I  have  said  a  few  words  as  to  the  gradual  formation  of
a  priestly  order,  and  the  final  and  complete  organization  of  the
Church.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  treading  on  forbidden  ground
to  touch  upon  the  question  of  the  asserted  supremacy  of  one
or  another  head  of  the  Christian  world.  Historically  viewed,  I
suppose  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  at  the  beginning,  there
was  no  one  head.  The  bishops  exercised  their  power  quite
independently,  except  so  far  as  they  in  the  course  of  time  ad-
mitted the  authority  of  synods  and  councils.  The  gradual
manner  in  which  the  Bishop  of  Rome  gathered  into  his  own
person  the  supreme  authority  over  the  spiritual,  and  for  a  long
period  over  the  temporal,  affairs  of  the  nations  that  acknowl-
edged him,  it  belongs  not  to  this  place  or  to  my  subject  to
trace.  Of  the  Eastern  Church,  the  Patriarch  of  Constanti-
nople finally  rose  to  be  the  acknowledged  head,  and  so  con-
tinued down  to  modern  times.  At  the  present  moment  he  is
de  facto  only  the  spiritual  ruler  of  one  of  the  three  divisions
into  which  that  community  is  separated.  The  Russian  Church
has  its  independent  organization.  The  Church  in  the  king-
dom of  Greece  has  been,  since  1843,  wholly  liberated  from  the
patriarchal  throne  at  Constantinople,  and  is  governed  by  the
H0I3'  Synod  of  Bishops,  the  constitution  of  which  will  be  here.
