Eastern Christian Studies Research Articles

The Syriac Orthodox Church in the Time of the Syriac Renaissance. In Concept and Reality. By Peter Kawerau. Translated by Patrick Conlin. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 64. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2022. 246 pp. $65 hardcover.

The Syriac Orthodox Church in the Time of the Syriac Renaissance. In Concept and Reality. By Peter Kawerau. Translated by Patrick Conlin. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 64. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2022. 246 pp. $65 hardcover.

Prekäres Weltwissen und kulturelles Erbe online. Onlineplattform vernetzt Lehre, Forschung und Wissenstransfer zum östlichen Christentum

The “Eastern Christian Studies Online Campus” (www.ku.de/ecsonca) is a multimedia online platform on the cultural heritage of Eastern Christianity with innovative teaching formats, international research projects and creative transfer services. The concept was developed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Kremer and Dipl.-Theol. Joachim Braun from the Chair of Theology of the Christian East at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the project with 970 000 euros as part of the “World Knowledge - Structural Strengthening of Small Subjects” program. An initial workshop report provides an insight into the background to the work and the content of the online campus.

Twenty-five Years: Logos and My Catholic Life

Twenty-five YearsLogos and My Catholic Life David Paul Deavel Key Words religious conversion, Logos Journal This is the final issue of Logos for which I have served as editor. By the time you are reading this issue, I will have departed from St. Paul, Minnesota, to join the theology department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Leaving the University of St. Thomas for the University of St. Thomas sounds like the verbal equivalent of an M. C. Escher painting or perhaps the plot teaser for a bit of Philip K. Dick fanfiction written by a pious millennial nerd. I am long used to confusions of this sort. The editor of Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies is Adam Deville. Logos, Logos; Deavel, Deville. Confusions aside, I like to think of my move, however, as on one level just an inverted outdoor activity strategy. It’s not quite true, but some people say that everywhere you go, you spend about four months trying to stay indoors as much as possible. In Minnesota that period is the winter, while in Texas it is the summer. The truth is that I am extraordinarily excited about my new position and the possibilities inherent in it. St. Thomas in Houston is a newer (1947) and smaller (about 2,700 undergraduates and 1,300 graduate students), but very dynamic institution. As a member of the theology department, I will have as colleagues Logos contributors [End Page 5] Thomas Harmon, Randy Smith, and Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski. My teaching will be in the graduate theology program, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston’s St. Mary’s Seminary, and the undergraduate core curriculum. I hope to contribute something to the work of Logos contributors James Matthew Wilson and Joshua Hren, who both joined the university last year to co-found a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program that is “committed expressly to a renewal of the craft of literature within the cosmic scope, long memory, and expansive vision of the Catholic literary and intellectual tradition.”1 There is a lot more to say about my new destination, but this essay is about this journal and my own life as a Catholic, both of which are celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary this year. The saying, often attributed to Albert Einstein, is, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” I cannot help but think that the coincidence of the first issue of Logos being issued in spring of 1997 and my own being received into the Catholic Church almost simultaneously has to do with the mischievously hidden workings of a God whose Providence puts things together in ways that are often not seen till much later. I will not say that my destiny was to pull the Red Pen Excalibur from a rock and preside at the Round Table of Logos editorial meetings, but one of the reasons I have loved every second of my nineteen years working on this journal (the last six as editor-in-chief) is that the vision that animates it—of seeing how the glory of Christ radiates from and illuminates both Catholic culture specifically and all human culture—is a large part of what drew me to Catholic faith specifically. My first recollection of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture came a little more than a year after I had been received into the Catholic Church. In the fall of 1998, I was beginning my second semester of graduate work in theology at Fordham University. That time seems another world in more ways than one. Then the internet was beginning to be useful to scholars but had not quite dominated our reading habits in the way it has now. I still had the habit of (and time for) wandering through the current periodicals section [End Page 6] of the university library and flipping through journals, magazines, and newspapers to see what there was in the wide world to know. After assembling a little stack of materials with articles I wished to read rather than skim, I would plop myself down into a chair, spread out, and feast intellectually for an hour or two...

