GREEK: that portion at Christians who conform, in their creert, usages, and church government, to the views of Christianity introduced into the former Greek empire, and perfected, sinee the fifth century, under the patriarchs or Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Like the Roman Catholic, this church recognizes two sources of &la trine, the bible and tradition, under whim last it comprehends not only those arc trines which were orally delivered by tan apostles, but also those which have been approved of by the fathers of the Greek church. It is the only church which holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only, thus differing from the Catholic and Protestant churches, which agree in deriving the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Like the Cath olic church, it has seven sacraments—bap tism, chrism, the eucharist preceded by confession, penance, ordination, marriage, and supreme unction ; but it is peculiar in holding that full purification from original sin in baptism requires an Im mersion three times of the whole body In water, whether infants or adults are to be baptized, and in joining chrism (con firmation) with it as the completion of baptism. It rejects the doctrine of pur
gatory, has nothing to do with predesti nation, works of supererogation, indul gences, and dispensations; and it recog• lazes neither the pope nor any one else as the visible vicar of Christ on earth. In the invocation of the saints, in their fasts, relics, they arc as zealous as the Romanists; it may be said, indeed, that the services of the Greek church 2onsist almost entirely of outward forms. This is the religion of Russia ; the eccle siastical establishment of which consists in a holy synod, four metropolitans, eleven archbishops, nineteen bishops, 12,500 parish churches, and 425 convents, fifty-eight of which are connected with monastic schools for the education of the clergy. The Greek church, under the Turkish dominion, remained, as fur as was possible under such circumstances, faithful to the original constitution. The patriarch of Constantinople exercises the highest ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Greeks in the whole Turkish empire ; but they labor under many disabilities, among which is a heavy poll-tax, under the name of "exemption from behead ing."