§ 67. Division between Greek and Roman Churches and Attempts at Union,A.D.857-1453.192The second Trullan Council inA.D.692 had given the first occasion to the great schism which rent the Christian world into two halves (§63, 2); Photius gave it a doctrinal basis inA.D.867; and Michael Cærularius inA.D.1053 completed its development. The increasing need of the Byzantine government drove it to make repeated attempts at reconciliation, but these either were never concluded or the union, if at all completed, proved a mere paper union. The Sisyphus labour of union efforts ended only with the overthrow of the Byzantine empire inA.D.1453. The three stages referred to—the early misunderstandings, the avowed doctrinal divergence, and the final decisive separation—as well as the persistent rejection of attempts at reunion, were not wholly owing to the importance of ceremonial differences. After as well as before there had been free church communion between them. It was not owing to the importance of the almost solitary point of doctrinal difference between them, in reference to thefilioque(§50, 7), where if there had been good will a common understanding might easily have been won. It was really the papal claims to the primacy to which the Greeks absolutely refused to submit.
The second Trullan Council inA.D.692 had given the first occasion to the great schism which rent the Christian world into two halves (§63, 2); Photius gave it a doctrinal basis inA.D.867; and Michael Cærularius inA.D.1053 completed its development. The increasing need of the Byzantine government drove it to make repeated attempts at reconciliation, but these either were never concluded or the union, if at all completed, proved a mere paper union. The Sisyphus labour of union efforts ended only with the overthrow of the Byzantine empire inA.D.1453. The three stages referred to—the early misunderstandings, the avowed doctrinal divergence, and the final decisive separation—as well as the persistent rejection of attempts at reunion, were not wholly owing to the importance of ceremonial differences. After as well as before there had been free church communion between them. It was not owing to the importance of the almost solitary point of doctrinal difference between them, in reference to thefilioque(§50, 7), where if there had been good will a common understanding might easily have been won. It was really the papal claims to the primacy to which the Greeks absolutely refused to submit.
§ 67.1.Foundation of the Schism,A.D.867.—During the minority of the emperor Michael III., son of Theodora (§66, 4), surnamed the Drunkard, his uncle Bardas, Theodora’s brother, directed the government. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople at that time, himself descended from the imperial family, lashed severely the godless, vicious life of the court, and inA.D.857 kept back from the communion the all-powerful Bardas, who lived in incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law. He was then deposed and banished.Photius, the most learned man of his age, previously commander of the imperial bodyguard, was raised to the vacant chair, and inherited the hatred of all the friends of Ignatius. He made proposals of agreement which were proudly and scornfully rejected. He then held a Synod inA.D.859, which confirmed the deposition of Ignatius and excommunicated him. But nothing in the world could make his party abandon his claims. Now Photius wished to be able to lay in the scales the Roman bishop’s approval of his questionable proceedings. He therefore laid an account of matters highly favourable to himself before PopeNicholas I., and sought his brotherly love and intercessions. The pope answered that he must first examine the whole affair. His two legates, Rhodoald of Porto and Zacharias of Anagni, were bribed and at a Council at Constantinople inA.D.861 gave their consent to the deposition of Ignatius. Nicholas, however, had other reporters. He excommunicated his own legates and pronounced Ignatius the lawful patriarch. Bitterness of feeling reached its height in Constantinople, when soon thereafter the Bulgarians broke their connection with the Byzantine mother church and submitted to the pope (§73, 3). Photius now by an Encyclica ofA.D.866 called the patriarchs of the East to a Council at Constantinople, and charged the Roman church with the most extreme heresies; that it enjoined fasting on Saturday (§56, 1), allowed milk, butter and cheese to be eaten during the first week of the Quadragesima (§56, 7), did not acknowledge married priests (§45, 2), did not prohibit the clergy from shaving the beard (§45, 1), pronounced anointing by a presbyter invalid (§35, 4), but above all, that