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12 going on. The whole rite and its language would be quite strange to him. But in a schismatical Armenian church every detail of the service would be perfectly familiar to him. Having disposed of this first and greatest confusion, let us consider others less fatal, but still to be avoided.

How does rite stand towards Patriarchate? We have already noted that the idea of Patriarchate is really the basis of that of rite. In the early Church people were divided into Patriarchates according to the geographical position of their races. Putting aside such obvious exceptions as a traveller staying for a time in a foreign country, an ambassador or Legate representing a foreign power, every Christian submitted to the rite of the place where he lived — that is, to the rite of his nation. At first there were diversities of local rite and custom in each country, almost in each diocese or local church. Then gradually, almost insensibly, came the ideal of uniformity throughout each Patriarchate. This is merely one special case of the general centralization, not so far under the one chief Patriarch at Rome (that is another matter), but under each Patriarch within his own Patriarchate. As each priest would naturally follow the rite of his bishop, so each bishop followed that of his Metropolitan, and each Metropolitan that of his Patriarch. The principle never went further than that. The Patriarchs themselves were too great, too distant, too much separated by language and custom from Rome, to follow it out to the end, by all adopting the rite of the first Patriarch. So liturgical uniformity throughout the whole Church did not become the ideal at any time. But liturgical uniformity throughout each Patriarchate did.

So we come to the principle that rite follows Patriarchate. This does not seem ever to have been laid down formally in so many words; but it became tacitly a principle. Each diocese adopted the rite of its Patriarchal city. The rite used by any bishop became a kind of symbol of his dependence on a certain Patriarch. We have already noted the one significant exception to this, in the case of the Roman Patriarchate. Otherwise, from the fifth or sixth centuries, we may take it that rite followed, was the outward sign of, Patriarchal allegiance.

Patriarchate followed geographical divisions. Each Patriarch had a geographical territory, over whose inhabitants he reigned. Thus the Christians of Egypt obeyed the Patriarch of Alexandria and used the Alexandrine rite; those of Syria obeyed him of Antioch and used his rite, and so on. The situation of strangers in such lands was of course abnormal.