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Rh difficult and expensive thing to prepare, the custom grew up of making and consecrating large quantities at Constantinople, and sending portions to all the other bishops. Since about the 13th or 14th century the Patriarchs of Constantinople have claimed this as an absolute right. They alone can lawfully consecrate chrism. All other Churches, whether otherwise independent or not, must receive it from them. However, lately especially, this claim, too, has been hotly disputed. Russia consecrates her own chrism since the 17th century; Roumania has begun to do so, too, after a fierce quarrel. I beheve that all the other Orthodox Churches still receive theirs from Constantinople, though not always very willingly. We shall come back to the Œcumenical Patriarch and his Court in the next chapter (p. 338).

The next Church in rank is that of Egypt. As the great majority of Egyptian Christians are Copts, and so out of communion with the Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria has only a small flock, about thirty-seven thousand souls. In the first part of this book it is said that the Orthodox of Egypt and Syria were called Melkites (p. 14). It should now be noted that that name is at present generally used for the Uniates in communion with Rome. So it is better in modern times to speak only of the "Orthodox" of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. The Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria claims, of course, to be St. Mark's successor, just as does his Coptic rival. In the 17th and 18th centuries he lived at Cairo; now he has returned to Alexandria. Since 1672 the sees of this patriarchate have been reduced to four; their bishops are all called metropolitans, although they have no suffragans, and they do not reside in their titular dioceses (Ethiopia, Cairo, Damietta, and Reshid), but form the Patriarch's Curia.

Quite lately there has been trouble in this Church, as in the other patriarchates. Photios was one of the most determined