ECTENE, ec'ten-i or -6
(late Gk. ektene [cache],
"earnest prayer"; cf. proseuche ektenes, " prayer
without ceasing,"
Acts xii. 5):
A prayer in the form of a litany which occurs in the liturgy and
other public functions of the Eastern Church. It
consists of a varying number of short petitions
said by the deacon, to which the choir
or congregation respond with Kyrie eleison, or in the supplicatory one with "Grant us, O Lord." All forms end
with a request for the intercession of the Virgin
and all the saints, followed by an ascription of
praise to the Holy Trinity.
ECUADOR: South American republic, so called
because it is crossed by the equator; area about
120,000 sq. m.; population about 1,400,000, of
which 700,000 are Indians,
500,000 of Spanish
descent, and 200,000 negroes and of mixed blood;
there are only 100,000 pure whites in the country.
The established religion is Roman Catholicism,
which is recognized by the constitution of the republic, to the exclusion of every other confession.
However, toleration is shown to foreigners of other
confessions; but these, few in number, have never
founded an independent congregation. The Church
is organized into the archbishopric of Quito (bishopric 1545, archbishopric' since 1848), the six
bishoprics of Cuenca (1786), Guayaquil (1837),
Ibarra (1862), Loja (1866), Porto Vecchio (1871),
and Riobamba (1863), and an apostolical vicariate
at Nopo. The entire territory is divided into 350
parishes, in which are also the cloisters of ten different orders of monks and eleven orders of nuns.
The relations of Church to State are regulated by
the concordat of 1862, as changed in 1881, which
also regulates the receipts of the Church in the
several provinces. In general, education, though
nominally compulsory, is neglected. Besides a
fair number of elementary schools there are nine
national colleges, five girls' schools conducted by
nuns, a number of seminaries of the clergy, and an
old and unimportant university at Quito, with
branches at Cuenca and Guayaquil. The Indians
in the east, among whom many missions were established by the Jesuits, also by the Franciscans,
prior to the separation of South America from
Spain, have been allowed to relapse completely into
their original state of barbarity. Their religion is
fetishism of the crudest variety.
Wilhelm Goetz.
Bibliography:
On the country: T. C. Dawson, The South.
American. Republics, part 2, New York, 1904; A. Simeon,
Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador, London, 1887; T. Wolf,
Geopraphfa y geoldgia del Ecuador, Leipsic, 1892; W.
Sievers, Amerika, ib. 1893. On the relations of the
Church of Rome: El Concordato i la eapoaicion del concejo cantonal de Guayaquil, Guayaquil, 1863 (Concordat
between Pius IX. and President Moreno); Nueva version
del concordato de 1862 . . . entre . . . Lean XIII. y el
presidents . . del Ecuador, Quito, 1882. Consult also
J. Lee, Religious Liberty in South America with Special
Reference to Recent Legislation in Pens, Ecuador and
Bolivia, Cincinnati, 1907.
