Monasticism is, as it has always been, an important feature in the Eastern Church. An Orthodox monastery is perhaps the most perfect extant relic of the 4th century. The simple idea that possesses the monks is that of fleeing the world; they have no distinctions of orders, and though they follow the rule of St. Basil object to being called Basilians. A few monasteries (Mt. Sinai and some on Lebanon) follow the rule of St. Anthony. K. Lake in Early Days of Monasticism on Mount Athos (1909) traces the development through three well-defined stages in the 9th and loth centuries—(a) the hermit period, (b) the loose or ganization of hermits in lauras, (c) the stricter rule of the monastery, with definite buildings and fixed rules under an iyob /./EPOS or abbot. (See ABBEY, MONASTICISM, and related articles.) The Branches of the Church.—In addition to the ancient churches which have separated themselves from the Orthodox faith, many have ceased to have an independent existence, owing either to the conquests of Islam or to their absorption by other churches. In the early years of the present century the Orthodox Eastern Church consisted of 12 mutually independent churches (or 13 if we reckon the Bulgarian Church), using their own language in divine service (or some ancient form of it, as in Russia) and varying not a little in points of detail, but standing in full communion with one another, and united as equals in what has been described as one great ecclesiastical federation. How ever, in using such language it must be remembered that we are not dealing with bodies which were originally separated from one another and have now entered into fellowship, but with bodies which have grown naturally from a single origin and have not become estranged. The most ancient of these divisions depend on the jurisdiction of the four patriarchates. (I) The ancient Patri archate of Constantinople included the imperial dioceses of Pontus, Asia, Thrace and Eastern Illyricum—i.e., speaking roughly, the greater part of Asia Minor, European Turkey, and Greece, with a small portion of Austria. The Oecumenical Patriarch, as he has been called since early in the 6th century, is the most exalted ecclesiastic of the Eastern churches, and his influence reaches far outside the lands of the patriarchate. His jurisdiction extends over the dominions of the Sultan in Turkey, together with Asia Minor and the Turkish islands of the Aegean; there are 82 metropolitans under him, and the "monastic republic" of Mount Athos. He has great privileges and responsibilities as the recog nized head of the Greek community in Turkey, and enjoys also many personal honours which have survived from the days of the Eastern emperors. In ecclesiastical affairs the patriarch acts with two governing bodies—(a) a permanent Holy Synod (tIepa/in/obos Tres 'Etcanotas Kcovo-ravrtvovroXec.os) consisting of 12 metro politans, six of whom are re-elected every year from the whole number of metropolitans, arranged in three classes according to a fixed cycle; (b) the Permanent National Mixed Council (Ataptch 'EthnicOp MUCTOP 1v/401:Amy ), a remarkable assembly, which is at once the source of great power by introducing a strong lay element into the administration, and of a certain amount of weakness by its liability to sudden changes of popular feeling. Its members are chosen by an electoral body appointed for the purpose. The election of the patriarch himself is to a consider able extent popular. (2) The Patriarchate of Alexandria, consist ing of Egypt and its dependencies, was at one time the most powerful, as it was the most centralized, of all; but the secession of the greater part of his church to Monophysitism (Comic CHURCH), and the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, have left him but the shadow of his former greatness. (3) The Patriarch ate of Antioch has undergone most changes in extent of jurisdic tion, arising from the transfer of sees to Jerusalem, from the progress of the schismatic churches of the East and from the con quests of the Mohammedans. The patriarch retains little of his old importance. His jurisdiction includes Cilicia, Syria (except Palestine) and Mesopotamia. (4) The Patriarchate of Jerusalem was constituted at the council of Chalcedon in 451, with jurisdic tion over Palestine. The inroads of the Saracens reduced its im portance, which afterwards depended chiefly on the position and associations of Jerusalem.
In addition to the four patriarchates, the Orthodox Eastern Church, until 1914, consisted of nine national branches or divi sions : the ancient Church of Cyprus (see CYPRUS, CHURCH OF) ; the Church of Mount Sinai, consisting of little more than the famous monastery of St. Catherine ; the Eastern Orthodox Church in Austria-Hungary, which consisted of the Serbs of Hungary and Croatia, the Rumanians of Transylvania, the Ruth enians of Bukovina, and the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina ; and the respective national churches of Russia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro.
Russia, with Georgia, is reckoned to have had nearly ioo.000, 000 Slavonic Orthodox. Georgia, an exarchate once independent, was gradually being Russianised ; the exarch was a Russian and an ex officio member of the Russian Holy Synod since 18or, while his suffragan bishops were Georgians. The effects of Tsarism on the Russian Church have been described by a learned observer as not good (Ageyev, The Christian East, 192o). "Under the guise of protecting the Church, the state in reality had enslaved it." The Church was in a state of paralysis, and the Russian educated classes were estranged from it.
The Orthodox Church in Turkey (Greek), under the Ecu menical Patriarch, Archbishop of Constantinople—often erro neously in the West called the Patriarch of Constantinople—is believed to have numbered 2,500,000 in Europe—counting in those transferred to the kingdom of Hellas in 1912—and 2,000,000 in Asia Minor and the islands. In Greece proper, where the autocephalous position of the Church was recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarch in 185o, there were about 2,000,000 ortho dox (ib.).
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire there were several orthodox Churches, chiefly Slavonic, with some 3,000,000 souls : the Karlowitz Serbian Church; those of Dalmatia and Cattaro, joined to the Ruthenian Bukowina, though far distant from it; of Bosnia and Hercegovina; of Transylvania; and a certain num ber of orthodox scattered in various districts. The Bulgarian Church was made autocephalous by the Sultan in 1876, when the Bulgarian exarch resided in Constantinople; but the Ecumenical Patriarch did not recognise its independence. It numbered about 4,000,000.
In Rumania the old Church of Okhrida was suppressed in 1767 and the Orthodox then became subject to the Ecumenical Patri arch till recent times. They numbered about 4,500,000. The same state of things obtained in Serbia (I,5oo,000), where the old Church of Ipek was suppressed in 1766.
The little Church of Montenegro (about 200,000 souls) was made independent in 1766 and governed by a metropolitan who had one suffragan bishop. (Note that in some of the separated Churches of the East the metropolitans have no suffragans.) In addition there were the Orthodox in the patriarchate of Antioch, that of Jerusalem, that of Alexandria, Cyprus, autocephalous since 431, and the monastery of Mount Sinai, autocephalous since 1575, the archbishop of which usually resides in Egypt.
The alterations in the boundaries of the various states have necessarily had a great effect on the Church. But a much greater effect has been produced by the internal convulsions in Russia and Turkey.
Russia has lost Poland and the Baltic provinces; but this has not affected the Orthodox Church to a very great extent, as the bulk of the population was of other faiths. Poland has still 3 mil lion Orthodox; Lithuania has 23,00o Orthodox and 35,00o "Old Believers"; Czechoslovakia has very few Orthodox, most of the population being Roman Catholics or Uniats.
In Russia proper and in Georgia the effect has been most dis astrous. At first the revolution promised well for the Orthodox. A Holy Synod of 12 bishops and a council of bishops, priests and laymen were established in 1917; the office of Chief Procu rator—a layman who had represented the Tsar, and who wielded very great powers—was abolished ; the patriarchate, discontinued by Peter the Great since 1700, was revived (Nov. 1, 1917) in the person of Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, who was enthroned on Dec. 4, 1917. But the Bolshevist regime dashed all the hopes of the Church. The new rulers set themselves to oppose Christianity in all its forms.