Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/449

Rh They believe in an intermediate state in which souls are helped by our prayers (exactly our Purgatory), yet now they pretend that they do not believe in Purgatory. They call the Blessed Virgin "immaculate," "very pure and without stain," "without corruption," and they keep the feast of her Conception on December 9. But they will not admit that they accept the Immaculate Conception.

Naturally they deny the Pope's universal jurisdiction and the definition of the Vatican Council (1870). They acknowledge him as Patriarch of the West and first of all Christian bishops. They, alone of Eastern Churches, seem to have evolved a kind of branch theory which includes, apparently, all Christians of any sect. And, at least, some of their theologians have a theory which distinguishes necessary "dogmas" from true but not necessary "doctrines" in a curious way.

2. The Hierarchy

By a polite convention of the usual kind, which, of course, concedes nothing really, we call the Monophysite Church of Armenia "Gregorian," after the Illuminator, although he was without any question a Catholic in union with Rome (p. 404). They need a special name to distinguish them from Catholic Armenians and Protestant Armenians. Over this Church rules as Primate the Supreme Katholikos at Etshmiadzin. He has real jurisdiction in his own patriarchate, which contains five