“It has most especially been the habit of the Roman Church, the head of all the Churches, to render to the Churches of the East a great degree of honor and love in remembrance of the Apostles, to rejoice in her turn in their faithful obedience. Amidst changing and difficult times, she has never failed in any way in farsightedness and acts of kindness to sustain them against the forces that would strike them again and again, to hold fast to those that were overwhelmed, to call back those in discord with her. Nor was it the last expression of her watchfulness that she guard and preserve in them whole and entire forever the customs and distinct forms for administering the sacraments that she had declared legitimate in her wise jurisdiction. Examples of this are the many decisions of Our Predecessors, in the first place Pius IX of happy memory, promulgated in their own pontifical acts or through documents issuing from the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. We ourselves have felt the prompting of no lesser zeal. At the very beginning of Our Pontificate, We turned eyes full of love towards the Christian nations of the East. We made haste, in fact, to direct Our solicitude to alleviating their state of want. We then saw the beginning of other opportunities for bearing witness to Our feelings of kind regard and expressing them in deeds. But nothing was nor is more important, nothing more sacred than to kindle the ardor, to elicit fruitfulness in the Faith in those souls in union with the Apostolic See, so that they shine forth as renewed proofs of the excellence and glory of their ancestors.” Pope Leo XIII, Orientalium Dignitas, Nov. 30th, 1894