THE forecast made a fortnight ago in our columns that the Angora Government had decided to risk the carrying out of its long-conceived intention to capture or to destroy the Œcumenical Patriarchate has been proved accurate by the expulsion of Constantine VI. from Turkish territory. In estimating the motives and the consequences of that event, it is needful to bear in mind, not only that which the Patriarchate is, but also its recent history. The Ecumenical Patriarch is in no sense a Pope. He is primus inter pares in the college of the chief bishops of the several Orthodox Churches, each of which is autocephalous. All this is a matter of ecclesiastical arrangement not of Divine ordinance. A decision of the whole Orthodox Church could transfer the œcumenical function of the Archbishop of Constantinople to any other of the Patriarchates which, besides the ancient Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, now include that of Jugo-Slavia, and may soon be expected to include that of Rumania. On the other hand, the detrusion of the Œcumenical Patriarch from his cathedral city does more than leave his unhappy people without a chief pastor. It strikes a consternating blow at the age-long constitution of Eastern Christianity in particular and of Christendom in general.