21 AUGUST 1875, Page 2

A Conference of the Old-Catholic leaders, about fifteen prelates of

the "Oriental" Church —the branch of the Greek Church which acknoialedgeethe Patriarch of Constantinople as Metro- politan—and some English High-Churchmen, met at Bonn on the 11th Augast. The object was to devise a scheme for-the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches, which Dr. Manger holds to have been mainly prevented by the addition of the word "filioque " to the Latin creed in the ninth century. There Was consequently a debate of days on the relation of the Persons of the Trinity to each other, which, reported in the briefest sentences, and in English, has a strange old-world effect. At first, it seemed as if the speakers would never agree, the reluctance of a Russian representative being especially mentioned, but at last an agreement was reached, under which the addition of " filioque " to the Latin creed was condemned, and the true doctrine of the Procession stated in a formula given elsewhere, and which is, as we understand it, an amplification of the state- ment that the "Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son," weakened in the amplification. The agreement, was not, however, drawn up by Dr. Dollinger, who had proposed a different one, much less condemeatory of the Latin theory. The Conference, therefore, ended happily, and its members apparently think they have accomplished a great work. At best it is but as if the French Academy and the English Universities bad agreed always to confer through German, and had dubbed that agreement a reunion of the nations.