Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/842

 GREEK

756

GREEK

The Uniat-Riimanians of the Kingdom of Rumania have no ecclesiastical organization. In this sunmiary I have omitteil the other Oriental Churches in com- munion with Rome, e. g. the Armenian, the Coptic, the Abyssinian, the Syriac, the Maronite, the Chaldean and Malabrian Churches, because they do not use the Byzantine rite, and have no claim to be considered as Greek Churches, even in the wider meaning of the word.

FoRTESCUE, 7'/m n,!.',,, J, >r!',!-tr,,i t'liurri, il.on^loii, I'HIT'; YtLiAlti, Histuil' ' ,,.,,,■ ,' -

tiennes en Orint I I ' i i I -- >;: I' i - \ i, 1 ,'. - 1 - . < ' I ' h i -,

s. d.); Beth, 1)1. ih,,,j,>!, ,;,, cA,,;, ,;A,,m/, r M,'i, l,„,. j,'„J> r (Berlin, 1902); Shjiernagl, Vt-rfassiinu urttt gtyeri wii rt itjer Bestand samtHcher Kirchen ties Orients (Ratisbon, 1904); De Jf.hay, Deta situation legale des sujels ottomans non mussulmans (Bruxelles, 1906); d'Avril, Les hierarchies en Orient in the Revue de I'Orient Chretien (1899), pp. 145-149; Kohler, Die kalholischen Kirchen des Morgenlandes (Darmstadt, 1896); Mis- siones Catholicce (Rome. 1907), 771-800; Janin, Les groupe- ments Chretiens en Orient in Bchos d'Orient (1906), 330-337; (1907), 43-49, 107-112, and 136-139 (in this same article will be found an ample complementary bibliography for sections II and III above).

IV. Greek-Church Hi.story. — (1) The First Five Centuries. — The Gospel, preached by the Apostles and by their disciples, who were converts from Judaism, spread first of all among the Jewish communities of the Roman Empire. These Jewish settlements were mainly in the towns, and as a rule spoke the Greek tongue; and thus it came to pass that the earliest Christian communities were in the towns and used the Greek tongue in their liturgical services. Gradually, however, Christian converts from among the Gentiles began to increa.se and, as the author of the so-called Second Epistle of (element says, " The children of the barren woman outnumbered tho.se of the fruitful one ' '. The original differences between the Judteo-Christian and Helleno-Christian communities quickly disap- peared, and soon there existed only Christians, with a certain number of heretical sects which either held aloof of their own accord or were constrained to do so. At the end of the fourth century, at least in the East, nearly all the cities were Christian, but the villages and country places, as in the West, offered a more stubborn resistance to the new religion. The government of the Church was monarchical; as a rule every city had its bishop, and the priests were his assistants; the deacons and lower ministers attended to the ceremo- nial and to charitable works. Even before the Coim- cil of Niea-a (325) ecclesiastical provinces had begun to appear, each having a metropolitan and several suf- fragan bishops. The size of these provinces generally corresponded to the extent of the civil provinces.

The fourth canon of Nica'a expressly refers to such provinces. But were there also (churches whose high jurisdiction was recognized by a number of ecclesias- tical provinces, and did they correspond with the future patriarchates and exarchates? We must rea('h the third century before we find conclusive proof of this. At that time the Bishop of Alexandria was looked up to as the Primate or Patriarch of all Egypt. In a somewhat similar way, though in a lesser degree, the Bishop of Antioch hail authority in the provinces of Syria and Asia Minor. For instance, at the end of the second century Serapion of Antioch exercised his authority .at Rhos.sos, a town of Cilicia, and this same Serapion appears to liave ordained Palout, the thirti Bishop of Edessa. During the latter half of the third century we see as.semljled at Antioch the bishops of all Syria and eastern Asia Minor, soon to become the civil diocese of Pontus. As early as 251 we know of a synod that was to be held at Antioch because Fabius, the bishop of that town, seemed to be leaning towards Novatianism. The promoters of this meeting were the Bishops of Tarsus, C.t'sarea in Palestine, and Cxsa^ rea in ('appadocia. A few years later, in 250, Dio- nysins of Ali^xandria, treating of the Eastern Churches that had been disturbed by this quarrel, mentions Antioch, Ca>sarea in Palestine, .lElia (Jerusalem), Tyre,