by the addition of thefilioque(§50, 7) it had falsified the creed, recognising thus two principles and so falling back into dualism. With such heresies too the pope had now infected the Bulgarians. The meeting of the Council took place inA.D.867. Three monks, tutored by Photius, represented the patriarchs under Saracen rule. Excommunication and deposition were hurled against the pope, and this sentence was communicated to the Western churches. The pope was evidently alarmed. He justified himself before the Frankish clergy and insisted that they should answer the charges of the Greeks in a scholarly reply. This was done by several, most ably by Ratramnus, monk at Corbie. But during that year,A.D.867, the emperor Michael was murdered. His murderer and successor Basil the Macedonian undertook the patronage of the party of Ignatius, and asked of Pope Hadrian II. a new investigation and decision. ASynod at Constantinople,A.D.869, counted by the Latins the 8th œcumenical, condemned Photius and restored Ignatius. The deciding about the Bulgarians, however, was not committed to the Council but to the reputed representatives of the Saracen patriarchs as impartial umpires. They naturally decided in favour of the Byzantine patriarch. In vain the legates remonstrated. Photius in other respects under misfortune displays a character worthy of our esteem. For several years he languished without company, without books, under the strictest monastic rules. Yet he reconciled himself to Ignatius. Basil entrusted him with the education of his children, and on the death of Ignatius inA.D.878, restored him to the patriarchate. But still the ban of an œcumenical Council lay upon him. Only a new œcumenical Council could vindicate him. John VIII. agreed to this against the remonstrances of the Bulgarians. But at the ninthCouncil at Constantinople,A.D.879, the eighth according to the Greeks, the papal legates were completely duped. There was no mention of the Bulgarians, the Council ofA.D.869 was repudiated, and every one excommunicated who dared add anything to the creed. The pope afterwards indeed launched an anathema against the patriarch, his Council, and his followers. The succeeding emperor, Leo the Philosopher,A.D.886-911, again deposed Photius inA.D.886, but only that he might put an imperial prince in his place. Photius died in monastic exile inA.D.891.§ 67.2.Leo VI., the Philosopher,A.D.886-911.—This emperor was three times married without having any children. He married the fourth only when he had assured himself that she would not be barren. The patriarch Nicolaus [Nicolas] Mysticus refused (§61, 2) to celebrate the marriage and was deposed. A Synod at Constantinople inA.D.906, attended by the legates of Pope Sergius III., approved the marriage and the deposition. But on his deathbed Leo repented of his violence. His brother and successor Alexander restored the patriarch Nicolas, and Pope John X. attended a Synod at Constantinople inA.D.920, which condemned the Council ofA.D.906, and pronounced a fourth marriage absolutely unallowable, but showed no inclination to make any concessions to the pope. New negociations were begun by the emperorBasil II.In consideration of a large sum of money the venal pope John XIX. was willing to acknowledge the Byzantines as œcumenical patriarchs of the East, and to resign all claims of the chair of Peter upon the Eastern church. But the affair became known before it was concluded. The removal of the new Judas was loudly demanded throughout the West, and the pope was compelled to break off his negociations.§ 67.3.Completion of the Schism,A.D.1054.—Though so many anathemas had been flung at Rome by Byzantium and at Byzantium by Rome, they had hitherto been directed only against the persons and their followers, not against the respective churches as such. This defect was now to be supplied. The emperor Constantine Monómachus sought the papal friendship which he thought necessary to the success of his warlike undertakings. But the patriarchMichael Cærulariusfrustrated his efforts. In company with the Metropolitan of the Bulgarians, Leo of Achrida, he addressed inA.D.1053 an epistle to bishop John of Trani in Apulia, in which he charged the Latins with the worst heresies, and adjured the Western bishops to separate from them. To the heresies already enumerated by Photius, he added certain others; the use of blood and things strangled, the withdrawal of the Hallelujah during the fast season, and above all the use of unleavened bread in the Supper (§58, 4), on account of which he invented for the heretics the name of Azymites. This letter fell into the hands of CardinalHumbert, who translated it and laid it before pope Leo IX. A violent