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Rh chief of all is the Pope of Rome. The distinction implies a difference of rites, of points of local Canon Law, of certain customs.

But this distinction is not the final one. We may leave the Latins as one Patriarchate without further subdivision, though, of course, they might be divided again into their various ecclesiastical provinces. However, except for Milan and Toledo, all Latins now use the same rite, all have practically the same rules. But the Uniates must be further subdivided into their various groups. Although we think sometimes of Uniates as one class, distinct from Latins, so that we say of anyone shortly that he is a Uniate, they are not really one group in the sense in which Latins are one.

In the sense in which we speak of the Latin Church there are not one, but several Uniate Churches. A Latin is a Latin; but a Uniate may be a Byzantine, an Armenian, a Chaldean, or a Coptic Uniate. These various people have each their own rite and laws. There is no real unity between Uniates as distinct from Latins. There is always the one unity that really matters, which joins all Uniates, together with Latins, in one Church. Yet, as in the case of Eastern Churches in general, so in the case of the Uniates, we may conceive a kind of bond which joins them all together, as distinct from us. It is not a bond of Canon Law, but rather of habit, of many customs that all have more or less in common. In a word, it is just the bond which joins Eastern Christians together as distinct from those of the West. Even inside the unity of the one Catholic Church it is possible to note this. But now we must see exactly which these various Uniate Churches really are.


 * 2. The Various Uniate Churches.

In this paragraph, besides drawing up a list of the Uniate Churches, we shall explain and justify the name we use for each of them. To anyone who has read the two former books of this series it will not be difficult to understand the grouping of the Uniates. The situation is simple. There is a Uniate Church corresponding to each of the schismatical Churches we have already described; and there is one Uniate Church, that of the Maronites, which has no schismatical counterpart. So we may take these in the same order as the schismatical Churches. There is no order of rank or dignity among them; but this order suggests itself naturally.

First, then, we have the Uniates who correspond to the