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 EASTER

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EASTERN

recognized, the moon according to which Easter is calculated is not the moon in the heavens nor even the mean moon, i. e. a moon travelling with the average motion of the real moon, but simply the moon of the calendar. This calendar moon is admittedly a fiction, though it departs very little from the actual astronom- ical facts; but in following the simple rule given for the dependence of Easter upon the moon of the calen- dar, imiformity is secured for all coimtries of the world. According to this rule, Easter Sunday is the first Simday which occurs after the first full moon (or more accurately after the first foiu'teenth day of the moon) following the 21st of March. As a result, the earliest possible date of Easter is 22 March, the latest 25 April.

The bibliography of this subject is vast, and most ecclesiasti- cal encyciopwlias devote more or less space to it. For practical purposes the text and notes of Hefele-Leclercq, Conciies, I, 133-151 and 450-^SS, supply all that is nece.'ssarj^; though Leclercq refers to the article Comput paschal in the Diclionnaire d'Archcoiogie for fuller treatment.

Among the more important contributions to the subject the following may be named: Krl'sch, Studien zur chrisllich- mUUlaUerlichen Chronologie (Leipzig, 1880); Idem in Seues Archiv (1SS4). 101-169; ROHb. Chronologie des Mittelalters und dcT Neuzeit (Berlin, 1S97), 110-165; Schmid, Die Osterfestfrage auf dem ersten allgemeinen Conzil von Nicaa (Vienna, 1905); Idem, Die Osterfestberechnuno auf den britischen Inseln (Ratis- bon. 1904): Hilgen'FELD, Dcr PaschastreU der alten Kirche (1860); Schwartz, Chrislliche und judische Oslertafeln (Berlin. 1905) in the Abhandlungen of the (jottingen .\cademy: this is a work of the ver>' highest importance; Schurer, Die Passa- streitigkeiten des S. Jahrhunderts in Zeitschrift /. hislor. Theol. (1870); DUCHESXE. Hisl. Anc. de VEglise (Paris, 1906), I. 285- 291; Kellner. Heorlologie (1906); Dcchesn'e in Revue des Quest. Hist. (ISSO); Anscombe akd Tlrxer in Eng. Historical Review (1895). 515. 699; WlcKus in Journal of Philology (1901), 137-151. .See also the bibliography given imder Chronology, General; and Dominical Letter.

Herbert Thurston.

Easter among the Jews. See Passover.

Easter Candle. See C.\ndles.

Easter Communion. See Commandments of the

CHtRCH.

Easter Confession. See Comm.yndments of the

Church.

Easter Cycle. See Calend.\r, CnRisTi.tN; Easter.

Eastern Churches. — I. Definition of an E.\st- ern- Chirch. — An accident of political development has made it possilile to divide the Christian world, in the first place, into two great halves, Eastern and Western. The root of this division is, roughly and broadly spealiing, the division of the Roman Empire made first by Diocletian (284-305), and again by the sons of Theodosius I (.\rcadius in the East, 395-40S; and Honorius in the West, 395—423), then finally made permanent by the estal>lishment of a rival empire in the West (Charles the Cireat, 800). Jlie di\-ision of Eastern and Western Churches, then, in its origin cor- responds to that of the empire. Western Churches are those that either gravitate around Rome or broke away from her at the Reformation. Eastern Churches depend originally on the Eastern Empire at Constanti- nople; they are those that either find their centre in the patriarchate of that city (since the centrahzation of the fourth century) or have been formed by schisms which in the first instance concerned Constantinople rather than the Western world. -Aunother distinction, that can be appUed only in the most general and broad- est sense, is that of language. Western Christendom till the Reformation was Latin; even now the Protes- tant bothcs still bear unmistakably the mark of their Latin ancestry. It was the great Latin Fathers and Schoolmen, St. .\ugustine (d. 430) most of all, who built up the traditions of the West; in ritual and canon law the Latin or Roman school formed the West. In a still broader sense the East may be called Greek. True, many Eastern Churches know nothing of Creek; the oldest (N'estorians,.\rmenians,Abyssinians) have never

used Greek Uturgieally nor for their literature; never- theless they too depend in some sense on a Greek tradi- tion. Whereas our Latin Fathers have never con- cerned them at all (most Eastern Christians have never even heard of our schoolmen or canonists), they still feel the influence of the Greek Fathers, their theo- logy is still concerneti about controversies carried on originally in Greek ami settled liy Greek sjTiods. The literatm-e of those that do not use Greek is formed on Greek models, is full of wortls carefuU)- chosen or com- posed to correspond to some technical Greek term, even of Greek derivatives. The root of the distinc- tion, then, in the broadest terms, is: that a Western Church is one originally dependent on Rome, whose traditions are Latin; an Eastern Church looks rather to Constantinople (either as a friend or an enemy) and inherits Greek ideas.

The point may be stated more scientifically by using the old di\ision of the patriarchates. Originally (e. g. at the Council of Nica'a, a. d. 325, can. vi) there were tiiree patriarchates, those of Rome, Alexandria, and Antiocli. Further legislation formed two more at the expense of Antioch: Constantinople in 381 and 451; Jerusalem in 451. In any case the Roman patriarch- ate was always enormously the greatest. Western Christendom may be defined quite simply as the Roman patriarchate and all Churches that hare broken away from it. All the others, with schistnatical bodies jormed from them, make up the Eastern half. But it must not be imagined that either half is in any sense one Church. The Latin half was so (in spite of a few un- important schisms) till the Reformation. To find a time when there was one Eastern Church we must go back to the centuries before the Council of Ephesus (431). Since that council there have been separate schismatical Eastern Churches whose number has grown steadily down to our own time. The Nestorian heresy left a permanent Nestorian Church, the Mono- physite and Monothelete quarrels made several more, the reunion with Rome of fractions of every Rite fur- ther increased the number, and quite lately the Bulga- rian schism has created yet another; indeed it seems as if two more, in Cyprus and SjTia, are being formed at the present moment (1908).

We have now a general criterion by which to answer the question: What is an Eastern Church? Looicing at a map, we see that, roughly, the division between the Roman patriarchate and the others forms a line that runs down somewhat to the east of the River Mstula (Poland is Latin), then comes back above the Danube, to continue down the Adriatic Sea, and fin- ally divides .\frica west of Egj-pt. Illyricum (Mace- donia and Greece) once belonged to the Roman patri- archate, and Greater Greece (Southern Italy and Sicily) was intermittently Byzantine. But both these lands eventually fell back into the liranches that surroimded them (except for the thin remnant of the Uniat Italo- Greeks). We may, then, say that any ancient Church east of that line is an Eastern Church. To these we must add those formed by missionaries (especially Russians) from one of these Churches. Later Latin and Protestant missions have further complicated the tangled state of the ecclesiastical East. Their ad- herents everywhere belong of course to the Western portion.

II. C.\t.\logue of the E\.stern Churches. — It is now possible to draw up the list of liodies that answer to our definition. We have alrcadj' noted that they are by no means all in communion with each other, nor have they any common basis of language, rite, or faith. All are covered liy a division into the great Orthodox Church, those formed by the Nestorian and Monophysitc heresies (the original Monotheletes are now all I'niats'l, and lastly the I'niat Churches corre- sponding in each case to a schismatical body. Theolo- gically, to Catholics, (he vital ilistinction is between CathoUc Uniats, on the one hand, and schismatics or