The Uniats comprise many distinct groups: (a) the Greeks, whose union was proclaimed by the Council of Florence in 1438, live in Italy and Corsica (Albanian colony of Cargese). In the Turkish Empire there are only some hundred or so placed under the authority of the Apostolic delegate of Constantinople. Among the popes who have striven most to bring about a union with the Greeks Benedict XIV must be remembered, and Leo XIII (Encyclical "Orientalium dignitas", 30 Nov., 1894). (b) The Melchite Greeks (110,000), in Syria, Palestine, Egypt; their patriarch resides at Damascus, and has under his jurisdiction three vicariates (Tarsus, Damietta, and Palmyra) and eleven bishops. (c) The Bulgarian-Uniats, converted about 1860 to escape from the Phanariot despotism. There remain 13,000 directed by the vicarsApostolic of Adrianople and Salonica. (d) The Armenian-Uniats, organized since 1724 under the Patriarch of Cilicia and Little Armenia, who reside at Zmar in the Lebanon. ln 1857 Pius IX conferred this title on the Armenian Archbishop of Constantinople (70,000 faithful, 2 archbishops, of Aleppo and Sivas, 12 bishops, the most of whom are in Persia and Egypt). (e) The Syrian-Uniats, converted by Latin missionaries in 1665; a firman of 1830 has recognized its autonomy (40,000 faithful, a patriarch residing at Beirut, and 12 dioceses). (f) The Chaldean-Uniats, Nestorians converted to Catholicism in 1552. Their Patriarch of Babylon resides at Mossoul (80,000 faithful). (g) The Maronites of the ancient Lebanon, a Monothelite community which abjured its heresy entirely in 1182. Its head, Patriarch of Antioch, resides at Bekerkey, near Beirut; he has 7 archbishops under his jurisdiction. The 300,000 faithful have remained particularly attached to Catholicism.

Greek Orthodox Church
The principal indigenous Christian community is the Greek Church, which is the survival of the religious organization of the Byzantine Empire. Its head, the "Œcumenical Patriarch of the Romans" (such is his official title), resides at Constantinople, in the Phanar quarter. He presides over a Holy Synod formed of twelve metropolitans and a "mixed council", composed of four metropolitans and eight laymen. Two million souls obey him. The oecumenical territory is divided into 100 eparchies or dioceses (83 metropolitans and 17 bishops). Since the schisms of Photius (867) and of Michael Caerularius (1054), the Greek Church has been separated from Rome by a succession of ritual and disciplinary observances rather than by dogmatic differences. The tendency of the Greek Church to autonomy has brought about the crumbling of patriarchal authority and the forming of autocephalous churches; outside of the Ottoman Empire may be found the Russian Church, the Church of the Kingdom of Greece, the Servian Church, the Church of Cyprus: in the empire, even since the firman of Abdul-Aziz (11 March, 1870), the Bulgarians have organized an independent church under the name of "Exarchate". The Bulgarian Exarch resides at Orta-Keui on the Bosporus and governs 3,000,000 souls; Thrace and Macedonia are divided into 21 Bulgarian eparchies, but a Holy Synod resides at Sofia. The Arabic speaking Syrians, or Melchites who are attached to the Orthodox Church, are under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, who resides at Damascus, of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and of Alexandria, and of the Archbishop of Sinai, all independent of Constantinople.

The Greek Church has two divisions of clergy, one consisting of the popes or papas, who marry before they take orders and cannot become bishops; the other, called the upper clergy, chosen from among the monks. The monasteries are quite numerous. Those of Mount Athos form a veritable independent Republic composed of twenty convents governed by the Council of the Holy Epistasia; its head, the protepistates, is chosen in turn from the monasteries of the great Laura, Iviron, Vatopedi, Khilandariou, and Dyonisiou. The Greek Church has no organized missions, but the Hellenic propaganda is maintained at least in the schools throughout Macedonia, where there is antagonism between the Greeks and Bulgarians: the latter have had often to defend their religions and national independence against the former.

Dissenting Churches
A certain number of religious communities represent the early and schismatical heretical sects who have remained separate from the Greek Church: a portion of these Christians have, however, returned to the Catholic Church. The Gregorian Armenians (who connect themselves with St. Gregory the Illuminator) have been separated since the Council of Chalcedon (451). They have many heads, the Catholicos of Etschmiadzin in Russian territory, the Catholicos of Sis (200,000 faithful in Cilicia and Syria), and the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, who is assisted by a national assembly of 400 members and two councils, civil and ecclesiastical (800,000 faithful, divided among 51 dioceses); finally, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, in communion with Constantinople. On the Turco-Persian frontier may be found about 100,000 Nestorians, whose patriarch resides at Kotchanes; his dignity is hereditary from uncle to nephew; many have been reunited to the Roman Church. The Monophysites, or Jacobites, to the number of 80,000 in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Kurdistan, represent the remnants of a church that was once powerful; its head, who calls himself Patriarch of Antioch, resides at the Monastery of Dar-uz-Zafaran, between Diarbekir and Mardin.