
Constantinople fell in 1453; and in 1484 the
agreement was formally
repudiated there.
Before 1453 a great part of the flock of the Patriarch
of Constantinople (in
Asia Minor, for example) had
been living under Turkish rule and the
Patriarchates
of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem had long been
under the infidel. After the conquest, the Christians
were allowed to exist
as a separate nation, governing
their own affairs according to their own
laws and
customs, the Patriarch being responsible for the ad-
ministration, the securing of the
payment of taxes, and
the maintenance of a proper attitude towards the
gov-
ernment. The Turkish government
itself was not hostile
but the local authorities in Asia seem to have
been
more intolerant than those in Europe. Also, in their
reduced
position, the Christians were unable to keep
up their educational system,
and the church suffered
disastrously for this, though before long some use
was
being made of facilities in Venice.
The Russians were more passionately Orthodox than
the Greeks, and more
hostile to other forms of Christi-
anity,
so that they regarded the fall of Constantinople
as the punishment for the
union attempted with Rome.
The Christians under Turkish rule might have a
Patri-
arch, but they no longer had the
leadership of a Chris-
tian emperor, and as
the rulers of Russia increased in
power—becoming Tsars from
1480—they saw them-
selves as
heirs of the Byzantine emperors, Ivan III
having married the niece of the
last of these in 1472.
They appointed their own Metropolitan of Kiev
(after
a nominal election) and though Ivan III had declared
that the
Patriarch of Constantinople had no authority
in Russia, the Metropolitan
acknowledged the superior
position of the latter. The Russian clergy came
to have
a certain contempt for the Greeks, and the Tsar
claimed to be
the royal leader of Orthodoxy. In 1587
Constantinople recognized Moscow as
a Patriarchate.
After the Time of Troubles, the first Romanov Tsar,
Michael, made his able
father Patriarch, and from 1610
to 1633 these two ruled together, to the
great advan-
tage of the Church. Orthodoxy had
suffered a great loss
during the troubles, however, because the whole of the
Ukraine,
including Kiev, had passed to Poland, which
was attempting to impose upon
it a Uniate system,
agreed upon in that country in 1595. This involved
the recognition of papal supremacy but the retention
of the Orthodox
liturgy, marriage of the clergy, etc.
Between 1652 and 1658 Nikon, the
Patriarch of
Moscow, made a thorough reform of the Russian
church, and
even pressed ecclesiastical authority in the
spirit of the medieval papacy.
Peter the Great saw the
danger, however, and, from 1700, he and his
successors
refused to nominate a Patriarch.
Relations with the West are illustrated by the fact
that Cyril Lucaris, who
was Patriarch of Constanti-
nople from
1620 to 1635 and in 1637-38, put out a
distinctly Calvinistic
“confession of faith.” Before 1640,
Peter Moghila,
Metropolitan of Kiev drew up (in Latin)
a similar
“confession” which showed a curious sympa-
thy with Catholic doctrine. From 1672, Dositheus,
the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, was working to secure the
production of a
“confession” which should at least
avoid these
aberrations. In the eighteenth century
progress was limited by the fact
that in Constantinople
the lay intelligentsia acquired the leading
position
amongst the Greeks, while Catharine the Great in
Russia
tended to elevate free-thinkers to high ecclesi-
astical appointments. In 1774 Russia created trouble
for the
future by securing treaty-recognition of her
right to intervene on behalf
of Orthodox subjects of
the Ottoman Empire.
The prosperity of the Phanariots, the great influence
they acquired over the
church in Constantinople and
their dream of a revival of Greek imperialism
brought
embarrassment to the Patriarchs; and the opening of
the Greek
revolt—which the Patriarch could not bring
himself actually to
denounce—led to the execution of
the head of the church, two
metropolitans, twelve
bishops, and all the leading Phanariots in 1821.
The
Patriarchate never recovered from this blow and began
to lose many
of the features that had made it generally
important in mundane affairs.
With the establishment
of a Greek kingdom not only the Orthodox Greeks
of
the country itself but also those in Turkey tended to
look towards
the Metropolitan of Athens. The twenti-
eth
century has seen an important squeezing out of
Orthodoxy in Turkey and
Egypt, and this has been
helped in both cases by the departure of so many
of
the Greeks from these two countries. The See of Anti-
och has become much more important because it con-
tains along with the Patriarchate of
Jerusalem, the
main Arabian section of Orthodoxy, and has itself been
in Syrian or Lebanese hands throughout the present
century. The Orthodox
church in Europe became
closely associated with nationalism in the Balkans, and
this worked to the detriment of the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, who, however, was perhaps
too Greek to
be truly ecumenical. It was even Arab-speaking mem-
bers of the Orthodox church who played a
leading part
in the rise of Arabian national movements.
The Church has suffered of late from the secularizing,
tendencies of the
modern world, and in the 1960's it
has in the Middle East only a fifth of
the numbers it
had fifty years ago. Though the Patriarch of Constanti-
nople has only a small immediate
flock, the very mis-
fortunes of the office
seem to have freed it for a more
ecumenical role, especially as the
Orthodox in Western
Europe, in America, and in Australia are under its
jurisdiction. And at least, in spite of all that has hap-
pened in recent centuries, the Church has maintained
its spiritual power and its ability to play a part in the
ecumenical
movements of the present day.