correspondence followed. The emperor offered to do anything to restore peace. At his request the pope sent three legates to Constantinople, among them the occasion of the strife, Humbert (§ 101, 2), and Cardinal Frederick of Lothringen, afterwards pope Stephen IX. (§ 96, 6). These fanned the flame, instead of quenching it. Imperial pressure indeed brought the abbot of Studion, Nicetas Pectoratus to burn his controversial treatise before the legates, but no threat nor violence could move to submission the patriarchs, on whose side were the people and the clergy. The legates finally laid a formal decree of excommunication on the altar of the church of Sophia, which Michael together with the other Eastern patriarchs solemnly returned,A.D.1054.§ 67.4.Attempts at Reunion.—The crusades increased the breach instead of healing it. Many negociations were begun but none of them came to much. At a Synod at Bari in Naples, inA.D.1098, Anselm of Canterbury (§ 101, 1), who then lived as a fugitive in Italy, proved to the Greeks there present the correctness of the Latin doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. InA.D.1113, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Archbishop of Milan, vindicated it in a complete discourse before the emperor at Constantinople. And inA.D.1135, Anselm of Havelberg, who went to Constantinople as ambassador for Lothair II., disputed with the Archbishop Nicetas of Nicomedia, and afterwards at the command of the pope wrote down the disputation with creditable faithfulness. The hatred and abhorrence of the Greeks reached its climax on the erection of the Latin empire at Constantinople,A.D.1204-1261 (comp. § 94, 4). NeverthelessMichael Palæologus,A.D.1260-1282, who brought this dynasty to an end, strove on political grounds in every way possible to overcome this ecclesiastical schism. The patriarch Joseph of Constantinople and his librarian, the celebratedJoannes Beccus, stubbornly withstood him. The latter indeed in imprisonment became convinced that the differences were unessential and that a union was possible. This change of mind secured for him the patriarch’s chair. Meanwhile the negotiations of the emperor with the pope, Gregory X., in which he acknowledged the Roman chair to be the highest court of appeal in doctrinal controversies, were brought to a point in the œcumenicalCouncil at Lyons,A.D.1274, reckoned by the Latins the fourteenth. The imperial legates here acknowledged the primacy of the pope and subscribed a Roman creed, while to them was granted liberty to use their creed without the addition and to practise their peculiar ecclesiastical customs. Beccus vindicated this union in several treatises. But a change of dynasty overthrew him inA.D.1283. Joseph was restored and the union of Lyons was broken up leaving no trace behind.§ 67.5. The advance of the Turks made it absolutely necessary for the East Roman emperors to secure the support of the West by reconciling and uniting themselves with the papacy. But the powerful party of the monks, supported by popular prejudice against the proposal, thwarted the imperial wishes on all sides. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem too were zealous opponents, not only animated by the old bitterness toward their more prosperous rivals on the chair of Peter, but also influenced against the views of the emperor by the policy of their Saracen rulers. The emperorAndronicus III. Palæologuswon to his side the abbotBarlaamof Constantinople, hitherto, though born in Calabria and there educated in the Roman Catholic faith, a zealous opponent of the Western doctrine. Barlaam went at the head of an imperial embassy to Avignon where the pope at that time, Benedict XIII., resided,A.D.1339. Negotiations, however, broke down through the obstinacy of the pope, who demanded of the Greeks above all unconditional submission in doctrine and constitution, and also showed not once any wish for renewing the conference.—On Barlaam, comp. §69, 2.—The political difficulties of the emperor, however, continually increased, and soJoannes V. Palæologustook further steps. He himself inA.D.1369 in Rome passed over to the Latin church, but neither did he get his people to follow him, nor did pope Urban V. get the Western princes to give help against the Turks.