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68 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Eastern Church

Concerning the extent of, he canon of the Scriptures, the Eastern Church is not quite consistent, and stands midway between the Ro-

9. The -- and the Protestant view concern- r°°k ing the Jewish Apocrypha. The Sep tuagint is used, which includes the Apocrypha. The Orthodox Confession repeat edly quotes the Apocrypha as authority and the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) mentions several Apocryphal books (The Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit, the History of Bel and the Dragon, the History of Susanna, the Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Sirachj as parts of the Holy Scriptures. On the other hand, Metrophanes enu merates only twenty-two books of the Old Testa ment (according to the division of Joaephus; see CANON OF SCRIPTURE, I, 4, J 3), and eleven books of the New Testament (counting fourteen Epis tles of Paul, the two Epistles of Peter, and the three of John as each one book), and then speaks of the Jewish Apocrypha as not being received by the Church among the canonical and authentic books, and hence not to be used in proof of dogmas. The " Longer Catechism " of Phitaret likewise enumerates only twenty-two books of the Old Testament, but twenty-seven books of the New, and says that " the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach and certain other books " are ignored in the list of the books of the Old Testament, " because they do not exist in the Hebrew." The use of the Apocryphal books is justified because " they have been appointed by the Fathers to be read by proselytes who are pre paring for admission into the Church."

The circulation of the Scriptures among the laity is not encouraged, and certain portions, especially of the Old Testament, are declared to be unfit for general use. But the Greek Church has never prohibited the reading of the Bible in the vulgar tongue; and the Orthodox Church of Russia has always had a popular version of the Bible, first in the old Slavic, and now in modern Russian. The printing and circulating of the Bible in the Russian language and within the Orthodox Greek Church is under the exclusive control of the Holy Synod of St. Petersburg. See BIBLE VExsIOxs, XVI.

The Eastern Church has spread, through Russian influence, in Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, and wherever the civil and military power

10. leis- of the Czar has prepared the way; stone, but, apart from the aid of govern ment, it has little or no missionary spirit, and is content to keep its own. Its greatest mission-work was the conversion of Russia; and this was effected, not so much by preaching as by the marriage of a Byzantine princess and the des potic order of the ruler Vladimir (see Russre). In the midst of the Mohammedan East the Greek populations remain like islands in the barren sea; and the Bedouin tribes have wandered for twelve centuries round the Greek convent of Mount Sinai, probably without one instance of conver sion to the creed of men whom they yet acknowl edge with almost religious veneration as beings from a higher world.

(PHILIP ScsnrAht) D. S. $osArp.

IV. The Eastern Church is America: The

Greek Orthodox Church in present United States territory dates from 1794, when nine Russian missionaries arrived at. St. Paul on Kadiak Island, Alaska, led by Archimandrite Joasaph Bogoloff. There the first Russian church and school in America were erected. In 1798 an episcopal see was founded and Joasaph was consecrated at Irkutsk in Siberia to be the first bishop of Kadiak, Kamchatka, and America. In 1840 four churches and eight chapels in Russian America were consolidated into an independent diocese and Ivan Veniaminof, who had labored in Alaska as missionary and priest with self-sacrificing zees sad marked success since 1823, was made bishop with the name of Innocent. He provided an Aleutian alphabet and grammar, translated the Gospels, a catechism, and -other religious literature into the Aleutian tongue and the language of the Koloshes, living in the vicinity of Sitka, built the cathedral in Sitka, and established a seminary there, where many of the priests and readers now officiating is Alaska have received their education. His influence with the natives was great. In 1855 he removed to Siberia and became archbishop of Kamchatka in 1858. He was made metropolitan of Moscow after the death of Philaret (1867), and died, greatly revered throughout Russia, in 1879. Yakof Netzvetof, a halfbreed priest, translated Veniatninof's version of the Gospels and catechism into the Atkha language. After the cession of Russian America to the United States, the bishop of Alaska undertook the oversight of all Slav Orthodox communities in the country, and in 1872 under Bishop John, the episcopal residence was transferred from Sitka to San Francisco. After the death of Bishop Nestor, who was drowned while traveling in performance of his episcopal duties in 1882, the mission of the Russian Church was governed by the ecclesiastical Consistory of San Francisco until 1888, when Bishop Vladimir arrived from Russia. His successors have been Nicholas (189198), Tikhon (1898-1907), and the present Archbishop Platon.

The increase of Greek Orthodox communities in the United States has been particularly great since 1888 owing to the immigration of Austrian Slavonisne. There are at present 152 churches and chapels in the United Staten, Alaska, and Canada under the jurisdiction of the Synod of Russia, with one archbishop (since 1905) residing in New York, two bishops--one for Alaska residing at Sitka, the other (since 1904) for Orthodox Syrians residing in Brooklyn,-and an administrator for the Servians. There are seventy-five priests, a seminary at Minneapolis, and 46,000 registered parishioners. An official organ is published in New York in Russian and English. A religious paper formerly published in Chicago in Servian has been discontinued. The Russian cathedral in New York City was dedicated in 1902. In 1906 Archbishop Tikhon introduced Sunday evening services in English in 'thie church. Bishop Innocent of Alaska also favors the substitution of English for the Slavonic service for the Orthodox natives of his jurisdiction.

Orthodox congregations in the United States for those of Syrian nationality date from 1895, when the Russian Bishop Nicholas brought with