Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/342

ALEXANDRIA a blessing. They suffered many bitter persecutions under successive Moslem rulers. Many among the clergy and laity apostatized. Nor did the Melchites escape. Indeed they were worse off, ground as they were between the upper and nether millstones, the Jacobites and the Saracens. When their patriarchate was restored (727), under Cosmas, in the caliphate of Nischam, their situation was deplorable. Through the exertions of this patriarch they got back many of their churches. Ignorance and indolence, however, had spread among the Melchites. In the services of the Church the Greek language was soon wholly replaced by the Arabic, and when, in the beginning of the ninth century, the Venetians carried away to their own city the body of St. Mark, the ruinous patriarchate was hardly more that a name.

With the Jacobites matters were not much better. There was a succession of undistinguished patriarchs, except at intervals, when the see was vacant because of internal disputes. Persecution was frequent, and renegades were numerous. By the eleventh century Alexandria had ceased to be the sole place where the patriarch was consecrated. From this date Cairo claimed that honour alternately with Alexandria, though the enthronement took place in the latter city. A little later, during the patriarchate of Christodulus (Abd-el-Messiah), Cairo became the fixed and official residence of the Jacobite patriarch. In the beginning of the reign of Saladin (1169) a serious controversy arose between the Jacobite Patriarchs of Antioch and those of Alexandria, concerning the use of auricular confession. The Jacobite parties of the two patriarchates had for many years kept in close touch with one another. More than once their relations were strained, as happened particularly in the time of John X (Barsusan) of Antioch, and Christodulus (Abd-el-Messiah) of Alexandria. They fell out over the proper presentation of the Eucharistic oblations, in which the Lyrian Jacobites were in the habit of mingling a little oil and salt. (Neale, Patriarchate of Alex., II, 214). Christodulus insultingly rejected the practice. John of Antioch wrote in its defence. The new controversy about the use of auricular confession severed the once friendly relations of the two communions. Mark, son of Kunbar, and his successor, Cyril of Alexandria, were for abolishing the practice altogether, while Michael of Antioch as vigorously insisted upon its continuance (Renaudot, Liturg. Orient., II, 50, 448; Historia Patr. Jacobit. Alex., 550; Neale, op. cit., II, 261).

For twenty years (1215–35) the Jacobites were without a patriarch, because they could not agree among themselves. During this break in the Jacobite succession, Nicholas I, the Melchite patriarch, addressed an appeal to Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), imploring his good offices with the Templars and Hospitallers in favour of some Christian captives (Neale, op. cit., II, 279). A few years later (1221), when Damietta had fallen into the hands of the Saracens, Nicholas wrote again to the Pope, Honorius III (1216–27), for assistance in the struggles that were fast overwhelming his Church. We may note here that the revolutions which subsequently befell the Greek Empire of Constantinople had little effect on the fortunes of the Church of Alexandria. The same may be said of the Crusades; though closely connected with local Alexandrian history, they do not seem to have had much influence upon its internal ecclesiastical affairs.

There is little left to chronicle of the Jacobite and Melchite communions of the Church of Alexandria. Both suffered severely in the crushing persecution of the fourteenth century. The Jacobites, utterly demoralized, managed to continue the succession of their patriarchs, who, as we have seen, resided no longer in Alexandria, but in old Cairo. In its widest extension, the patriarchate included fifteen bishoprics, and laid claim to jurisdiction over all the Coptic Christians of Egypt, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Barbary, or the native tribes of northern Africa. During this dark period the Melchites fell more and more under the influence of the Byzantine patriarchs, and thus sank over deeper into the Greek schism. Their patriarch, a mere shadow of what he once was, resides at Stamboul, and glories in the title of "Patriarch of Alexandria and Œcumenical Judge". It is an empty title, since he is supreme pastor over only five thousand souls, and where formerly more than one hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Alexandria, only four now form the synod of the "Œcumenical Judge". They are the Bishops of Ethiopia, Memphis, Damietta, and Rosetta.

It will not be out of place to treat briefly of the Latin patriarchate of the Church of Alexandria. Since the seventh century the patriarchate, as we have seen, was divided between the Jacobites and the Melchites, both of which bodies eventually became schismatical. Among the patriarchs a few had courted the friendship of Rome, but none seems to have entered into full communion with her. There were, however, some Christians, as there are today, who were in no sense schismatical, but remained in full communion with the Holy See. It was doubtless in their behalf that in the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216) a patriarch of the Latin rite was appointed for Alexandria. The time seemed favourable for such an appointment, because of the progress of the Crusades. The actual date is, however, uncertain. Sollerius (Acta SS., Jun. vii, 1887), and the "Lexicon Biblicum" of Simon, quoted by him, speak of a "S. Athanasius Claromontanus pro Latinus, 1219". There is no further mention of this patriarch, nor is it certain that he was the first incumbent of the Latin patriarchate. We say it is not certain, because the date of appointment, or perhaps of the consecration, of Athanasius, as given by Sollerius, is 1219, whereas the establishment of the Latin patriarchate occurred in 1215. This is clear from the Twelfth General Council (Fourth Lateran), held in that year (Labbe, xi., 153). Neale (op. cit., II, 288) gives a list of the Latin patriarchs, and heads it with the name of Giles, a Dominican friar appointed in 1310 by Clement V. From this on he follows Sollerius (Acta SS., loc. cit.), who gives us the names of the Latin patriarchs from 1219 to 1547.

After the loss of the Holy Land and the overthrow of all Latin domination in the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Patriarchate of Alexandria ceased to exist except as a mere titular dignity (Wernz, Jus Decretalium, p. 837). In 1895, Pope Leo XIII established a patriarchate of the Coptic rite with two suffragan sees, Minich and Luksor, for the Copts in communion with the Holy See (Monit. Eccle., ix, part. 1, 225).

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Alexandria, suffragan of Kingston, Ont. It comprises the counties of Glengarry and Stormont, and was created a diocese by Leo XIII, by the Decree "In hac sublimi", 23 Jan., 1890. It has