The “Description of the Times” by Mōr Michael the Great (1126–1199). A Study on its Historical and its Historiographical Context. By Dorothea Weltecke. Eastern Christian Studies 27. Leuven: Peeters, 2021. xxv + 309 pp.

The “Description of the Times” by Mōr Michael the Great (1126–1199). A Study on its Historical and its Historiographical Context. By Dorothea Weltecke. Eastern Christian Studies 27. Leuven: Peeters, 2021. xxv + 309 pp. - Volume 91 Issue 2

An Early Christian Reaction to Islam: Isu'yahb III and the Muslim Arabs. By Iskandar Beheiry. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 57. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2019. xiii + 191 pp. $80.67 cloth.

An Early Christian Reaction to Islam: Isu'yahb III and the Muslim Arabs. By Iskandar Beheiry. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 57. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2019. xiii + 191 pp. $80.67 cloth. - Volume 90 Issue 2

The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis then Revival. By Khalid S. Dinno. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 43. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2017. xx + 506 pp. $85.00 cloth.

The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis then Revival. By Khalid S. Dinno. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 43. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2017. xx + 506 pp. $85.00 cloth. - Volume 89 Issue 1

Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh. By Philip Michael Forness

The amazingly prolific Syriac poet Jacob of Serugh, who lived at the height of the christological controversies of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, has the distinction of being recognized as a saint in both the Maronite (Chalcedonian) Church and the Syrian Orthodox (Miaphysite) Church. Attempts to pin his allegiance down were for a long time a matter of dispute, and the course of the controversy has been described by the author of the present monograph in a separate article (‘Cultural Exchange and Scholarship on Eastern Christianity: An Early Modern Debate over Jacob of Serugh’s Christology’, Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 70 [2018]). It was only with the publication (in 1937) of his letters that Jacob’s dislike of the Chalcedonian dogmatic formulation finally became apparent. In this careful and well-documented study Forness opens by considering the complex question of the audience and readership of homilies in late antiquity in general before going on to issues specific to Jacob’s verse homilies which exhibit several features characteristic of oral poetry. Then, focusing on the debate on how to describe the relationship between the miracles and the sufferings of Christ, and the way in which this is expressed in the Henoticon (issued in 482), Forness turns to the witness of Jacob’s three most relevant writings, the collection of letters, the homily specifically on the Council of Chalcedon (whose authenticity has been disputed but is here cautiously defended), and especially the long Homily on Faith published by Bedjan in the third volume of his edition. (Here it should be noted that no fewer than six further homilies entitled ‘on Faith’ by Jacob are now available in R. Akhrass and I. Suryany’s excellent two-volume edition entitled 160 Unpublished Homilies of Jacob of Serugh, published in Damascus in 2017, obviously too late for Forness to use, though their work is included in his bibliography.)

Sowing on Good Soil: Canadian Scholarship on the Ukrainian Church(es)

This essay surveys material published between 1950 and 2016 by Canadian scholars who studied Ukrainian church history and theology. Particular attention is paid to works produced by members of the Eastern-rite Redemptorist and Basilian religious orders and by scholars at St. Andrew’s College and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, the University of Toronto and the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, and the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Ottawa.

Syriac encounters. Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac symposium, Duke University, 26–29 June 2011. Edited by Maria Doerfler , Emmanuel Fiano and Kyle Smith . (Eastern Christian Studies, 20.) Pp. xix + 498 incl. 20 figs, 13 plates and 2 tables. Leuven–Bristol, Ct: Peeters, 2015. €85. 97 90 429 3046 9

Syriac encounters. Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac symposium, Duke University, 26–29 June 2011. Edited by Maria Doerfler , Emmanuel Fiano and Kyle Smith . (Eastern Christian Studies, 20.) Pp. xix + 498 incl. 20 figs, 13 plates and 2 tables. Leuven–Bristol, Ct: Peeters, 2015. €85. 97 90 429 3046 9

Cyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary by Carl Griffin

Reviewed by: Cyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary by Carl Griffin Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent Carl GriffinCyrillona: A Critical Study and Commentary Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 46 Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016 Pp. x + 337. $118.30. Who was the Syriac poet Cyrillona, what were his works, and what is his place in early Christian literature? In this book Griffin sheds light on this compelling theologian-poet from late ancient Roman Mesopotamia. Cyrillona is a familiar name to students of Syriac literature because of his presence in Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, by the late Robert Murray, SJ. Many scholars of late antique Christianity, however, remain unacquainted with the beautiful poetry of this fourth-century Syrian. Griffin, therefore, has done a great service in writing this book that contextualizes this author and analyzes his writings. Griffin introduces each of Cyrillona’s poems, analyzes their literary features, and comments upon their content. This book complements Griffin’s edition and translation of the writings of Cyrillona: The Works of Cyrillona, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 48 (2016). Those who read Cyrillona are advised to have Griffin’s edition of his Works so that they can follow the analyses of the poems that Griffin offers in this book. In Chapter One, Griffin introduces Cyrillona and his corpus. He reviews the scholarship on Cyrillona and then discusses hypotheses concerning the author’s identity (3–8). Griffin demonstrates why a late fourth-century date can be attributed to Cyrillona based upon a reference Cyrillona makes to an invasion of the Huns (31). Each of the five subsequent chapters contains an analysis of the poems that are authentically Cyrillona’s: On the Institution of the Eucharist (Chapter Two), On the Washing of the Feet (Chapter Three), On the Pasch of Our Lord (Chapter Four), On the Scourges (Chapter Five), and On Zacchaeus (Chapter Six). Each chapter could be studied as a self-contained unit. Griffin offers an interpretative framework for understanding Cyrillona’s poetic discourse, and he delineates the strident features of Cyrillona’s symbolic theology and exegesis. This book excels in situating Cyrillona in relationship to other Syriac authors, showing where Cyrillona’s language and theological imagery is unique to him and where it mirrors others, such as Ephrem and Aphrahaat. This book teaches us much about Cyrillona’s exegetical method and sacramental worldview. Griffin notes the author’s affinity for the Gospel of John. In the poems studied in Chapters Two, Three, and Four, Griffin underscores Cyrillona’s talent for dramatizing the events of the Last Supper. These, in Griffin’s interpretation, present an imagined mystagogy that Jesus gave his disciples (60–61). Cyrillona portrays Christ as a type of the High Priest in the lineage of the Levitical priests who dons mysteries, parables, figures, and prophecy (61). In Chapter Three Griffin studies Cyrillona’s homiletic poem On the Washing of the Feet and shows how Cyrillona imagined the events of the Last Supper in the Upper Room. The poet, as Griffin highlights, directs his listeners to wonder at Christ’s lavation of his apostles’ feet. Griffin proposes a baptismal context for the delivery of this sermon. He suggests that Cyrillona may have written it for the [End Page 670] liturgy of Holy Thursday, since Holy Thursday was the day on which baptism was performed in the Syrian world in Cyrillona’s time. On the Washing of the Feet may even be an early explanation for the practice or rite of the washing of the feet in the Syriac world (98), but, as Griffin cautions, that remains conjecture. Like other patristic authors, Cyrillona identifies Christ’s washing of the feet of the apostles as an example of humility and service that his apostles should imitate. Yet Cyrillona also interpreted the washing of the feet as Christ’s way of preparing his apostles for a life of preaching and delivering the sacraments. Griffin argues that the entire poem was meant to inspire wonder in the minds of the faithful both at Christ’s act of servile lavation and at creation’s cosmic reaction to Christ’s self-abasement. Griffin’s sophisticated analysis of the first three poems...

