It is entitled the orthodox confession of the catholic and apostolic church of Christ.

Like the Roman Catholic, the Greek church recognizes two sources of Christian doctrine, the Bible, and tradition. It holds in great respect the fathers of the Greek church, especially John of Damascus, who flourished A. D. 728, and the first six general councils. It does not allow the patriarchs or synods to introduce new doctrines, and teaches, like the Roman Catholics, that faith in its doctrines is necessary to salvation. It holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only; and has, like the Catholics, seven sacraments: 1, baptism; 2, confirmation; 3, the eucharist; 4, penance; 5, ordination; 6, marriage; 7, extreme unction.

It baptizes by immersing the subject three times, and baptizes infants. Its triune immersions are in honor of the divine trinity.

It holds the doctrine of transubstantiation, the same as the Catholics; but uses leavened bread, and wine mixed with water. It distributes the elements in both kinds, and to children equally with adults.

The ordinary clergy are allowed to marry a virgin, but not a widow; and are not allowed to contract second marriages. Widowed clergy are not permitted to retain livings, but go cloisters.

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The higher clergy are not allowed to marry. Marriages among the laity are not regarded as indissoluble, and divorces are frequent. It rejects the doctrine of purgatory, works of supererogation, indulgences, and dispensations; and recognizes no visible vicar of Christ on earth.

The Eastern Christians practise the invocation of saints, the same as the Catholics. They fast Wednesday and Friday of every week, besides having four great annual fasts: 1, forty days before Easter, in commemoration of the temptation and fast of Christ; 2, from the 1st to the 15th of August, for the virgin Mary; 3, from the 15th to the 26th of November, for the

apostle Philip; 4, the supposed day of the beheading of John. the Baptist.

There is but little preaching in the Greek church. The patriarch of Constantinople holds a holy synod at Constantinople, composed of his three subordinate patriarchs, a number of metropolitans and bishops, and twelve principal secular Greeks. The Greek church has the monastic system, nearly the same as the Roman Catholics.

The Russians formerly received their prelates from the patriarch of Constantinople, and were dependent on that patriarchate; but, in 1589, Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, in a council assembled at Moscow, was obliged to establish Russia as a patriarchate nearly independent. This concession was confirmed, in 1593; in a council at Constantinople; and about 1650 the independence of the Russian patriarch was made complete.

In 1721 the church government in Russia was assumed by Peter the Great, who declared himself its patriarch, and who assumed the administration of its government, with the assistance of a college of bishops and secular clergy, called the holy synod, held first at Moscow, and now at St. Petersburg. Under this synod there are now reported four metropolitans, eleven archbishops, nineteen bishops, twelve thousand and five hundred parish churches, and four hundred and twenty-five convents, fifty-eight of which have monastic schools for the education of the clergy, with a small annual appropriation from the state.

The Greek church in the kingdom of Greece is a branch broken off from that of Turkey, and administered on the same principles. Its utter destitution of moral rectitude has been singularly exhibited in its persecution of Dr. J. King, American missionary at Athens; and is the reproach of Christendom.

CHAPTER II.

THE NESTORIAN OR SYRIAN CHURCH.

THESE are denominated Nestorians from Nestorius, and Syrian Christians from their Syrian origin, and the use of the ancient Syriac language in their religious service.

In 431, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, was condemned and deposed, in a council at Ephesus, for teaching that Christ had two natures, and denying that Mary was 0ɛorxos, mother of God, though he admitted that she was Xgororoxos, mother of Christ. Nestorius was first confined in a monastery near Antioch, and then banished to the deserts of Egypt, where he died.

Many of his adherents were the subjects of persecution and banishment. Some of them went to Persia, and succeeded in building up a powerful national church there, which was subsequently extended to other parts of the East. The other Christians in Persia joined them in 499. In the eleventh century, they converted the Tartar tribe whose Christian ruler is known in history under the title of Prester John. His people long remained attached to Christianity.

The Nestorians are the oldest sect that has survived the ravages of time; and many of its earliest churches were in the lineal succession from the apostles, equally with those of the Greek and Roman communions. In their better days their numbers and wealth were vastly greater than at present; and they carried the Gospel, and planted the standard of the cross, throughout the whole region of Central Asia, to China. They differ from the Jacobites, who are Syrian Monophysites; who are quite numerous in that region, and are derived from the same Syrian stock.

But while the Nestorians hold to the doctrine of two spiritual natures in Christ, the divine and human, the Jacobites hold the Eutychian doctrine of but one, in which the divine and human are blended. In this respect the Jacobites agree with the Armenians. The Nestorians also differ from the Chaldeans, a name given by the Roman Catholics to its converts from the Nestorian community; and who may not improperly be called Papal Nestorians, or Papal Syrians.

The modern Nestorians are principally confined to Koordistan, in Turkey, and Oroomiah, in Persia, embracing the ancient Assyria and part of Media. Its western portions are in Turkey, and its eastern in Persia. The Koords are principally Mohammedans, and many of them in a state of barbarism. The Mountain Nestorians inhabit the wildest and most inaccessible part of the Koordish mountains, and obtain their subsistence by the pasturage of flocks. They are somewhat numerous in the cities and villages; but are mostly employed in the country, in the cultivation of the soil. Their number is estimated at one hundred and forty thousand. They live in patriarchal style, often with three or four generations in a family. The average number in a family is estimated at ten.

Reading and books are not common among the Nestorians, being mostly confined to the clergy. A majority of the priesthood chant their service, in ancient Syriac, without understanding it.

The Nestorians are a national church, organized on the principle that all the children are members of the church and nation by birth, and members of both alike. The church is governed by a patriarch, whose residence is at present in the village of Diz, in one of the most inaccessible parts of the Koordish mountains. This has been his residence since 1590. Previously, he resided at Elkosh, near Mosul; earlier still, at Bagdad, and originally at Seleucia.

The Nestorians have nine orders of clergy, the principal of which are bishops, priests and deacons. They require celibacy

of the bishops and superior orders of the clergy, but allow marriage to priests and the lower orders. They also require abstinence from animal food.

On the western side of the Koordish mountains some converts have been made among the Nestorians to the Papacy, but the principal part of the nation adheres to its ancient traditionary faith and church order. The power to ordain is restricted to the episcopal orders. The office of bishop is generally transmitted in the same family, but is not strictly hereditary, marriage not being allowed. There being no sons to inherit the office, it passes to nephews and other near relations. Bishops are appointed and, consecrated by the patriarch. Their whole number is said to be eighteen, four of whom reside at Oroomiah. In their worship the Nestorians make frequent use of the Nicene creed.

The Nestorians who have submitted to the Pope are called United Nestorians and Chaldean Christians. The government of the Nestorian church is essentially despotic, being in the hands of the priesthood, who hold their offices for life, and are responsible only to their superiors.

The average longevity of the Persians, embracing the Christian population and others, is fifteen or twenty years less than in the United States and England. - Murdock's Mosheim, vol. III., pp.120-126, 354, 487. Residence in Persia, by J. Perkins, pp. 1-24, 408.