King Milan has scandalised even Eastern Europe, a region accustomed
to scandals. He had applied to the Consistory of Servia to grant him a divorce from his wife, Queen Natalie, on the ground of mutual detestation; and when her reply was received in Court, asked for three months' delay to consider her rejoinder. This was an ample acknowledgment of juris- diction ; but while considering his reply, the King heard that some prelates in the Consistory were opposed to his application. He therefore resolved to cut the knot. On October 12th he sent in to the Archbishop of Belgrade, Metro- politan of Servia, a petition in which he acknowledged him as "Representative of God on earth," with supreme and sole authority over the Church, and demanded of him an immediate decree of divorce. Archbishop Theodosius, whose title to his place is questioned in many quarters, highly flattered at the new position assigned him, without notifying the Queen or taking further evidence, on October 24th, on his own sole authority, without consulting the Synod whose President he is, granted the decree, which was reported on the same day to the Queen and the Courts of Europe. It is difficult, even for those who do not justify the Queen, to imagine a more illegal or oppressive proceeding, the result of which will be a schism in the Church—which has not rejected the Papacy in order to set up a Pope in Belgrade—and a sharp accentuation of disloyalty among the disaffected. They have a case now.
