om
Apostolic times is evident also from the _Liturgies_ of the Church. A
Liturgy is the established formulary of public worship, containing the
authorized prayers of the Church. The Missal, or Mass-book, for instance,
which you see on our altars, contains a portion of the Liturgy of the
Catholic Church. The principal Liturgies are the Liturgy of St. James the
Apostle, who founded the Church of Jerusalem; the Liturgy of St. Mark the
Evangelist, founder of the Church of Alexandria, and the Liturgy of St.
Peter, who established the Church in Rome. These Liturgies are called
after the Apostles who compiled them. There are, besides, the Liturgies of
St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, which are chiefly based on the model of that
of St. James.

Now, all these Liturgies, without exception, have prayers for the dead,
and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant
vindication of the venerable antiquity of this Catholic doctrine.

The Eastern and the Western churches were happily united until the fourth
and fifth centuries, when the heresiarchs Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches
withdrew millions of souls from the centre of unity. The followers of
these sects were called, after their founders, Arians, Nestorians and
Eutychians, and from that day to the present the two latter bodies have
formed distinct communions, being separated from the Catholic Church in
the East, just as the Protestant churches are separated from her in the
West.

The Greek schismatic church, of which the present Russo-Greek church is
the offspring, severed her connection with the See of Rome in the ninth
century.

But in leaving the Catholic Church these Eastern sects retained the old
Liturgies, which they use to this day, as I shall presently demonstrate.

During my sojourn in Rome at the Ecumenical Council I devoted a great deal
of my leisure time to the examination of the various Liturgies of the
schismatic churches of the East. I found in all of them formulas of
prayers for the dead almost identical with that of the Roman Missal:
"Remember, O Lord, Thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of
faith, and sleep in peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ
grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace, through
the same Jesus Christ our Lord."

Not content with studying their books, I called upon the Oriental
Patriarchs and Bishops in communion with the See of Rome, who belong to
the Armenian, the Chaldean