§ 67.6. The union attempts ofJoannes VII. Palæologushad more appearance of success. The emperor had won over the patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, as well as the clever and highly cultured archbishopBessarionof Nicæa, and went personally in company with the latter and many bishops, inA.D.1438, to the papal Council atFerrara(§ 110, 8), where the pope, Eugenius IV., fearing lest the Greeks might join the reformatory Council at Basel, showed himself very gracious. The Council, nominally on account of the outbreak of a plague at Ferrara was transferred toFlorence, and here the union was actually consummated inA.D.1439. The primacy of the pope was acknowledged, though not altogether without dubiety of expression, the ritual differences as well as the priestly marriages of the Greeks tolerated, the doctrinal difference reduced to a misunderstanding and the orthodoxy of both churches maintained. In the Latin text of the decree referred to the pope was acknowledged as “Successor of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the vicar of Christ,” as “head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians, to whom plenary power was given by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church”—yet with the significant addition “in such a way as it is set forth in the œcumenical Councils and in the sacred Canons,” by which certainly the Greeks thought only of the Canons of Nicæa and Chalcedon referred to in §46, 1, but the Latins mainly of the Pseudo-Decretals of §87, 2; and thus it happens that in most of the Greek texts the propositions that define the universal primacy of the pope are either wanting, or essentially modified. The first place after the pope is given to the patriarch of Constantinople. In regard to the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit it was admitted that the Greek formula “ex Patre per Filium” was essentially the same as the Latin “ex Patre Filioque,” and by the definition “quod Sp. S. ex P. simul et F. et ex utroque æternaliter tanquam ab uno principio et unica spiratione procedit,” the latter was saved from the charge of dualism. A new difference, however, came to light in reference to Purgatory (§61, 4). The intercessions of the living and the presenting of masses for the dead were allowed by the Greeks as helping to secure the forgiveness of their still unatoned for venial sins, but they decidedly opposed the view that any of the dead could obtain this by his own temporary endurance of penal sufferings, and they would not hear of a fire as a means for its attainment. The Latins also taught that the unbaptized or those dying in mortal sin immediately pass into eternal condemnation and the perfectly pious immediately pass into God’s presence; while the Greeks maintained that this happens only at the last judgment. After long disputes, the Greeks, urged by their emperor, at last gave in on both points. Without much difficulty they accepted the seven sacraments of the Westerns (§ 104, 2). Thus was the union consummated amid embracings and jubilant shoutings. But in reality everything remained as of old. A powerful party at whose head stood archbishop Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus, who had been shouted down at Florence, roused the whole East against the union that had been made on paper. The new patriarch Metrophanes, whom they repudiated, was ridiculed as Μητροφόνος, and inA.D.1443 the rest of the Eastern patriarchs at a Synod at Jerusalem excommunicated all who maintained the union. When moreover the hoped for help from the West did not come even the union party lost their interest in it.Bessarion passed over to the Roman church, became cardinal and bishop of Tuscoli, and was as such on two occasions very near being made pope.193§ 67.7. The Byzantine Christian empire went meanwhile rapidly to decay. On the 29th May, 1453, Constantinople was stormed by Mohammed II. The last emperor, Constantine XI., fell in a heroic struggle against tremendous odds. Mohammed conferred upon the patriarch Gennadius (§68, 5) the spiritual primacy and even temporal supremacy and full jurisdiction over the whole orthodox inhabitants of the empire, making him, however, answerable for their conduct. The other two patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch were in religious matters co-ordinate, in political matters subordinate, to him.For the executing of his spiritual power he had around him a Synod of twelve archbishops, of whom four as holders of the four divisions of the patriarchal diocese resided in Constantinople. The Synod chose the patriarchs and the Sultan confirmed the elections.—All union negociations were now at an end, for the Porte could only wish for the continuance of the schism. The enormous crowds of Greek refugees who sought protection in foreign lands, especially in Italy, Hungary, Galicia, Poland, Lithuania, either went directly over to the Roman Catholic church, or formed churches of their own under the name of United Greeks, purchasing liberty to observe their old church constitution and liturgy by accepting the Romish doctrine and the papal primacy.
