GREEK CHURCH. 



sided with the ex-Patriarch Kyrillos, and have, by 

 our telegram of November 27th (N. S. December 

 9th\ protested against the resolution of the Synod 



341 



i they recognize the receipt 



*jf the general convention of 



s Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 

 States : 



The Russian Government, which had con- 



Kyrillos, gave another proof of its sympathy 

 by laying an embargo upon all the property 

 of the patriarchate of Jerusalem which is sit- 

 uated within the territory of Russia. This 

 property embraced about thirty estates, situ- 

 ated in the best districts of Bessarabia, and 

 yielding an annual rent of 200,000 rubles. At 

 the same tiinj the Russian ambassador at Con- 

 stantinople must have interceded in behalf of 

 the deposed Kyrillos with great energy, for 

 tho Turkish Government not only set him free 

 after u few weeks, but also asked his pardon 

 for the injury done him. 



The new Patriarch of Jerusalem was in 

 January enthroned amid great festivities. The 

 frequent disturbances which occurred in mixed 

 districts inhabited by both Greeks and Bul- 

 garians, induced the Turkish Government to 

 threaten, in February, 1873, with heavy pun- 

 ishments all who might disturb the public 

 peace. The Bulgarians, who, it appears, have 

 the sympathy of the Slavic churches of Russia, 

 Austria, Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro, 

 complained of the partiality of the new Min- 

 ister of Justice, Midhat Pasha, in favor of the 

 Greeks. 



On June 25th the Patriarch of Constanti- 

 nople refused to join the other dignitaries of 

 the country in congratulating the Sultan upon 

 the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession 

 to the throne, because the Turkish Government 

 declined to exclude, in accordance with his 

 request, the Bulgarian exarch from the official 

 reception. The Turkish Government expressed 

 to thy patriarch its decided disapproval of his 

 conduct. In September, the Synod of Con- 

 inople expressed to tho patriarch their 

 want of confidence in him, whereupon he re- 



1 his office. 



In December, a new Patriarch of Constan- 

 tinople was elected in place of the deposed 

 Anthimos. The Turkish Government did not 

 exercise its ri^ht of striking out one or sev- 

 eral names of tho ten candidates whom the 

 electoral synod had chosen, the Grand- Vizier, 

 Raschid Pasha, declaring that all of them were 

 acceptable to the Government. The synod, 

 which consists of priests as well as delegates 

 of the laity, then elected the former patriarch, 

 Joachim II, as Patriarch of Constantinople. 



The interest throughout the Greek Church 

 in favor of establishing closer relations with 

 the Episcopal Church of the West is on tho 

 increase. Like the Patriarch of Constantino- 

 ple, the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch 

 have fully expressed their views in the follow- 



Lord, Charles R. Hale, Grace to your Reverence 

 an ? ace from God - 



ct sent by your esteemed Reverence, in which were 

 inclosed your own letter to us, written on parch- 

 ment, with the resolutions of the great synod of the 

 Church in the United States of America, assembled 

 tho 12th-24th of 9ctober, 1871, in the city of Balti- 

 more, and the privately printed report of the pro- 

 ceedings of the same synod, written in the English 

 tongue. Translating this into our Greek language, 

 and studying altogether with close attention and 

 fuTf w woro tmiir '"lighted, and celebrated with 



. 



the English Church, your particular church also in 

 the United States or America shows for the unity of 

 a " th ? , hol . v churches of God, which, by God's in- 

 " oru ' abl decrees, are now dissevered one from 

 another, and more especially for unity with the holy 

 Orthodox Church. For indeed we are justly persuaded 

 tha t ""<* manifestations of fraternal sympathy, 

 ? nd of tendencies toward fellowship, increasing and 

 '" m <; rcifull y mad t ? * work effectively, surely 



ceives or escapes the observation of no one, that un- 

 : the Lord vouchsafe the fuiailment of the great 

 work of unity t many inconveniences and stumbling- 

 blocks will exist among us, and many misconcep- 

 tions on either side, and misrepresentations will 

 arise, as also your venerable committee sets forth in 

 its report sent us, but mutual patience and forbear- 

 ance, enkindled and inflamed by Christian love, and 

 by the inestimable importance of the great and God- 

 pleasing object at which we aim, can remove all 

 such. We consider, then, as efficient toward tho 

 longed-for unity and foreboding auspicious things, 

 such manifestations of brotherly sentiments in Christ, 

 and of tendencies to fellowship toward the strength- 

 ening and nourishing of the existing good relations 

 between the Orthodox Church and your own, and 

 also investigations and discussion in brotherly love, 

 such as, on the happy occasion of the consecration of 

 the Orthodox Church in Liverpool, the conference 

 and discussion between the reverend Archbishop of 

 Syra and Tenos, our beloved brother in Christ. 

 Alexander Lycurgus, and the Bishop of Ely, ana 

 those with him. But toward a firmer and surer at- 

 taining of what is desired, there seems to us, speak- 

 ing for ourselves, needful the organization of a com- 

 mittee to this end from either part, of skilled and 

 well-instructed theologians, for the examination and 

 accurate inquiry into existing differences in the basis 

 of the Catholic Orthodox Church before the great 

 schism, for thus the mutual relations of sympathy 

 are bound together more. closely by a nearer mutual 

 fellowship and acquaintance between the two 

 Churches, and we come with greater spirit and more 

 respect to those things which concern Catholic unity. 

 For the speedy organization of such a committee, in 

 the part also of the Orthodox Church of the East, we 

 both pray and hope. 



On this happy occasion, it seems to us superfluous 

 to tell your most beloved Reverence, and throuarh 

 you the whole Church of the United States of Amer- 

 ica, of the great longing with which we have ever 

 been inflamed to see one day completed the great 

 work of unity, and on account of this, from the time 

 that, by the Divine mercy, wo received three years 

 since the spiritual presidency of the most holy Church 