Tradition and innovation in late- and postbyzantine liturgical chant, II: Proceedings of the congress held at Hernen castle, the Netherlands, 30 October –3 November 2008. Edited by Gerda Wolfram and Christian Troelsgård (Eastern Christian Studies, 17.) Pp. xxiv + 328 incl. 8 tables, 1 plate, 51 figs and 50 musical examples. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €60 (paper). 978 90 429

Tradition and innovation in late- and postbyzantine liturgical chant, II: Proceedings of the congress held at Hernen castle, the Netherlands, 30 October –3 November 2008. Edited by Gerda Wolfram and Christian Troelsgård (Eastern Christian Studies, 17.) Pp. xxiv + 328 incl. 8 tables, 1 plate, 51 figs and 50 musical examples. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €60 (paper). 978 90 429 2748 3 - Studies on the liturgies of the Christian East. Selected papers of the Third International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Volos, May 26–30, 2010. Edited by Steven Hawkes-Teeples , Bert Groen and Stefanos Alexopoulos . (Eastern Christian Studies, 18.) Pp. x + 305 incl. 3 ills. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €69 (paper). 978 90 429 2749 0 - Volume 68 Issue 1

Athanasius D. McVay. God’s Martyr, History’s Witness: Blessed Nykyta Budka, the First Ukrainian Catholic Bishop of Canada

<p><strong>Athanasius D. McVay</strong><strong>. </strong><strong><em>God’s Martyr, History’s Witness: Blessed Nykyta Budka, the First Ukrainian Catholic Bishop of Canada</em></strong><strong>.<em> </em></strong>Edmonton: Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton and the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, 2014. xxvi, 613 pp. Illustrations. Timeline. Bibliography. Index. C$25.00, paper.</p>

Изображение масок в средневековой скульптуре Армении

Among zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images in medieval sculpture of Armenia the most mysterious and, one would say, not traditional enough are the so-called masks. The motif of mask has not yet been the subject of precise study in the context of Armenian art. Furthermore, there are no interpretations on this motif in the Eastern Christian studies, although the images of masks are known in Byzantine and Old Russian art. So the study we have focused on is very topical. In Medieval Armenian sculpture masks would appear in the décor of the churches of different historical periods: in 5th–6th, 7th and 10th–11th centuries, and we see them at such churches as St. Cross on Aghtamar, Saint Peter and Paul in Tatev, Sisavan, Bajburd, and so on. Notably, these certain motifs appear in the décor of high-ranking churches. As a rule, masks on the Armenian monuments are anthropomorphic (male and female images), and it should be noted that they are located in the significant space zones from the sacral point of view, i.e. on the eastern façade, on cornice or the tympanum. It is known that masks are widespread in both Eastern and Western Christian art. Based on the reference to the antique heritage, popularity of the motif in certain historical periods is evident. The mask motif entered Medieval Armenian art via East-Christian tradition maintaining its iconographic and symbolic characteristics.

Inquiries into Eastern Christian worship. Selected papers of the second international congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Rome, 17–21 September 2008. Edited by Bert Groen, Steven Hawker-Teeples and Stefanos Alexopoulos. (Eastern Christian Studies, 12.) Pp. xii+510 incl. 20 figs and 6 tables+DVD. Leuven: Peeters, 2012. €58 (paper). 978 90 429 2492 5 - Eastern Christians and their written heritage.

Inquiries into Eastern Christian worship. Selected papers of the second international congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Rome, 17–21 September 2008. Edited by Bert Groen, Steven Hawker-Teeples and Stefanos Alexopoulos. (Eastern Christian Studies, 12.) Pp. xii+510 incl. 20 figs and 6 tables+DVD. Leuven: Peeters, 2012. €58 (paper). 978 90 429 2492 5 - Eastern Christians and their written heritage. Manuscripts, scribes and context. Edited by Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Herman Teule and Sofia Torallas Tovar. (Eastern Christian Studies, 14.) Pp. x+282 incl. 10 figs and 16 plates. Leuven: Peeters, 2012. €52 (paper). 978 90 429 2517 5 - Volume 65 Issue 2

The Second Vatican Council diaries of Met. Maxim Hermaniuk, C.SS.R. (1960–1965). Translated by Jaroslav Z. Skira and annotated by Karim Schelkens. (Eastern Christian Studies, 15.) Pp. 333+CD. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2012. €42 (paper). 978 90 429 2580 9

