Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/475

Rh other on Easter Day, and dance for the Forerunner's birth, while the psalms from the Holy Mountain would still sound across the Ægean Sea. Communion under one kind, celibacy, and azyme bread—these are Latin customs, which they would only be asked not to call silly names when we follow them, And we do not rebaptize nor reordain just for spite. But the union would be restored with that distant mighty lord whom, in spite of all, the common people still think of as a great prince in the house of God, and they would no longer suffer the shock it must now be to them when they have to sing of the primacy of the Roman See in their office. The obstacle to reunion is chiefly their fear of being Latinized, of having to give up the rites to which they are so much attached, and then also of forsaking the faith of their fathers. And the first step towards it would be to persuade them that reunion means only going back to the state of things before the 9th century. There was then no idea of Latinizing the Eastern Churches, nor would there be now. And the faith of their fathers involves the communion of St. Peter's See.

Is there any hope? Unhappily, one cannot see any immediate prospect. A schism always becomes stronger by sheer inertia as the centuries pass; things get settled down in that state, prejudices and jealousies fossilize into principles that seem too obvious to allow discussion, immediate antiquity—the past that people know best because it is just behind them—is against reunion. The schismatical party, once reckless innovators, gradually seem to be the conservatives. It is true that, throughout the Orthodox Church, there always has been, there still is, a party friendly to Catholics, and really distressed at the schism. These people, the Latin-favourers, are a recognized feature among them. Sometimes the party has become very