OVERBECK AND HIS ATTITUDE TO ROME.

OVERBECK saw no possibility at all of unity with the Roman Church with its heretical dogmas of Papal supremacy and infallibility. The only way to reunion of East and West was by circumventing the Vatican through the founding of a Western Uniate Church in communion with the Eastern Church.

The Roman Catholics are schismatics, cut off from the living and mystical body of the Orthodox Catholic Church. They stand without the communion of Saints. Their sacraments, though valid, are illegitimately and illicitly administered, so that both the minister and the receiver are sinning by administering or receiving a sacrament. The offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice by schismatic hand is a grievous crime, like the crucifixion of Christ by the Jews. The Pope, his bishops, priests, and deacons, have no rights, no jurisdiction whatsoever. (14)

Large numbers of the Roman Catholics, however, were blameless because of their personal ignorance of the facts of schism and heresy. And there were many Roman Catholics who desired to be real Catholics so that it was a "holy duty incumbent on the Orthodox Church to gather the true Western Orthodox Catholic Church from among the Romans." (15) The Roman Catholics must, he said, secede individually to Orthodoxy. Eventually Overbeck foresaw a Western Church composed of national Churches like the autocephalous Churches of the East: an Anglican Orthodox Church, as well as Italian, Gallican, Germanic, and Bohemian Churches. Each nation would possess its own Orthodox Catholic Church with its own national customs and usages but adhering to a common doctrine and the same canon law. All this could come to pass from the humblest beginnings.

A small mustard-seed must be planted in the West; the edifice of the Western Orthodox Church must begin with a few stones. And one may be certain that the Vatican shall become desolate and exist only as an eloquent monument of man’s presumption. (16)

Overbeck set out a program of twenty-three points which Roman Catholics would have to accept when they became Orthodox: (1) the denial of Papal novelties; (2) the denial of the doctrine of indulgences; (3) the rejection of enforced celibacy; (4) an intermediate state after death to be recognized but Purgatory rejected; (5) icons to be used in place of statues; (6) Baptism by triple immersion; (7) Chrismation by a priest to follow Baptism; (8) laity to communicate under both kinds; (9) the Sacrament to be celebrated with leavened bread; (10) only the Benedictine monastic order to be recognized since it existed previous to the schism; (11) no Roman Catholic saints canonized after 1054 to be recognized; (12) independent National Churches in communion with the universal Patriarchs to have the full right of existence; (13) Divine service to be in the vernacular; (14) an Epiclesis is to be added to the Roman Mass from the Mosarabic ritual; (15) the Roman doctrine of the Filioque is to be rejected; (16) infants and children to be communicated; (17) the Sacrament of Unction was not to be kept until death; (18) it would be best to reserve the matter of Confession to married clergy; (19) the Immaculate Conception could not be accepted as dogma; (20) "We reject all use of force and therefore corporeal punishment in matters or exercises which are purely spiritual"; (21) "We recognize the Orthodox Catholic Church as the sole and exclusive institution founded by Christ Himself from the salvation of the world"; (22) mixed marriages disapproved of and children of such marriages to be reared Orthodox; (23) "Our Church must abstain strictly from any interference in politics and must submit herself to any government instituted of God, remembering Christ’s words: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.' " (17)

Among other changes which would be required of Roman Catholics when they became Orthodox Catholics would be to make the Sign of the Cross as in the Eastern Church. The latter way, he said, was the ancient way and it had been changed by Rome. Overbeck pointed out that Pope Innocent III, writing 1198, spoke of the present Orthodox manner of making the Sign of the Cross as the correct way. (18)

(14) OCR, I, No. 10-12 (October-December, 1867), 233.

(15) Ibid., I, No. 2-5 (February-May, 1867), 104.

(16) Trudy Kievskoj Akademii, 1869 (February), p. 295.

(17) From the Russian translation (by E. I. Popoff) of Die Rechtgläbige Katholische Kirche in Khristianskoe Chtenie, 1868, II, 821-23. As concerns the reference in point ten above, Overbeck elsewhere spoke highly of the Benedictine Order for it encouraged the progress of learning and civilization in a spirit of true evangelical freedom (Svet s Vostoka [Vilno, 1868], p. 163). On the other hand he often spoke most disparagingly of the Jesuits.

(18) OCR, IX (Part I, 1880), 42; IX (Part II, 1881), 189. For other changes Cf. Appendix A.