Volume 2 — Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus. ANGLICANISM AND THE GREEK SCHISM.

In a previous number we made our readers acquainted with a certain project of union between the Anglican and the Russo-Greek Churches. [Footnote 65] The Russian as well as the English journals have since spoken much of this project, and seemed to think that it was on the eve of ending. There is one difference, however, to be observed in the language held by the organs of the two countries. The Russian journals gave us to understand that the Anglicans would renounce the Protestant doctrines which form a prominent portion of their belief, to adopt purely and simply the orthodox faith such as it is expressed in the symbolical books of the Eastern Church. The Anglicans did not place themselves in the same point of view. They would not change belief; they admitted that both sides should remain as they now are, but that there would be intercommunion between the two Churches; that is to say, that the Anglicans should be allowed to participate in the sacraments of the Greek Church, and reciprocally.

A certain Mr. Denton, rector of one of the largest Anglican parishes in London, was especially animated by these thoughts. He went to Servia and asked Mgr. Michael, metropolitan of Belgrave, to admit him to communion in his quality of priest of the Church of England. Mgr. Michael refused; but Mr. Denton, nowise discouraged, betook himself to travelling all over Servia, and at last found an archimandrite who appeared to be more accommodating than the metropolitan. After having communicated in this way in the Servian Church, the Rev. Mr. Denton returns to England triumphantly announcing that the intercommunion was an accomplished fact. Great rejoicings there were, to be sure, in the little coterie. There could be no doubt, whatever, that all was happily arranged.

But behold, Mgr. Michael, informed of what had taken place, removed the archimandrite and struck him with ecclesiastical censures. The joy that had prevailed in Mr. Denton's camp was changed to mourning. On the other hand, the Anglicans who form no part of the coterie, enjoy exceedingly the reverend gentleman's discomfiture.

As for us, we are well pleased to see that Mgr. Michael does not seem disposed to follow the footsteps of Cyril Lucar.

But another check was reserved for the famous project. The archpriest Joseph Wassilief, chaplain to the Russian embassy in Paris, after having shown himself rather favorable to the contemplated union, has just laid down, with as much wisdom as firmness, the conditions of the proposed treaty. "However much explanations may be avoided, they will forcibly recur, sooner or later," he justly observes in the Christian Union, 24th September, 1865. And, resting on this principle, he passes in review the three questions of the procession of the Holy Ghost, the invocation of saints, and prayer for the dead; he then shows that it is not possible to establish intercommunion between the two Churches until they have come to an agreement on all these points; Among other things, he shows that the Church has always, been careful {430} to preserve the entire deposit of doctrine, and that she has not permitted herself to establish a difference between what is fundamental and what is secondary. He concludes with these wise words: "Charitable in our explanations, we are bound to be very candid one with the other. If rigorous discussions on all points of divergence appear to retard the final agreement, they secure its solidity and duration; whilst reservations, though accelerating the agreement, would leave therein a germ of weakness and instability."

We attach the more importance to this declaration because the authority of the archpriest Joseph Wassilief is enhanced by the consideration shown him by the synod. Latterly there was a vacancy in the ranks of that assembly, which forms the supreme council of the Russian Church. There was question of replacing the chaplain-general of the armies by land and sea. Three names were proposed to the sovereign's choice: that of M. Wassilief was one of the three. He has not been appointed; but, in proposing him, the synod sufficiently testified that it would have wished to see him seated in its midst, raised to the highest dignity to which, in Russia, a member of the secular clergy can pretend.

After the energetic act of the metropolitan of Belgrade and the words of the archpriest Wassilief, it remains for us to quote the Levant Herald an English and Protestant journal published at Constantinople. In its number of the 20th September, 1865, that paper endeavors to make the Anglican clergy understand that they flatter themselves with a delusive hope if they believe in the possibility of a union, or even of an alliance, between the two communions.

It results from all we have just said that if the Anglo-Americans have entertained the project of Protestantizing the Greek Church, they must perceive that the enterprise is more arduous than they had supposed. The Russians, on their side, must see that it is not so easy to make the Anglican Church enter into the bosom of theirs. As to establishing the intercommunion between the two churches without having come to an agreement on questions of faith, it is a dream which the archpriest Wassilief must have dispelled once and for ever.