h lived on through the flood of barbarian
immigration into the lands which had been its old home, yet was very
largely eclipsed by the predominance of theological interests in
literature. And there was the growth of a strong ecclesiastical power,
based upon an orthodox faith (though not without hesitations and
lapses), and gradually winning a formidable political dominion. That
power was the Roman Papacy.

[1] Bryce, _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 13, ed. 1904.

{6}

CHAPTER II

THE EMPIRE AND THE EASTERN CHURCH

(461-628)

When the death of Leo the Great in 461 removed from the world of
religious progress a saintly and dominant figure whose words were
listened to in East and West as were those of no other man of his day,
the interest of Church history is seen to turn decisively to the East.

[Sidenote: Character of the Greek Church.]

The story of Eastern Christendom is unique. There is the fascinating
tale of the union of Greek metaphysics and Christian theology, and its
results, so fertile, so vigorous, so intensely interesting as logical
processes, so critical as problems of thought. For the historian there
is a story of almost unmatched attraction; the story of how a people
was kept together in power, in decay, in failure, in persecution, by
the unifying force of a Creed and a Church. And there is the
extraordinary missionary development traceable all through the history
of Eastern Christianity: the wonderful Nestorian missions, the activity
of the evangelists, imperial and hierarchical, of the sixth century,
the conversion of Russia, the preludes to the remarkable achievements
in modern times of orthodox missions in the Far East.

Throughout the whole of the long period indeed {7} which begins with
the death of Leo and ends with that of Silvester II., though the Latin
Church was growing in power and in missionary success, it was probably
the Christianity of the East which was the most secure and the most
prominent. Something of its work may well be told at the beginning of
our task.

[Sidenote: The Monophysite controversy.]

The last years of the fifth century were in the main occupied in the
East by the dying down of a controversy which had rent the Church. The
Eutychian heresy, condemned at Chalcedon, gave birth to the Monophysite
party, which spread widely over the East. Attempts were soon made to
bridge over the gulf by taking from the decisions of Chalcedon all that
definitely repudi