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In 1876, he reiterated his design and issued an ''Appeal to the Patriarchs and Holy Synods of the Orthodox Catholic Church''. Three years later, he travelled to Constantinople to meet the Ecumenical Patriarch, [[Ioachim III of Constantinople|Ioachim III]], who gave him authorization for delivering sermons and addresses in defense of Orthodoxy. In August of 1881, the [[Church of Constantinople]] appointed a commission to examine the scheme and made the announcement that "an agreement on certain points has already been reached," recognizing the right of the West to have a Western church and rite as had existed before the [[Great Schism]].
Much to Overbeck's disappointment, no further developments occurred. He had hoped to be a [[priest]] within the Orthodox Church, but his marriage after his Roman Catholic [[ordination]] was seen as an impediment, rendering him ineligible. He became somewhat paranoid in his later years, especially regarding the Greeks in London as hostile toward him. The ''Orthodox Catholic Review'' ended its run in 1885, and seven years later he admitted that his project had failed, saying that he had had "Hopes entertained with joy by all the truly Orthodox, recommended and pushed forward by the Holy Synods of Russia, Romania and Serbia, approved by Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, but finally crushed and destroyed by the veto of the Greek Synod!" He died in 1905, his dream unfulfilled. Fr. [[Georges Florovsky]] wrote: "it was not just a fantastic dream. The question raised by Overbeck was pertinent, even if his own answer to it was confusedly conceived. And probably the vision of Overbeck was greater than his personal interpretation."
===The Twentieth Century===
