Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/384

346 Holiness speaks of the Latins with every possible charity, moderation, and courtesy, and hopes for reunion with us. Which hope may God fulfil. The difference of his tone from that of Anthimos VII, in the famous answer to Pope Leo XIII, is very remarkable. The answers of the sister-Churches, however, show how little they are disposed to listen to the voice of their honorary chief. Alexandria and Cyprus did not answer at all. Lord Photios of Alexandria is still angry with the Phanar, and the quarrel between the two Cyrils is still raging at Cyprus. Jerusalem answered cordially and sympathetically. The Patriarch Damianos said that it is unhappily hopeless to think of reunion with Latins or Protestants as long as they go on proselytizing in the East. But union with the Anglicans is possible and very desirable. The Calendar should be reformed, but not till the Latins cease their "scandalous proselytizing." Athens answered that no union is possible, least of all with the Old Catholics, who will not give a plain account of what they do or do not believe. Bucharest said that the only union possible would be the conversion of Latin and Protestant heretics to the one true Orthodox Church; the Old Catholics are specially hopeless, because they have given up confession and fasting, try to unite to the Anglicans, and do not know what they themselves believe. His Holiness had better let the Calendar alone. Belgrade likes the idea of union with the Old Catholics especially. Both the Julian and the Gregorian Calendars are wrong. What the Orthodox want is a quite new one. Russia answered at great length and very offensively. What, said the Holy Russian Synod, is the good of talking about reunion with other bodies when we are in such a state of disorder ourselves? It went on to draw up a list of their domestic quarrels, and hinted plainly that they were all the fault of the Phanar. For the rest, union with the Latins is impossible, because of the unquenchable ambitions of the See of Rome, which long ago led to her fall. As for the Anglicans, the Church of Russia has always been well disposed towards them: "We show every possible condescension to their perplexities, which are only natural after so long a separation. But we must also loudly proclaim the truth of