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17. Uniate Churches.-1. In General: Rome has been successful in winning away from all the churches of the orient greater or (more generally) smaller fragments and subjecting them to obedience

to itself. In corporate form, though 1. Bases of in individual cases under circumstances

Union. which it is not profitable to follow out in detail, native churches in Europe, Asia, and Africa have submitted to affiliation with Rome, and so in the peculiar sense which that church attaches to the word " Catholic " have gained the right to apply the term to themselves. Officially these churches are spoken of as having their own " rite." As opposed to the " Latin " rite the rites of the Uniates are said to be four in number, the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, and Coptic. But there are within these divisions, apart from the Armenian, subdivisions which are made partly upon national grounds and partly upon the bases of customs of cultus or of speech. The term " rite " is according to Latin usage broader than in common acceptation. Commonly the word denotes the form of cultus, the usages of the church in its celebrations, while the Latin sense includes every kind of ecclesiastical custom and also descent or derivation. Everywhere it may be said that a rite is " introduced," so that a " rite " may spring up anywhere; but ecclesiastically a rite must represent a tradition. The expression is akin to that conveyed. by " discipline," and so may include the idea of organization, but must exclude that of theory. The Roman Church distinguishes between ordinances of divine right and those of human right. What is not of divine right is freer in its nature, over it the Church exercises jurisdiction. To the sphere of divine right belong dogma and the sacrament. Hence every dogmatic teaching, everything that belongs to the " essentials," must be taken into recognition where the " Catholic " church is. " Rite " includes the external usages, customs, ordinances, and institutions which are in the sphere of " human right " and are consequently not necessarily uniform throughout the Church. Even in the sacrament what is not of its essence is " rite." Hence Rome suffers as a condition of affiliation, where insistence upon the Latin rite would raise serious opposition, the waiving of externals, provided that submission is made to its dogma and " all " the sacraments are admitted. Since 1870 one of the requirements is acceptance of papal infallibility. In the orient dogma lives in the celebration; what is not liturgically expressed is dogmatically irrelevant; conversely, there is seen in the permission of individual mysterious usages a cheapening of the customary special teachings. The oriental churches are generally ready to grant that other churches may have a charism. Their demands in the matter of propaganda and union are small. Having due regard to the protection of their forms of cultus, they are easily able to make approach to other churches and therefrom receive leadership. Forms of jurisdiction vary among oriental Christians. The same councils which established " divine ecclesiastical law " are recognized as ecumenical in the East as in Rome. These churches even concede a kind of primacy to the Roman bishop, according to

their own definition of it. Hence a sort of superiority may be conceded by the Orientals to the Latin Church, which the latter may wield in a way not to displease. Again, the latter may waive the Latin rite in virtue of its own reception as ruler and of the pope as the highest " regent." Until 1870 illusions might be cherished respecting the character of the Roman primacy. Since then no union has been effected, nor is any likely to occur.

A certain measure of theological, though not of juristic, importance attaches still to the confession of faith submitted, in accordance with the proposal of Clement VI. in 1267, to Gregory X (q.v.) at the

1887.1698. zlnger, Enehiridion symbolorum et definitionum . . . , no. LIX., WiArzburg, 1900). It agreed to the filioque, the Roman doctrine of the sacraments and purgatory, and, above all, in blunt form, to the papal primacy. Over against this document is to be noted the reservation of the Detretum unionis of Florence in 1439, proclaimed in the bull Latentur ccgli of Eugenius IV. In this latter there appears as assured to the Roman Church only the recognition of the " right " of its dogmatic position, particularly so far as liturgical forms were concerned; the filioque was recognized as lawfully and rationally added to the creed, but the Greeks were not obligated to embody it; transubstantiation was practically admitted, though not in explicit terms, and the controversy over leavened or unleavened bread was regarded as dealing with non-essentials, each church, being permitted to follow its own custom. The matter of purgatory and of the value of masses for the dead was " defined," as was the papal power of ruling and governing the whole Church universal (Denzinger, ut sup., no. LXXIII.; A. Hefele, Conciliengeschichle, vii. 724; see also FERRARA-FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF). With the bull Latentur calf as the basis of the expected union of the whole Greek Church, or at least of certain fragments of it, Eugenius could issue two further decrees of union, the Exultate Deo of 1439 having reference to the Armenians, and the Cantate Domino concerning the Jacobites (Denzinger, ut sup., LXXIII., B and C). The result of these last was only partial success, as in the case of the Greeks. A brief of Leo X. (q.v.) issued in 1521 confirmed to the Greeks not only their cultic forms and usages, but also their hierarchy. The bull Magnus Dominus of 1595 of Clement VIII. simply renewed the formula of FerraraFlorence and laid the basis for the Ruthenian union, and the bull Decet Romanos pontifiees of 1596 followed, having relation to the hierarchy of the new church.

The relation of Benedict XIV. to union is of especial importance; through the bull Etsi pastoralis of 1742 he regulated the connection of · the so-called Italo-Greeks in Italy, and through the

Union the patriarchs and bishops of the after 1588. Melchites (q.v.). By the bull Inter plures of 1744 he extended the conditions of the preceding bull to the Ruthenians, a process carried