In conclusion, the differences and resemblances between the Greek and Roman Churches to-day might be stated. The Greek Church rejects the filioque in the Latin creed; repudiates the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (1854), and denies the infallibility of the Roman Pope (1870). All the clergy are "popes" in the Greek Church and the lower clergy are permitted to marry. The Greek Church gives and the Roman Church withholds the communion wine from the laity. The Greek Church uses leavened, and the Roman Church unleavened bread in the Eucharist. The Greek Church holds to the trine immersion in baptism, repetition of Holy Unction in illness, and infant communion. There is a difference in rites of worship, in language, in art, in architecture, and in the vestments employed. But both hold the fundamentals in the Nicene Creed; both accept all the doctrinal decrees of the seven œcumenical councils from 325 to 787; both practise image worship[286:2]; both accept the mediæval doctrine against which the Reformation protested; both believe in tradition and the Bible; both believe in the seven sacraments; both teach transubstantiation; both offer masses for the dead and the living; both sanction priestly absolution; both have three orders of ministry; both are episcopally organised on a hierarchical basis; both have rites and ceremonies that are identical, or at least similar. All things considered, therefore, it seems that the resemblances are far more striking than the differences. From now on, interest in Church history centres in the Roman Church of western Europe. The undignified quarrel over images gave the Pope an occasion to declare his absolute independence of eastern imperial rule. That fact gave a new bent to the Roman Church, forced upon it a more genuine unity, compelled it to devote all its energies to the great problems in the West, and enabled it to attain its acme under Innocent III. in the thirteenth century. Had the unsatisfactory relationship with the Eastern Church not been severed the history of the mediæval Church in western Europe would have been very different. The separation must be regarded, therefore, as a factor of no small moment in that process. While the effective missionary efforts, having their source and purpose in Rome, were winning all western Europe to a recognition of the Pope's sovereignty, it was very essential that he should completely accomplish his independence of Constantinople so that he would have a free hand to work out the problems of the Western Church. SOURCES A.--PRIMARY: 1.--See Chapter IX. 2.--John of Damascus, _On Holy Images_, Transl. by M. H. Allies. Lond., 1898. See _Nic. and Post-Nic. Fathers_, ix., ch. 11-16. 3.--Thatcher and McNeal, _A Source Book for Mediæval History_. N. Y., 1905. B.--SECONDARY: I.--SPECIAL: 1.--Bury, I. B., _A History of the Later Rom. Emp._ Lond., 1889. 2 vols.