Eastern church

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That portion of the Christian church which prevails in thecountries once comprised in the Eastern Roman Empire and thecountries converted to Christianity by missionaries from them. Itsfull official title is The Orthodox Catholic Apostolic EasternChurch. It became estranged from the Western, or Roman, Church overthe question of papal supremacy and the doctrine of the filioque, anda separation, begun in the latter part of the 9th century, becamefinal in 1054. The Eastern Church consists of twelve (thirteen if theBulgarian Church be included) mutually independent churches(including among these the Hellenic Church, or Church of Greece, andthe Russian Church), using the vernacular (or some ancient form ofit) in divine service and varying in many points of detail, butstanding in full communion with each other and united as equals in agreat federation. The highest five authorities are the patriarch ofConstantinople, or ecumenical patriarch (whose position is not one ofsupremacy, but of precedence), the patriarch of Alexandria, thepatriarch of Jerusalem, the patriarch of Antioch, and the Holy Synodof Russia. The Eastern Church accepts the first seven ecumenicalcouncils (and is hence styled only schismatic, not heretical, by theRoman Catholic Church), has as its creed the Niceno-Constantinopolitan (without the later addition of the filioque,which, with the doctrine it represents, the church decisivelyrejects), baptizes infants with trine immersion, makes confirmationfollow immediately upon baptism, administers the Communion in bothkinds (using leavened bread) and to infants as well as adults,permits its secular clergy to marry before ordination and to keeptheir wives afterward, but not to marry a second time, selects itsbishops from the monastic clergy only, recognizes the offices ofbishop, priest, and deacon as the three necessary degrees of orders,venerates relics and icons, and has an elaborate ritual.