EASTERN CHURCHES. 



273 



Synod of Greece heartily approve of this inter- 

 communion movement : 



Anthimus, ly the Grace of God Archbishop of Con- 

 stantinople, New Borne, and (Ecumenical Patri- 

 arch : 



J, To the .Reverend Charles B. Hale, Rector of St. 

 * John's Church, Auburn, New York, Secretary of 

 the Committee, etc., Greeting in the Lord : 



"We received with pleasure your letter, with the 

 resolution of the General Convention of the Church 

 in the United States of America, and for the pious 

 sentiments expressed through you toward our most 

 Holy (Ecumenical Throne rendering you no ordinary 

 thanks, we offer praise to God, the Author of peace, 

 that of His boundless love and goodness He hath 

 deigned to smooth for us the way toward a nearer 

 approach of our two Churches, a matter which first 

 began to be agitated three years since, during the 

 patriarchate of our revered predecessor, Gregory 

 VI., who so well arranged for the administration of 

 holy rites at the burial of the dead of your commun- 

 ion, and lately made more plain, through the mani- 

 festations of brotherly kindness toward the Most 

 Reverend the Archbishop of Syra, in his recent visit 

 to England. 



Now, when the base designs of evil-minded men 

 surrounding the Church of God do not cease, on ev- 

 ery side, to hurl against her the poisonous darts of 

 unbelief, it seems to us that the present is the fitting 

 time to quench, by mutual concession, the feelings 

 of division of the Churches, one from the other, 

 which have till now held sway for reasons known 

 only to the Lord on account of dogmatic difference ; 

 and that we should hold out friendly hands, in order 

 to join together, by the help of the Almighty, what 

 have been separated, and to fulfil the words of our 

 Saviour which Her spake, calling upon His heavenly 

 Father just before His willing death, "That all may 

 be one." St. John, xvii. 21. 



Announce, then, these things, and bring them be- 

 fore the right reverend bishops, and the others, 

 clergy and laity, composing the Synod of the Angli- 

 can^Church in'America, and be an interpreter of our 

 desires for mutual conference through writing, and 

 that we shall not cease, so far as in us lies, to 

 strengthen and draw closer, by a nearer fellowship, 

 the holy bond of love, for we are persuaded that 

 thus, and by evangelical love toward each other, we 

 shall come, 'by the gift of God, to the God-wrought 

 miracle of the unity of the Churches. 



Since toward the original and archetype of our 

 Orthodox Eastern Church your Church has shown a 

 reverence beyond all other, we also, heartily loving 

 it, give to its reverend members, as also to you, be- 

 loved, our prayers, and bless you with both our 

 hands, invoking the best and saving blessings from 

 God, the Giver of all good, whose grace and bound- 

 less mercy be with you. 



September 9-21, 1872. 



*T* [The Patriarch] of Constantinople, your fer- 

 vent well-wisher in Christ. 



ATHENS, September 20, 1S72. 

 _ Reverend^ Charles [R.] Hale: 

 *T We received with pleasure yours of the 24th of 

 October, of the year past, in which we read with joy 

 the resolutions of the most reverend of the American 

 Church concerning their hearty desire for fellowship, 

 in a spirit of Christian love, with the Eastern Ortho- 

 dox Church of Christ. 



< This desire and the prayer of the Episcopal Church 

 in America have been harbingers of unspeakable 

 joy to my aged soul, in these last days at least of 

 my life, beholding from afar the rising hope of a 

 coming, prayed for, brotherly drawing near and re- 

 union of the Churches of Christ, to the glory of the 

 Lord whom the Gospel declares to us, our'Saviour 

 Christ, the unity of His holy Church. 

 The heart of every true Christian is rent at the 



VOL. XII. 18 A. 



distressing sight of the present religious separation 

 and dissension, and, sometimes, even the enmity of 

 Christians, in the world of ideas and of the spirit in 

 which all ought to make up again one loving flock, 

 tended invisibly by the one Good Shepherd. 



It is high time, then, that we all agree together in 

 this, that it is altogether an unchristid'h and an un- 

 worthy thing that Christians should, in the name of 

 Christ Himself, slander, hate, and persecute one an- 

 other. It is time that, leaving to the world, and to 

 its rulers, hates ? passions, and manifold divisions 

 and differences, in the supernatural dominion of the 

 kingdom of Christ, we should be inspired by His 

 Holy Spirit alone, all of us perfecting in variety a 

 spiritual unity. Fortunately, o one can charge the 

 Eastern Church with being a deserter ar.d a rene- 

 gade from these cardinal principles of Catholic Chris- 

 tianity. By almost all falsely accused, at times per- 

 secuted, and often treated with utter unfairness, to 

 no one has she in an anti-Christian, brother-hating 

 spirit returned the like, but from the first she con- 

 tinues holding up supplicating hands to God in be- 

 half of those who persecute and oppress her. 



Sorrowful so often as, for the safety of the divine 

 principles of the Saviour, she is compelled to take in 

 her hands the scourge to drive out of the temple 

 those making "the house of God an house of mer- 

 chandise," with gladness she offers most heartily 

 her right hand to all desiring her spiritual fellow- 

 ship. 



Never seeking any worldly advantages, pursuing 

 no devious or hidden political or national aim, lean- 

 ing upon no earthly support, but being the pure, 

 spiritual fellowship of the faithful wherever they 

 may be, the Eastern Orthodox Church is' neither 

 Greek, nor Russian, nor Grseco-Russ, nor Russo- 

 Greek, as in your letter it is characterized, as I 

 would it had not been, but one holy Catholic and 

 Apostolic Church, binding together, and at the same 

 time, raising up, all nations and all peoples into a 

 spiritual unity above all distinctions of race. In 

 this, reverend sir, consists the unity of the Eastern 

 Church, manifold in its members, it is one in its co- 

 hesive force and life-giving spirit. 



Unity, then, and union with the Orthodox Church 

 is not a fusion or a taking away of the natural and 

 ethical diversity inwrought by God, it is not a slav- 

 ish subjection of some to others ; it is not a despotic 

 raising up or a tyrannical levelling of national pecu- 

 liarities and differences, but a certain brotherly, har- 

 monious binding together of spirit, manifested 

 through a common creed, voluntarily accepted, of 

 the fundamentals of the faith, which the Divine 

 Scriptures, the Apostolic tradition, and the OZcu- 

 memcal Councils of the undivided Church, have de- 

 fined for us. 



Those who, in all places, are thus bound one to 

 another, realize the "one, holy. Catholic and Apos- 

 tolic " Orthodox Church. But that Church, proceed- 

 ing on the universal and eternal principles of Chris- 

 tian love, does not, by any means, being askedj deny 

 even to those not thus realizing her Catholic integ- 

 rity, her fraternal anxiety for Christian love, and 

 the Christian performance of those fraternal offices 

 to which our human nature gives a claim. In the 

 Orthodox Church, to every one that asketh shall be 

 given ; to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. 



Acquainting you, reverend sir, and the Right 

 Reverend Bishops of the Church in America, of 

 these things, in all love, and with the best hopes, I 

 pray the All-wise and All-good God to pour ^out 

 upon you, and upon the whole nation of the United 

 States, His blessings, giving to you all brotherly 

 greeting in the Lord, I remain, in the Lord, your 

 fervent well-wisher, 



J, THEOPHILUS, of Athens, 



President of the Holy Synod. 



A work published by Prince Gagarin, a 

 member of the Order of Jesuits, on "The Rus- 



