38 CHURCH UNITY 



tercommunion. The Greek Church has 

 never repealed the decrees of Constanti- 

 nople against the Reformers. To some 

 critics the occasional Anglican advances 

 toward the Greek Church look like mere 

 ecclesiastical coquetry or an adroit flank 

 movement against the Roman Church, 

 rather than direct attempts at true unity. 

 The thirteen Patriarchs in their recent 

 Encyclical have also repelled the papal 

 advances. The Old Catholic movement 

 was an external, not an internal, reforma- 

 tion of the Church of Rome, and was a 

 mere ripple compared with the Eastern 

 schism or the Protestant revolt. The 

 Roman Catholic Church still stands, sepa- 

 rated by the chasm of a thousand years 

 from the Eastern Church, and by four 

 centuries from all the Reformed churches, 

 meanwhile having gained more in num- 

 bers than it had lost ; and so far from 

 relaxing the excommunicating decrees of 

 Trent, has reinforced them with new dog- 

 mas, binding together its whole commun- 

 ion as with tenfold bands of steel. At 

 the present moment it is demonstrating 

 its prestige through a plenipotentiary 

 delegate in the midst of our churches. 