The Second Vatican Council diaries of Met. Maxim Hermaniuk, C.SS.R. (1960–1965). Translated by Jaroslav Z. Skira and annotated by Karim Schelkens. (Eastern Christian Studies, 15.) Pp. 333+CD. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2012. €42 (paper). 978 90 429 2580 9 - Volume 65 Issue 2

J. Verheylen and H. Teule Eds. Heretics and Heresies in the Ancient Church and in Eastern Christianity. Studies in Honour of Adelbert Davids (Eastern Christian Studies 10). Leuven, Paris and Walpole MA: Peeters, 2011. Pp. x + 395. €59. 9789042924864.

J. Verheylen and H. Teule Eds. Heretics and Heresies in the Ancient Church and in Eastern Christianity. Studies in Honour of Adelbert Davids (Eastern Christian Studies 10). Leuven, Paris and Walpole MA: Peeters, 2011. Pp. x + 395. €59. 9789042924864. - Volume 133

The Forgotten Bishops. The Malabar Independent Syrian Church and its Place in the Story of the St Thomas Christians (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 20). By John Fenwick. pp. xlvii, 636. Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press, 2009.

The Forgotten Bishops. The Malabar Independent Syrian Church and its Place in the Story of the St Thomas Christians (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 20). By John Fenwick. pp. xlvii, 636. Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press, 2009.

All-Unity according to V. Soloviev and S. Frank. A Comparative Analysis

All-Unity according to V. Soloviev and S. Frank. A Comparative Analysis

A Diversity of Polities Patriarchal Leadership in the Orthodox Churches

* Assistant Professor of Theology, University of Saint Francis, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. 1 This is a revised version of a paper presented at a meeting of the Peter and Paul Seminar in Ottawa in March 2007 The author wishes to register his gratitude to Professor Catherine Clifford of the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, for the invitation to deliver the paper to the Seminar and for her feedback on it. 2 See, e.g., Michael Whelton, Popes and Patriarchs: An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholic Claims (Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 2006). See the author’s review of this deplorable book in The Canadian Journal of Orthodox Christianity 2 (2007): http://www.cjoc.ca/pdf/Vol2-W-3%20Popes&Patriarchs3.PDF. 460 The Jurist 68 (2008) 460–496 A DIVERSITY OF POLITIES PATRIARCHAL LEADERSHIP IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES1 Adam A.J. DeVille* Introduction Stereotypes abound about the churches of the Christian East. It is, e.g., a commonplace among lazy journalists or tendentious polemicists2 that the Orthodox churches are local churches synodically governed with very little centralized authority, and generally headed by a patriarch with limited powers, whereas the Catholic Church is an international papal monarchy bereft of synodical government and possessed of an extremely centralized and powerful Roman curial bureaucracy inserting itself into all aspects of the Church’s life. This commonplace belies, inter alia, the fact of a great deal of diversity among the Orthodox churches. Demonstrating the details of that diversity is the burden of this paper, which examines Orthodox structures and polity as part of the ongoing ecumenical project of searching for new and acceptable models of primacy in the Church. As ecumenists are well aware, the last stumbling block to OrthodoxCatholic unity is of course papal primacy. In seeking a way around that stumbling block, and in response to the famous question posed in 1995 by Pope John Paul II in Ut unum sint, where he asked (§95–96) “pastors and theologians” of non-Catholic traditions to assist him in coming up with new models for the exercise of the papal ministry so that it could again be an instrument of Christian unity, it seems that the models of ecclesiastical governance in the Christian East may be helpful in illumi- 3 “Le principe patriarcal, modèle équilibré d’unité et de synodalité, d’autonomie locale et de système de communion intégré, reste un idéal qui doit toujours nous inspirer et nous aider à trouver des solutions ecclésiologiques pour les nouvelles situations que doit affronter l’Église au XXIe siècle.” Patriarch Gregorios III, “Patriarches d’Orient et d’Occident: similarités et differences,” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 46 (2005) 16–17. 4 George Nedungatt, “Patriarchal Ministry in the Church of the Third Millennium,” The Jurist 61 (2001) 19. 5 Michael Magee, The Patriarchal Institution in the Church: Ecclesiological Perspectives in the Light of the Second Vatican Council (Rome: Herder and Herder, 2006) 150. 6 John Erickson, “Common Comprehension of Christians ConcerningAutonomy and Central Power in the Church in View of Orthodox Theology,” Kanon 4 (1979) 101. Erickson quotes a letter of Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos in 1370 to certain Russian princes in which the patriarch opens by claiming that “Since God has appointed Our Humility as leader of all Christians found anywhere,” the patriarch therefore enjoys the right to appoint bishops over “all other areas of the earth . . . so that each, in the country and place appointed him, enjoys territorial rights, and episcopal see, and all the rights of Our Humility ” (111). patriarchal leadership in the orthodox churches 461 nating alternate paths around or through the papal stumbling block. In the words of one current Eastern patriarch, the Melkite Gregory III of Antioch: The patriarchal principle, a balanced model of unity and synodality , of local autonomy and a system of integral communion, remains an ideal which must always inspire us and assist us in finding ecclesiological solutions for the new situations which the Church must confront in the twenty first century.3 Diversity among the polity and structure of the Orthodox patriarchates is a commonplace in the literature on them. The canonist George Nedungatt , after reviewing the office of...

