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Show Church of England's Oriental Dream. (Correspondent to Standard and Times.) Constantinople, Turkey, Oct. 7. Taken Tak-en in connection with the proposal j ! made at the recent Episcopal conven- tion in San Francisco to change the name from the "Protestant Episcopal , church" to the Catholic Church, the events herein described are invested with extraordinary interest. An attempt is being made by the authorities au-thorities of the Church of England to effect a rapprochement with the orthodox ortho-dox Greek church. Should this attempt at-tempt be crowned with success it would have a weighty influence on international in-ternational politics, and the outcome of the negotiations which have been set on foot will be watched with keen in-, in-, terest by the cabinets of Europe. The proposed entente, moreover, has an important im-portant significance for Catholics from the fact that it is evidently inspired by the desire to defeat the cherished project of Leo XIII to effect a definitive de-finitive union of the Greek and Latin churches. The re-election of the schismatic patriarch pat-riarch Joachim III gave the resident heads of different sects in Constantinople Constantino-ple an opportunity to come in contact with the head of the Greek church. Naturally, the representative of the Catholic Church was barred from taking tak-ing part in these events, but it may be interesting to note that six Assump-tionists Assump-tionists were present at the installation installa-tion ceremony in the patriarchal church. The Armenian Gregorian patriarch pa-triarch came in state to congratulate Joachim III, on which occasion he made two striking addresses. Among the important visitors was the head of the Anglican church, who came, not only to congratulate the patriarch, but also to enter into a new alliance. It is stated that at this conference the Rev. I Dr. Dowling presented the patriarch j w ith two pamphlets in Greek, one an answer from' the Archbishop of Canter-I Canter-I bury to the encyclical of the Holy Father on the ordinations of Anglican priests, and the other the work of the Bishop of Salisbury, John Wordsworth, on the resemblance between the Anglican An-glican and Greek church. NOT THE FIRST ATTEMPT. There were present at this audience the great vicar of the patriarch and j the first secretary of the holy synod, I members of a past commission to study the approximation of the two churches. Joachim III agreed to do all , that had been done by his predecessor, I and he is stated to have said that to j accomplish this it would be necessary i to have a common understanding with i the orthodox church in the Orient. He : also promised to continue the work of . the commission. It was not the first i time that Protestants sought to unite I w ith the Greek Oriental church. The first attempt was made just after the Reformation, in 1573, when several Lutheran theologians tried this with the Patriarch Jerimias II of Constantinople. Constan-tinople. They corresponded uninterruptedly uninter-ruptedly until 1581. It has been learned that a lately arrived Anglican priest has gone so far as to demand that Protestant pastors in Australia administer admin-ister the sacraments to the orthodox in extremis: the synod is at present trying to answer the question. It is believed that bishops in Greece have given their clergy the privilege of ad- ' ministering to and burying those who die without renouncing the Reforma-tion. Reforma-tion. This communication comes from the old Catholic paper, the Revue International In-ternational de Theologie. I In the doctrine of the Anglican I church the theories condemned by the : synod of Jerusalem are still upheld. : Sfte is still at odds with the orthodox church. Some years ago the synod of . St. Petersburg threw out the proposition proposi-tion because there was no possibility of a union between the orthodox church and the Reformers. In order to make a union possible, one or the other of these two churches would have to cast aside a part of its doctrinal views. This does not seem possible, as the difference dif-ference between the orthodox churches and the Reformers is greater than between be-tween the former and the Catholic Church. The Russian theologian, Maltzin, does not hesitate to say that from a doctrinal point of view a union between the Catholic Church and the orthodox would be accomplished with less difficulty than a union of the latter lat-ter with the Reformers. It would be sufficient to cast an eye on a Protest-! Protest-! ant hand book and see how the Anglicans Angli-cans have thrown aside articles of faith which are still upheld by the Roman Catholic and orthodox church. The orthodox believers could never unite with a church that casts aside transubstantiation. the holy sacrifice ! of the Mass and prayers for the dead. I? the Anglican church willing to eliminate elim-inate those theories from its creed? If she refuses, then union fails and gives place to a contention of -words, j These facts throw a flood of light I upon the religious question in the Ori-' Ori-' ent and prove beyond all doubt that Protestantism is making determined i efforts to widen its empire. That the high hopes of the Anglicans are des-tired des-tired to be disappointed, however, seems apparent to all who have studied stud-ied the vital differences of race and creed that yawn between the two peoples. peo-ples. I. C. T. S. |