§ 67.1.Foundation of the Schism,A.D.867.—During the minority of the emperor Michael III., son of Theodora (§66, 4), surnamed the Drunkard, his uncle Bardas, Theodora’s brother, directed the government. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople at that time, himself descended from the imperial family, lashed severely the godless, vicious life of the court, and inA.D.857 kept back from the communion the all-powerful Bardas, who lived in incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law. He was then deposed and banished.Photius, the most learned man of his age, previously commander of the imperial bodyguard, was raised to the vacant chair, and inherited the hatred of all the friends of Ignatius. He made proposals of agreement which were proudly and scornfully rejected. He then held a Synod inA.D.859, which confirmed the deposition of Ignatius and excommunicated him. But nothing in the world could make his party abandon his claims. Now Photius wished to be able to lay in the scales the Roman bishop’s approval of his questionable proceedings. He therefore laid an account of matters highly favourable to himself before PopeNicholas I., and sought his brotherly love and intercessions. The pope answered that he must first examine the whole affair. His two legates, Rhodoald of Porto and Zacharias of Anagni, were bribed and at a Council at Constantinople inA.D.861 gave their consent to the deposition of Ignatius. Nicholas, however, had other reporters. He excommunicated his own legates and pronounced Ignatius the lawful patriarch. Bitterness of feeling reached its height in Constantinople, when soon thereafter the Bulgarians broke their connection with the Byzantine mother church and submitted to the pope (§73, 3). Photius now by an Encyclica ofA.D.866 called the patriarchs of the East to a Council at Constantinople, and charged the Roman church with the most extreme heresies; that it enjoined fasting on Saturday (§56, 1), allowed milk, butter and cheese to be eaten during the first week of the Quadragesima (§56, 7), did not acknowledge married priests (§45, 2), did not prohibit the clergy from shaving the beard (§45, 1), pronounced anointing by a presbyter invalid (§35, 4), but above all, that by the addition of thefilioque(§50, 7) it had falsified the creed, recognising thus two principles and so falling back into dualism. With such heresies too the pope had now infected the Bulgarians. The meeting of the Council took place inA.D.867. Three monks, tutored by Photius, represented the patriarchs under Saracen rule. Excommunication and deposition were hurled against the pope, and this sentence was communicated to the Western churches. The pope was evidently alarmed. He justified himself before the Frankish clergy and insisted that they should answer the charges of the Greeks in a scholarly reply. This was done by several, most ably by Ratramnus, monk at Corbie. But during that year,A.D.867, the emperor Michael was murdered. His murderer and successor Basil the Macedonian undertook the patronage of the party of Ignatius, and asked of Pope Hadrian II. a new investigation and decision. ASynod at Constantinople,A.D.869, counted by the Latins the 8th œcumenical, condemned Photius and restored Ignatius. The deciding about the Bulgarians, however, was not committed to the Council but to the reputed representatives of the Saracen patriarchs as impartial umpires. They naturally decided in favour of the Byzantine patriarch. In vain the legates remonstrated. Photius in other respects under misfortune displays a character worthy of our esteem. For several years he languished without company, without books, under the strictest monastic rules. Yet he reconciled himself to Ignatius. Basil entrusted him with the education of his children, and on the death of Ignatius inA.D.878, restored him to the patriarchate. But still the ban of an œcumenical Council lay upon him. Only a new œcumenical Council could vindicate him. John VIII. agreed to this against the remonstrances of the Bulgarians. But at the ninthCouncil at Constantinople,A.D.879, the eighth according to the Greeks, the papal legates were completely duped. There was no mention of the Bulgarians, the Council ofA.D.869 was repudiated, and every one excommunicated who dared add anything to the creed. The pope afterwards indeed launched an anathema against the patriarch, his Council, and his followers. The succeeding emperor, Leo the Philosopher,A.D.886-911, again deposed Photius inA.D.886, but only that he might put an imperial prince in his place. Photius died in monastic exile inA.D.891.
