There is a Greek chapel in New York City (on Second Avenue), and last Sunday Father Bjerring, the priest, conducted the services in English in order to explain distinctly to the American public the doctrine of the Greek Church in regard to the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the sacred images. The Greek Church, he said, believes that Mary was a virgin at the time of Christ’s birth, and remained so. The difficulty with Protestants in considering this subject is that they regard Mary as an ordinary woman, whereas no ordinary woman could be the mother of God, nor would such be selected for an office so extraordinary. Mary was chosen for the divine relation not only on account of her own superior merits, but also on account of the superhuman endowments which those very merits, through God’s appreciation, entailed upon her. Mary was the tree that stood upon the boundary line between the old and the new religious dispensations, and which bore us the fruit of truth. The saints are they who, by the practice of God’s will, have deserved the especial veneration of the church, and have secured eminence in their salvation. Now, as the Christian religion is a religion of divine love, and as divine love, once enkindled, burns with an immortal flame, it must be that the interest that the saints, while in this life took in the religious welfare of their fellow men is continued, if not intensified, in heaven. So the “Intercession of the Saints” is naturally a Christian doctrine. A Christian cannot help believing that he may with profit pray for the intercession to God of those holy men and women who have attained sainthood. And Mary, the greatest of all saints, the mother of God, is the most powerful, as well as the most sympathetic intercessor before God to whom a human being can address prayer. In the Greek Church there is no idolatry of the Virgin, the saints, nor sacred images. God alone is adored. The others are venerated. The Greek Church believes in seven sacraments; baptism, absolution (or confession), eucharist, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, and extreme unction. Baptism cleanses the soul from the original sin in which all men are born, because of Adam’s fall, and immediately places its recipient in the true church of Christ. So efficacious is this sacrament that after having received baptism, the child, too young yet to know the difference between good and evil, may partake of the eucharist, although he cannot appreciate it. Absolution is the forgiveness of sins that the priest, representing God, bestows through the confessional. The eucharist is the sacrament that gives its recipient the real flesh and blood of God at the communion table. Confirmation is the sacrament that anoints and confirms the baptized member of the church as soon as he attains the age of discretion; in other words, confirms him as an intelligent member of the church. Holy orders is the sacrament that confers the priesthood, and anoints the recipient as “a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec.” Extreme unction is the last sacrament, wherein the limbs and organs of the senses of the dying are anointed with holy oils as a symbolical prayer that if God considers it unmeet to restore their use, he will at least cure the dying soul of its remaining infirmities. The Greek Church does not boast that it is the only church of God, Father Bjerring continued, but it does claim to have the truth, and to have inviolately preserved it. It acknowledges the errors of conduct of those professing its faith, and even of those representing the church. But these, it claims, have always been errors of conduct and not variations of the truth. The Greek Church does not believe that Christian faith was intended to be a fixed quantity. It believes in progression, in keeping up with the advances of civilization. The magnificent progress of Russia under its present czar well shows the liberal and progressive spirit of that church that directs the morals of Russia. The Greek Church believes in perfect freedom of religious thought, speech, and action; it makes converts by conviction only, never by persecution, nor even by persuasion—its annals are not blackened by any inquisitions or Saint Bartholomew’s days, and they never will be.—Evening News of May 8.