189 At the incorporation of the Uniates of Lithuania into the Orthodox
Church, under the Emperor Nicholas, the Synod of St. Petersburg
declared in its celebrated decree of March 5, 1839, as follows: “The
solemn confession expressed in the synodal act (of the apostate
bishops), that the Lord God our Saviour Jesus Christ is alone the
true Head of the only and true church, and the promise of dwelling
in unanimity with the most holy orthodox patriarchs of the East, and
with the most holy Synod, _leaves nothing more to require of the
united Greek Church for the veritable and essential union of the
faith_, and, for this reason, there remains nothing which can oppose
itself to the hierarchical reunion” (_Persécutions et Souffrances_,
etc., p. 118). Now, if there existed between the Catholic Church and
the Russian Church a veritable doctrinal disagreement with regard to
the Procession of the Holy Ghost, the Synod of St. Petersburg, in
not requiring of the apostate bishops any retractation on this
point, would have been guilty of an inconceivable compromise of the
faith. We leave to orthodox Russians the task of defending it.
It has been stated also that there is a disagreement between us and
the Russians on the subject of purgatory. We here give what we find
in the catechism of the late Mgr. Philarete, in use in the schools.
We make use of the French translation, which appeared in Paris, with
the concurrence of the Russian government and the Synod.
Q. “What remark remains to be made respecting the souls of those who
have died in the faith, but whose repentance has not had time to
bear fruit?
A. “That, to obtain for them a happy resurrection, the prayers of
those who are yet on this earth may be to them a great assistance,
especially when joined to the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass and to
the works of mercy, done in faith and in memory of the departed”
(_Catéchisme détaille de l’Eglise Catholique orthodoxe d’Orient,
examiné et approuvé par le Saint Synode de Russie._ Paris:
Klinsiock, 1851. On the eleventh article [of the Nicene Creed], p.
89).
190 Ανατολικὴ Ομολογία τῆς χριστιανικῆς πίστεως. The first edition
appeared in Latin, at Geneva, in 1629; the second, four years later,
in Greek and Latin. The _Confession_ of Cyril‐Lucar was inserted by
Kimmel in his work _Libri Symbolici Ecclesiæ Orientalis_. Jenæ,
1843. (Second ed. under the title of _Monumenta Fidei Ecclesiæ
Orientalis_. Jenæ, 1850.)
191 The title of this tract is, _Protestantism and Churches in the
East_. The cause of its appearance was the pretension of the Church
of England—which, not without analogy with the Russian Church,
recognized the sovereign of the country as its head, after Jesus
Christ—in giving to the East a bishop invested by a mandate of Queen
Victoria, with a jurisdiction embracing the whole of Syria, Chaldæa,
Egypt, and Abyssinia. Finally, its object is to examine the formula,
“No peace with Rome, but union and agreement _at any price_ with the
Syrians, the Abyssinians, and the _Greeks_,” and to prove the
absolute impossibility of the Anglican and the Orthodox Churches
being able honestly to agree together in point of doctrine.
If it be true that, in consequence of the marriage of the Duke of
Edinburgh, a great sympathy with the Anglican Church has taken
possession of the aristocracy of St. Petersburg, No. 42 of the
_Tracts for the Times_ ought to be reprinted in English, translated
and printed in Russian, and widely disseminated in the two
languages. It is the honesty itself of the two churches which is at
stake.
192 The reader will not take it amiss if he should find here several
points already developed in our former essay, _The Pope of Rome and
the Popes of the Oriental Orthodox Church._ (London: Longmans,
1871.) It is almost impossible, in touching upon the same subject,
entirely to avoid repetition; and, besides, there are certain ideas
which require to be put forward pretty frequently, if they are
sufficiently to arrest public attention.
Well, then, there is one idea, which we would willingly call the
“providential idea” of the times, of so decisive a tendency does it
appear to us for hastening the end of the schism and the return of
the Græco‐Russian Church to Catholic unity. It is the idea to which
we now return, and which forms the subject of the entire third
chapter of the essay just mentioned. We live in a century of
revolutions; now, whilst the Catholic Church, in presence of the
general overturning of thrones, dynasties and political
constitutions, only strengthens, with her marvellous unity, the
powers of her government, the Orthodox Eastern Church is given up
defenceless to all the chances of political revolutions, and
condemned, in her various branches, to submit to the form of
government which these revolutions impose upon her. This fact alone
is of a nature to lead back a goodly number of our separated
brethren. We have not here to discuss lofty and abstract matters; we
have to reflect whether Jesus Christ could thus have given up his
church to the mercy of political revolutions. The man of the people,
the illiterate, the workman, whose every moment is precious because
he must live by the labor of his hands, can decide this question as
easily as the theologian, the philosopher, and the statesman. It is
a reflection which requires neither study nor any form of reasoning,
nor even time; it is an argument self‐evident to all—the “popular
argument,” which must decide between the Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Eastern Communion.
