46. Chapter 42: The Eastern and the Roman Church since the Reformation, 1648 to the Present
CHAPTER 42 The Eastern and the Roman Church since the Reformation, 1648 to the Present
The History of the Eastern Church Flows On without Interruption
The Eastern Church Resists Mohammedan. ism and Atheism
The Roman Church Declares the Infallibility of the Pope
1. The History of the Eastern Church Flows On without Interruption The Church had its origin in the East, and the eastern Greek Orthodox branch is its oldest part. It has had a continuous and unbroken existence down to the present time. Yet to other Christians the Greek Orthodox Church is almost nonexistent. It is, however, a very important part of the Church universal, for it represents Christianity to some two hundred million people. These Greek Orthodox Christians are to be found mostly in Turkey, Syria, Greece, the Balkan countries, and Russia. The eastern Greek Orthodox Church knows nothing of such a tremendous upheaval as the western Latin Church experienced in the Reformation. The current of its life has flowed on without interruption from the beginning to the present time. Its theology is that of the ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, and Ephesus (ch. 3 and 6) .
2. The Eastern Church Resists Mohammedanism and Atheism For centuries the Greek Orthodox Church has held the eastern frontiers against Arab and Turkish Mohammedanism. It has been a mighty dam which has prevented the waters of Mohammedanism from flooding western Europe. Millions of Greek Orthodox Christians have lived for centuries under Mohammedan rule. Thousands upon thousands of these Christians have sealed their Christian faith with their blood. No other branch of the Church universal has given so many martyrs. For centuries the Greek Orthodox Christians have lived in direct personal contact with people of a non-Christian religion. As a result their belief in the Trinity has come to be more to them than a mere creed. It has entered into their very bone and marrow and become a part of them. They are willing to suffer and die for it.
Christianity in its Greek Orthodox form was introduced into Russia by missionaries from Constantinople. From that time on it was the State religion of Russia until the Revolution of 1917, when religion was declared to be an opium and a hindrance to progress. The churches were closed, and the government promoted the teaching of atheism (denial of God) throughout the land. During the course of World War II Stalin declared religious toleration. What this amounts to remains to be seen. And only time will tell what the steady advance of Russian power across Asia and ever deeper into Europe is going to mean for the Christian Church.
3. The Roman Church Declares the Infallibility of the Pope
Since the Council of Trent (ch. 31, sec. 6) the Roman Church has steadily pursued its course. There have been scattered conversions of Protestants to Catholicism and of Catholics to Protestantism. In the latter part of the nineteenth century there was a "Free-from-Rome Movement" of considerable proportions, especially in Austria, but that movement has subsided. In Italy, Spain, and France thousands have left the Catholic Church, but they have not become Protestants. They have broken with the Church and religion in every form. They are the bitter enemies of all religion. A great many of them are communists. Modernism has also made inroads into the Roman Church. In the seventeenth century Cornelis Jansen, bishop of Ypres in the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium), was the leader of a dissenting movement. His views attracted followers among the more serious Catholics in France. The nunnery of Port Royal near Paris became the center of this movement. The Jansenists were strongly opposed by the Jesuits. Under the influence of the Jesuits, Louis XIV persecuted the Jansenists. In 1710 the buildings of Port Royal were torn down. In the eighteenth century the Jansenist movement resulted in the establishment in the Netherlands of a small Jansenist Catholic Church. It exists today. But the Jansenist movement caused only a passing wave on the waters of Catholicism. In 1773 Pope Clement XIV abolished the Order of Jesuits. The order was restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814. From that time down to the present the Jesuits have been the power behind the papal throne.
Under the influence of the Jesuits, the Vatican Council of 1870 declared the infallibility of the pope. That is, it declared that the pope, in all his official statements and decisions regarding the Church, is free from error. Thereby the claims so insistently made in the fifteenth century, that general councils are supreme over the popes, were denied once and for all. The most recent doctrinal development in the Roman Catholic Church took place in November, 1950, when Pope Pius XII, speaking ex cathedra, proclaimed the Assumption of Mary to be a Roman Catholic doctrine. This is to say that she body and soul was taken up to heaven.
Although the Roman Catholic Church did not accept the Reformation, it nevertheless felt its influence. The Catholic Church after the Reformation, though it retained its essential Roman Catholic character, became in many ways a much better church than it had been before. And the life of both clergy and members of the Roman Church today is on a higher level in strongly Protestant countries than in countries that are entirely or mainly Catholic.