Laodicea in Syria, Tarsus and Caesarea in Cappadocia. Somewhat later, again, from 204 to 208, the affair of Paul of Samosata was the occasion of many meetings of bishops at Antioch, and in the interests of that Church. They always came from the same provinces, viz., those extending from Polemoniac Pontus (Neo- cssarea) and Lycaonia (Iconium) to Arabia (Bostra) and Palestine (Caesarea and .^lia). "Immediately after the persecution of Galerius and Maximianus a celebrated council was held at Ancyra, presided over by the Bishop of Antioch, at which some fifteen bishops from the same countries, were again present; this time, however, the Provinces of Galatia, Bithynia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia are represented, but Asia, properly so called, still remained outside the group" (Duchesne, "Christian Worship", London, 1904, p. 20). On the other hand, in Proconsular Asia no Church had yet succeeded in asserting authority over the others; Ephesus, the most famous of them, had merely a primacy of honour over its rivals in influence and wealth, Smyrna, Pergamus, Sardis, and others.

To sum up, then, during the opening years of the fourth century we find three principal ecclesiastical groups in the Eastern Empire: (1) that of Alexan- dria, with authority over the whole of Egypt; (2) that of Antioch, with a more or less recognized juris- diction over the whole Greek world, with the excep- tion of Asia proper, and even over lands beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire, e. g., Armenia and Persia; (3) Proconsvilar Asia, forming a group apart. The Councils of Nicsea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) legalized the ex- isting state of things, created new Churches and estab- lished the ecclesiastical hierarchy as it has remained ever since. But in order to understand the situation properly, we must first briefly review the civil organi- zation of the Roman Empire, which had such an in- fluence over early Church organization.

From Diocletian to the accession of Theodosius the Great (379) the Empire of the East included the civil dioceses of Egypt (after its separation from Antioch), Asia, Pontus, and the two Mysias, or Thrace. The remaining dioceses formed part of the Empire of the West. On 19 January, 379, Gratian, Em|)eror of the West, ceded to his colleague, Theodosius I, the Prefec- ture of Eastern Illyricum, which included the dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia. Soon afterwarils, between 424 and 437, Western Iflyricum, or the diocese of Pannonia, became part of the Empire of the Ea.st.

Among the canons of Niciea (325) that ilo not spe- cifically deal with the ordinary ecclesiastical prov- inces, canons and 7 confirm the rights accorded by immemorial custom to certain great ('hurches, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and the other epar- chies. It is not easy at first sight to determine what rights the council referred to. Nevertheless it is a general opinion that the sixth canon aimed at securing to the Bishop of Alexandria an exceptional rank, and at endowing him with powers over the metropolitans and bishops of the four civil provinces of Egypt, Thebaid, Libya, and Pentapolis, as ample as those exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the various provinces of the Patriarchate of the West. Thus the Bi.shop of Alexandria had the right to consecrate all the metropolitans and bishops of Egypt, and from this some historians and canonists would have us con- clude that he was, as a matter of fact, the only metro- politan in Egypt, and that his entire patriarchate was a single diocese. This is an evident exaggeration. At the Council of Nica'a there were four Egyptian metro- politans, one for each of the civil and ecclesiastical provinces; later their number rose to nine, or even ten, according as the emperors increased the number of civil provinces. The number of sulTrayan bishops rose at one time to a hundred. The ori;:iiiizatioii of the Egyptian Church really followed the same lines as the others. But the Patriai-ch, or Bishop, of Alex-