Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/783

 CHRISTCHURCH

699

CHRISTENDOM

tain a papal dispensation. The conditions of admis- sion were noble birth and either two years' service in

Africa or I luce years with the lleei. but commandei .ill be held only by those who had served three years in Africa or five years with the fleet.

The last attempt at a reform of the order was that ol the Queen Donna Maria, made with the approba- tion of Pius VI (1789). This, the most important oi all the schemes of reformation designed for the order's benefit, made the convent of Thomar once more the headquarters of the whole order, and instead of the conventual prior, who, since 1551, had been elected by his brethren for a term of three years, there was a grand prior of the order, acknowledged by all classes ami invested with all the privileges ami the whole jurisdiction formerly granted by the popes. The ign, however, remained grand master, and the last Grand Triors of the tinier of Christ, as official subordinates of the Crown, did not fail to enter into the political entanglements of the nineteenth century.

the last of .ill. Furtado de Mendoca, was identified

with the Migu -li-t party in the troubles of 1829-32, and it was in the general confiscation of monastic property following the defeat of I loin Miguel that the con- cut of Thomar and four .hundred and fifty com- manderies were lost. The King of Portugal is still officially "Grand Master of the Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ ", and as such confers titular member- ship in the order, with the decoration of the crimson cross charged with another, smaller, cross of white. The Order ok CHRIST, as a. papal decoration, or if merit, is also a historical survival of the right, anciently reserved to t he Holy See, of admitting new bers into the Portuguese order. (See Decora-

i toNrs, Papal.)

On' German order sometimes called the Order of Chi Uilii tie Christi) see Swi >rd, Broth-

Iikkiikv. Memorias r nolicias da Ordem ./<>■■■ Templarios

!:■/'. ' '../. m ill

■ ..ii IC. 'I ' ,i [MAD ii 9, I "../. m ■!■ '■'..' I I.

.- .1 o works "ii Portuguese history cited m bibliography of Avi/..

Cir. Moeller.

Christchurch, Diocese op (Christopolitana), its centre being Christchurch, the capital of Canterbury, New Zealand. It comprises the provinces of Canter- bury and Wcstland, a small portion of the Province

on. and tin- Chatham Islands. In July. 1840,

the French corvette I'Aube started for Akaroa

. rbury) to land a body of settlers there, and to

to France the South Island of New Zealand. 'I he former project was accomplished; tin 1 latter was frustrated by Lieutenant-Governor Hobson. Having

lined the destination and purpose of the expe dition, he raced the corvette to Akaroa in the war- ship l'.ritoinart and, four days before the arrival of the French settlers, proclaimed the South Island British territory. The first English colonists (the "Canterbury Pilgrims'') landed at Lyttelton 1C> De-

cember, 1850. They, and many that followed them, wen sent out by the Canterbury Association, a High Church organization whose colonizing scheme was described by Low Churchmen as a "Puseyite inva- sion of New Zealand". The Canterbury concessions (nearly 3,000,000 fertile acres) were intended to be and remain a great Anglican monopoly. This, how- ever, was prevented by the Constitution Art of 1852. In all Canterbury, including Akaroa, there were 136 lies in 1851. During the first two decades they

were ministered to by the Maris! l'atlurs ('.mile.

Pesant, Tripi. Seon, Petitjean, and others. In I860

Christchurch received it, first resident priest. I

Chataignier, S. M. On 11 September of that year he laid the foundations of the first church in ( lanterbury,

a wooden structure, 28 by IS ft. A more spacious church was erected in 1864. Enlarged and beauti-

fied by Father Ginaty. S. M.. this subsequently served as a pro-cathedral from 1887 till 1905. On

the discovery of gold in 1864 there was a great influx of people to Wcstland, which led to the formation of missions in Hokitika, Greymouth, and elsewhere on the West Coast. The Dioc'ese of Christchurch. for- merly part of the Diocese of Wellington, was established by papal Brief, 10 May, 1887. Its first bishop, the Right Reverend John Joseph Grimes, S. M.. was con- secrated in London, 26 July, 1887. On his arrival in Christchurch there were in the diocese '■',.'> churches, 16 schools, 7 convents, and 17 priests (S secular and '.! Marists). The history of the diocese since then is one of closer organization and steady progress. The Marist Brothers and the Sisters of Nazareth were introduced; new parochial districts formed; 30 churches built or enlarged; 15 presbyteries, 9 schools, 10 convents, and 3 monasteries (Marist Brothers) erected; ami a white stone cathedral, one of the most beautiful religious edifices in Australasia, was opened 12 February, 1905.

Statistics (August, 1907): Parochial districts, 21; priests .'38 (20 Marists, 18 seculars); Marist Brothers, 13; nuns, 150; convents, 17: Marist I '.rot hers' mon- asteries, 3; boarding schools (girls), 6; primary schools, 30; charitable institutions, 2 (Nazareth Home and a great Magdalen Asylum); Catholic population, about 25,000.

MORAN, History of tin- fiitl.nhi- fluuili in \ 11: I nihi^ni (Sy.l

ney. s. if I; Pompali.iiu Early II to i of thi Catholic Church i>i Oceania (Auckland, 1888 . Phombon, Tin' Sinn, ,ij New '/.inland (2 vols., London, ls.v.l ; .[..si, llislori/ ../ 1 .../.. i... .. (Sydney, 1901); New Zealand Tablet, files.

Henry W. Cleary.

Christendom. — In its wider sense this term is used to describe the part of the world which is in- habited by Christians, as Germany in the Middle Ages was the country inhabited by Germans. The word will be taken in this quantitative sense in tin- article Religions (q. v.) in comparing the extent of Christendom with that of Paganism or of Islam. But there is a narrower sense in which Christendom stands for a polity as well as a religion, for a nation

as well as for a ] pie. Christendom in this sense

was an ideal which inspired and dignified many ecu turies of history and which has not yet altogether lost its power over the minds of men.

The foundations of a Christian polity are to be found in the traditions of the Jewish theocracy soft ened and broadened by Christian cosmopolitanism, in the completeness with which Christian principles were applied to the whole of life, in the aloofne ..i the Christian communities from the world around them, and in the hierarchical organization of the clergy. The conflict bet ween t he new religion and the Roman Empire was due partly to the very thorough- ness of the Christian system and it naturally empha- sized the distinction between this new society and t lie old state. Thus when ( 'onstant ine proclaimed tin- Peace of the Church he might almost be described as signing a treaty between two power,. From that Peace to the time of the Barbarian inroads into the West. Christendom was all but conterminous with the Roman Empire, and it might bethought that the ideal of a Christian nation was I hen at least lea I i zed.

The legal privileges which wen- granted to the bishops

from the first and which t em lei 1 t o increase, t he pro- tect ion given to the churches anil tin- property of the

clergy, and the principle admitted by the emperors, thai questions of faith were to be freely decided by the bishop,, all these concessions seemed to show that

the empire had become positively as well as nega- tively Christian. To St. Ambrose and the bishops of

the fourth century the destruction of the empire

seemed almost incredible except as a phase of the final catastrophe, and the system which prevailed in