Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/639

Rh national Church, Cyril introduced the new learning into that country. He appeared as a vigorous opponent of Rome, and many who had no notion of what Protestantism was saying and doing in the West were ready to welcome a man who shared the general aversion to union with the papacy that was felt by the Greek Church in Egypt. There can be no doubt, however, that he was strongly imbued with Protestantism. A modern Roman Catholic historian says of him, "He was a Protestant who formed a party of Calvinists in his Church, and his opinions were afterwards condemned by four councils." Cyril influenced a group of men in Alexandria of his own Church in the direction of Protestantism. But the time was peculiarly unpropitious for the spread of similar influences among the Copts, because they were still in a measure compromised by the nominal union with Rome that had been pronounced at Florence.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the national Church in Egypt was in a feeble condition, at the very ebb of its fortunes; and the Melchite Church was even lower, being reduced to little else than a nominal patriarchate. Then came Peter, a good man who was anxious to improve matters. In the year 1833, Curzon visited Egypt in search of manuscripts that he hoped to find among the monasteries. He was followed by Archdeacon Tattam, who roused some interest in England by his accounts of the ignorant and depressed condition of the Coptic Christians, the first consequence of which was an issue of an Arabic version of the four Gospels by the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the year 1840 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge produced an Arabic translation of old Egyptian commentaries. About the same time Grimshaw, an English clergyman, went to Egypt and helped to start a school that was conducted by a Mr. Lieder for the training of priests. This school met with little encouragement. Peter died in the year 1854, and was succeeded by Cyril, at first an active reformer of