After this our repetitions will be treated with indulgence, as will
also our inability to make any promise not to recur, even more than
once, to this same subject—in short, our desire will be found
legitimate that the _religious press of every country_ should make
the idea which we have just expressed its own; that it should
develop and popularize it, and make it really “the providential idea
of the times.”
193 This patriarch was afterwards deposed _on account of his refusal to
sign the declaration of the council_, and the Sublime Porte was
obliged to nominate a successor.
194 Scarcely was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cyril, arrested and
imprisoned, before Russia began to take reprisals against the Greek
Church.
195 Expression of the manifesto of the Synod of St. Petersburg, _On the
Reunion of the Uniates with the Orthodox Church in the Russian
Empire, printed by order of the Most Holy Synod of St. Petersburg_.
Synodal Press, 1839. See _Persécutions et Souffrances_, etc., pp.
157‐166.
196 From what we have been able to ascertain, the conduct of the Russian
Church upon this point is not so invariably uniform as to make it
impossible to quote some exceptions to what we have just mentioned.
It is very certain, however, that these exceptions do not regard
great personages, who are always dispensed from submitting to
baptism by immersion. To mention a recent example: the Princess
Dagmar was admitted into the Russian Church without being required
to receive a second baptism. The same thing was done in the last
century. Voltaire having shown himself persuaded that the Russian
Church baptized Protestants, baptized by infusion, was reproved by
Catherine II. in the following terms: “As head of the Greek Church,
I cannot honestly leave you unrebuked in your error. The Greek
Church does not rebaptize at all. The Grand Duchess, etc.” (Vide
_Kegl. Eccles._, p. 86, _note_.) What Catherine here calls the Greek
Church is the Russian. Besides, Catherine herself had been received
into the Russian Church without being rebaptized, and it was of this
example that William Frederick Lütiens, the Lutheran author of the
_Dissertatio de Religione Ruthenorum Hodierna_, did not fail to
avail himself, in maintaining that upon this point also the Russians
were in agreement with the Lutherans. “If the Russians of former
days” (_Rutheni veteres_), writes Lütiens, “did not recognize as
valid the baptism (by infusion) of our church, it cannot be
attributed solely to their belief in the necessity of their
ceremonies, but also to the hatred which, from the calumnies of the
Romanists, they nourished against our Lutheran Church ...”
(_Dissert._, etc., pp. 86, 7).
Besides, we find the following in the _Russian Clergy_ of Father
Gagarin: “The _Ecclesiastical Talk_ (Doukhovnaia Beseda) of Sept.
17, 1866, was seeking for a means of reconciling on this point the
Greek and Russian Churches. Nothing is stranger than the idea it has
entertained. If we are to believe the _Ecclesiastical Talk_, the
Greek Church fully admits the validity of baptism otherwise than by
immersion, but has been obliged to exact a new baptism from those
Latins seeking admission into her bosom, _in order to draw a deeper
line of demarcation between Greeks and Latins, from fear of a
reconciliation_, and to this end has attempted nothing less than _to
make the Greeks believe_ that the Latins were not Christians. We
should never dare to attribute to the Greek Church such a
proceeding. Lying, calumny, profanation of a sacrament that cannot
be repeated—all this, according to the _Ecclesiastical Talk_, the
Greek Church would knowingly and willingly do! Reading this, we
cannot believe our eyes. And this journal is published by the
Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg, under the eye and with the
approbation of the Synod!” (_The Russian Clergy, translated from the
French of Father Gagarin, S.J._, by Ch. Du Gard Makepeace, M.A.
London: Burns and Oates, 1872; p. 272.)
197 The Council of Constantinople of 1872 has been acknowledged by one
portion of the Orthodox Church, and rejected by the other. The
church of the Hellenic kingdom maintains the authority of the
council; a portion of the Russian Church rejects it. The Orthodox
Church is thus divided into two camps; and, according to the tenor
of the acts of the Council of 1872, all that portion of the Russian
Church which does not admit the authority of the council is,
therefore, at this present time excommunicate.
198 _Confessio Orthodoxa Fidei, Catholicæ et Apostolicæ Ecclesiæ
Orientalis._ Quæst. lxxxiii. in Kimmel’s work, _Libri Symbolici
Ecclesiæ Orientalis_, p. 153.