Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/241

 ] of the Catholic Church if visibly severed from Catholic unity. Such communities are destitute of that Divinely constituted authority which insures against variation and instability. Accordingly he exhorts and beseeches them to return to the one fold of Christ.

The replies of the Oriental Churches claim independence and equality. The Greek Patriarch at Constantinople declared that the Oriental Church would never consent to abandon the doctrine which it held from the Apostles, transmitted by the Holy Fathers, and the eight Ecumenical Councils. The Ecumenical Council is the supreme tribunal to which all Bishops, Patriarchs, and Popes are subjected.

The Armenian Patriarch criticised the Pope's action with severity; asserted that the principles of equality and apostolic brotherhood had not been observed by the Pope. The rank which the Canons ascribe to the Papal See only give him the right to address personal letters to the Bishops and Synods of the East, but not to impose upon them his will by encyclicals in the tone of a master. The Armenian Patriarch wrote to the Catholicos of Ecmiazin to say that "the Patriarch of the Roman Church—Pius IX." had sent a letter, announcing a Council. The Catholicos replied that the tone of the Pope's letter gave no hope that union would be realised: for it did not acknowledge the chief Pastors of the Eastern Church as equals in honour and dignity. And yet they are successors of the Apostles. They have received the same authority from the Holy Spirit as the Roman Patriarch.

The attitude of the German Protestants was uncompromising. The Nuncio in Bavaria wrote to Antonelli that the Germans regarded the invitation as an insult. There might be individual conversions, but certainly not a general return. The common opinion was: