To the Archbishops, Bishops and Other Clerics, Secular and Regular, of the Greek Rite Who Enjoy Favor and Communion with the Apostolic See.

Venerable Brothers and Beloved Sons, We Give You Greeting and Our Apostolic Blessing.

Ever since We first became Pope, We have proven Our fatherly love in embracing in Christ Our beloved eastern clergy and people, the Uniates as they are called, who are in agreement with Us and are free from the stain of schism. We have made every attempt to induce the schismatics to abandon their errors and join Us in Catholic unity. We do not intend to recall here all the measures We took for this purpose since the records of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith are filled with Our decrees on this subject and everyone can refer to Our apostolic letters and constitutions on eastern affairs in the volumes of Our Bullarium. Our present purpose is to inform you that the work of correcting the Greek Euchologion is now completed. It has already been printed by the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith following a lengthy scrutiny of every detail and most careful correction.

Consequently We exhort you to set aside previous editions which have been found to contain too many different errors, and to use this edition in sacred rites. The errors of former editions, however, are not to be wonderered at, for errors are readily made whenever the same work goes through many editions and the editors do not exert the strictest care. Such care is necessary to prevent the repeated insertion or addition of matters which are not found in the earliest and most faithful editions, whether through deceit or ignorance. Then since these errors have to be excised or somehow restrained, corrections and new editions more faithful to the original eventually are necessary. This has obviously occurred in the Western Church too, even though it is not as subject to these errors as the Eastern Church. Accordingly the Roman Pontiffs have often had to see to it that Missals, Rituals, Breviaries, and Martyrologies were newly issued in improved editions after appropriate corrections.

In regard to the corrections of your Euchologion (which, as you well know, is no more than the collection of prayers and blessings of the Church and so with Goarius We can appropriately term it the Ritual, Manual, Sacerdotal, or Pontifical of your Church), We propose to address two subjects in particular in this letter: namely, to set down first, the history of the new corrected edition which has just been completed, and then to expound in greater detail certain admonitions which have been suitably placed at the beginning of the Euchologion. We have postponed making known to you several other matters relating to the Euchologion itself. These could not properly be included in the present letter since they would make it immoderately long and would impose excessive toil on Us quite unsuited to Our age and not easily included with the other important concerns which particularly engage Us at present in Our Apostolic ministry and cannot now be laid aside.