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Points of Difference (§ 5).

I. Names, Extent, and Branches: Various names are used to designate the great division of Christendom which is considered in this article. The full official title is " the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church " (J dyfa op>g6dogos, KaSoRcrc~ 5rroaroicKtj avarolsKfj _KO.r)aia). The Roman Church claims all these titles, except " Oriental," for which it substitutes " Roman," and claims them exclusively. The name " Eastern (or Oriental) Church " designates its origin and geographical territory. The " Orthodox Church " expresses its close adherence to the ecumenical system of doctrine and discipline as settled by the seven ecumenical councils before the separation from the Western or Latin Church. On this title the chief stress is laid, and it is celebrated on a special day called " Orthodoxy Sunday," in the beginning of Lent, when a dramatic repreaelftation of the old ecumenical councils is given in the churches, and anathemas are pronounced on all heresies. The common designation " Greek Church " is not strictly correct, but indicates the national origin of the church and the language in which most of its creeds, liturgies, canons, and theological and ascetic literature are composed, and its worship mainly conducted.

The Eastern Church embraces the Greek, and the Russian and other Slavonic nationalities. It has its seat in Eastern Europe--chiefly in Turkey, Servia, Rumania, Greece, Russia, and some parts of Austria-and in Western Asia. Bulgaria was long a bone of contention between Constantinople and Rome and one of the causes of separation, but is now an independent branch of the " Orthodox" Church, ruled by an exarch (see BULGARIA; BUIr GARIANS, CONVERSION OF THE). In Western Europe and America there are congregations of merchants and immigrants or connected with embassies (for America, see below, IV.). The total number of adherents of the Eastern Church is about 100,000,000, of whom 85,000,000 belong to tile Russian Church. The Eastern Church thus ranks thirc'. among the three great divisions of Christendom, the Roman Catholic Church being credited with 230,000,000 adherents, and the Protestant Churches with 140,000,000.

The Eastern Church is divided into at least fifteen branches or parts, each independent of the other. The first rank is held by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (see CONSTANTINOPLE; PATRIARCH). Then follow (2) Alexandria (see ALEXANDRIA, PATRIARCHATE OF); (3) Antioch; (4j Jerusalem (see JERUSALEM, PATRIARCHATE OF); (5) Cyprus (which was recognized as a bishopric by the Council of Ephesus in 431 and includes 160,000 Greek Catholics), (6) Russia (q.v.), (7) Karlovita (the metropolitan see of the Hungarian Serviane); (8) Montenegro (q.v.), (9) the archbishop-

Saints, Relics, and Images. Language of Worship (§ 8). Monks and Clergy (5 7). Religious Life (¢ 8). The Greek Canon (§ 9). Missions (§ 10).

ric of Sinai (independent since 1782); (10) Greece (independent of Constantinople since 1852; see GREECE); (11) the metropolitan see of Hermannstadt (for the Rumanians in Hungary); (12) the exarchate of Bulgaria (since 1870; see BULGARIA); (13) the metropolitan see of Czernowitz (for Bukowine and Dalmatia, including the Ruthenians and other Cisleithanians); (14) Servia (since 1879; see SERVIA); (15) Rumania (since 1885; Bee RUMANIA). The Georgian Church has been absorbed by the Russian. The Church of Bosnia and Herzegovina (q.v.), with three independent metropolitans, has a loose relation to the ecumenical patriarch. Constantinople, the city of the first Christian emperor, is still the natural center of the whole Eastern Church and may again become, in Christian hands, for the Eastern world what Gregory Nazianzen described it to be in the fourth century, " the eye of the world, the strongest by sea and land, the bond of union between East and West, to which the moat distant extremes from all aides come together, and to which they look up as to a common center and emporium of the faith."

II. History: The Eastern Church has no continuous history like the Roman Catholic and the Protestant. It has long periods of monotony and stagnation, and is isolated from the main current

of progressive Christendom. Yet this i. Gfeneral Church represents the oldest tradition Charao= in Christendom, and for several cen-

tics.

turies was the chief bearer of our religion. It still occupies the sacred territory of primitive Christianity, and claims moat of the Apostolic sees, as Jerusalem, Antioch, and the churches founded by Paul and John in Asia Minor and Greece. All the Apostles, with the exception of Peter and Paul, labored and died in the East. From the old Greeks the Church inherited the language and certain national traits of character, while it incorporated also much of Jewish and Oriental piety. It produced the first Christian literature, apologies of the Christian faith, refutations of heresies, commentaries on the Bible, sermons, homilies, and ascetic treatises. The great majority of the early Fathers, and at least some of the Apostles, used the Creek language. Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysoatom, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyril of Alexandria, the first Christian emperors beginning with Constantine the Great, together with a host of martyrs and confessors, belong to the Greek communion. It elaborated the ecumenical dogmas of the Trinity and Christology, and ruled the first seven ecumenical councils, which were all held in Constantinople or its immediate neighborhood