p. 8.- The question has been often asked, "What is the religion of the Greeks and whence it originated?"

The religion of the Greeks is "The Greek Orthodox religion" and it originated from Christianity. History tells us that, as the Greeks were closely connected with the Jews, they were the first people to accept Christianity, which explains the well known fact that the apostles used the Greek language and the Bible originally was written in Greek.

The Romans adopted not only the mythology of the Greeks but also the theology of the East. As Christianity forbade any paganism, the Christians avoided religious and social intercourse as well. Thus mistrust and hatred were aroused and cruel persecutions followed. Ten persecutions of the Christians are recorded from the days of Nero to the fourth century. Such was the reception of Christianity in Rome.

It made steady progress, until Constantine, the Emperor of Byzantine Empire, raised it to a state religion. From this time onward the constitution of the Christian church took a new shape. Whereas before the elders and bishops were chosen from the whole church community and the principle of brotherly equality among all Christians was held in honor, now the priesthood (clergy) was separated from the people (laity) and in it were introduced degrees of rank, so that the bishops of the principal cities were placed over the remaining bishops as metropolitans, and these again had the superintendence of the priests in their immediate neighborhood. At the same time the church services, which before consisted only in singing, prayer and reading the Bible, were made more solemn by the aid of music and other arts.

The doctrine (dogma) also of Christianity did not longer remain in its original simplicity and purity, when many learned men made it the subject of their inquiry and meditation. The first point which they investigated was the relation of Christ to God, and the mysterious junction of his divine and human natures.

On this question vehement contentions arouse between the Alexandrian ecclesiastics, Arius and Athanasious, the first of whom maintained that Christ, the Son of God, was inferior to God, the Father, and dependent on Him, while Athanasious laid down the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, through the principle that God, the Son, was of the same substance with God, the Father.

The first general church council (Ecumenical Synod), A.D. 323, which Constantine convened at Nice, declared the opinion of Athanasious to be the true (Orthodox) faith of the church. But the German nations, the Goths, Vandals and Longobards, to whom Christianity had been brought by Arian missionaries, continued in Arianism for another century, and were, therefore, ex-communicated and driven out as heretics from the Catholic (universal) church. Let it be understood now that the name Catholic church was adopted as expressing the followers of Athanasious, in contrast to Arianism, the followers of Arian. The word "Catholic" is purely a Greek word and means "universal". This was the first dissension of Christianity.

It was about that time that Constantine founded the old city of Byzantium as the seat of his empire and called it Constantinople. There were five bishops in the entire Christian dominion--Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome. The four former comprised the Eastern and that of Rome the Western church.

Rivalry between the two churches ran high for a number of centuries and when the Bishop of Rome, Leo III, also called Pope, demanded supremancy over the others, Photius, the Bishop of Constantinople in 867, ruled that the Pope of Rome was not supreme and denounced as heresy the insertion in the Nicene creed of the word "filiusque". He also denounced the prohibition of priestly marriages.

Thus came the "great schism" of the Eastern and Western churches. To Photius we are indebted for this schism, as Greece never would have retained its nationalism during the dark ages had it not been independent of the Western church.

Paul L. Alexander.