Mgr Petit, Assomptionniste, Fondateur des "Echos d'Orient", Archeveque Latin d'Athenes (1868-1927) (review)

Mgr Petit, Assomptionniste, Fondateur des Archeveque Latin d'Athenes (1868-1927). Edited by Bernard Holzer, A.A. [Orientalia Christiana Analecta 266.] (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. 2002. Pp. 229.) This volume is a collection of the papers given at a colloquium at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome in December, 1997, on the life of Louis Petit, the French Assumptionist Byzantine scholar and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Athens from 1912 until 1926. Petit entered the Assumptionist novitiate in Spain in 1885. he was ordained in 1891, and first experienced the Christian East in 1893 at age 25, when he served for a year as superior of an Assumptionist school in Constantinople. It was there that Petit first expressed interest in Eastern Christian studies, butand this would be one of the great paradoxes of his life-an aversion for the Christian East itself, where he did not feel at home. Petit's future, however, would be determined in large part by Pope Leo XIII's new initiative to reconcile the dissident Orthodox churches, spelled out at the Eucharistie Congress of Jerusalem in 1893. Leo was convinced that the Orthodox churches-or at least large segments of them-were ripe for a return to Catholic unity, and that the best way to foster this return was to promote the activity of Catholic missionaries in the East, as well as scholarly publishing efforts that would help dissipate Orthodox antipathy toward the Catholic Church. Leo XIII saw Petit's Assumptionists, who had been active in the East since 1863, as playing a vital role in this process. In 1895 he granted a Latin parish and surrounding buildings in Kadikoy (ancient Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople) to the Assumptionists, and charged them with setting up a house of studies that would be a center of missionary activity in the region. Louis Petit was named the first superior. In 1897 the Assumptionists under his direction began publication of Les Echos d'Orient, a respectable scholarly journal that also served a missionary purpose among the Orthodox. Petit himself would contribute many articles to the journal. In 1912 Petit was named Latin Archbishop of Athens, and arrived in the city at a particularly difficult time, just as Greece was going to war with Turkey. He was now the head of a small Catholic community that was marginalized in Greek society and viewed with deep suspicion. he was not well received by the Latin clergy of the city or by the other Catholic bishops in Greece. he maintained very good relations with the Greek political world, but he could be very caustic about the country's Orthodox Church, dismissing it as full of corrupt bishops and ignorant faithful, or simply a political instrument, subservient to the state. Even though his erudition and advice were much respected at the Holy see (it was he who suggested to Benedict XV in 1916 that he should establish both an Oriental Congregation and Pontifical Oriental Institute), Petit's service as archbishop would come to an end in 1926, when Pius XI required his resignation, it seems because of a lack of pastoral abilities and for over-zealously promoting French interests in the country. …