§ 67.2.Leo VI., the Philosopher,A.D.886-911.—This emperor was three times married without having any children. He married the fourth only when he had assured himself that she would not be barren. The patriarch Nicolaus [Nicolas] Mysticus refused (§61, 2) to celebrate the marriage and was deposed. A Synod at Constantinople inA.D.906, attended by the legates of Pope Sergius III., approved the marriage and the deposition. But on his deathbed Leo repented of his violence. His brother and successor Alexander restored the patriarch Nicolas, and Pope John X. attended a Synod at Constantinople inA.D.920, which condemned the Council ofA.D.906, and pronounced a fourth marriage absolutely unallowable, but showed no inclination to make any concessions to the pope. New negociations were begun by the emperorBasil II.In consideration of a large sum of money the venal pope John XIX. was willing to acknowledge the Byzantines as œcumenical patriarchs of the East, and to resign all claims of the chair of Peter upon the Eastern church. But the affair became known before it was concluded. The removal of the new Judas was loudly demanded throughout the West, and the pope was compelled to break off his negociations.
§ 67.3.Completion of the Schism,A.D.1054.—Though so many anathemas had been flung at Rome by Byzantium and at Byzantium by Rome, they had hitherto been directed only against the persons and their followers, not against the respective churches as such. This defect was now to be supplied. The emperor Constantine Monómachus sought the papal friendship which he thought necessary to the success of his warlike undertakings. But the patriarchMichael Cærulariusfrustrated his efforts. In company with the Metropolitan of the Bulgarians, Leo of Achrida, he addressed inA.D.1053 an epistle to bishop John of Trani in Apulia, in which he charged the Latins with the worst heresies, and adjured the Western bishops to separate from them. To the heresies already enumerated by Photius, he added certain others; the use of blood and things strangled, the withdrawal of the Hallelujah during the fast season, and above all the use of unleavened bread in the Supper (§58, 4), on account of which he invented for the heretics the name of Azymites. This letter fell into the hands of CardinalHumbert, who translated it and laid it before pope Leo IX. A violent correspondence followed. The emperor offered to do anything to restore peace. At his request the pope sent three legates to Constantinople, among them the occasion of the strife, Humbert (§ 101, 2), and Cardinal Frederick of Lothringen, afterwards pope Stephen IX. (§ 96, 6). These fanned the flame, instead of quenching it. Imperial pressure indeed brought the abbot of Studion, Nicetas Pectoratus to burn his controversial treatise before the legates, but no threat nor violence could move to submission the patriarchs, on whose side were the people and the clergy. The legates finally laid a formal decree of excommunication on the altar of the church of Sophia, which Michael together with the other Eastern patriarchs solemnly returned,A.D.1054.
§ 67.4.Attempts at Reunion.—The crusades increased the breach instead of healing it. Many negociations were begun but none of them came to much. At a Synod at Bari in Naples, inA.D.1098, Anselm of Canterbury (§ 101, 1), who then lived as a fugitive in Italy, proved to the Greeks there present the correctness of the Latin doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. InA.D.1113, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Archbishop of Milan, vindicated it in a complete discourse before the emperor at Constantinople. And inA.D.1135, Anselm of Havelberg, who went to Constantinople as ambassador for Lothair II., disputed with the Archbishop Nicetas of Nicomedia, and afterwards at the command of the pope wrote down the disputation with creditable faithfulness. The hatred and abhorrence of the Greeks reached its climax on the erection of the Latin empire at Constantinople,A.D.1204-1261 (comp. § 94, 4). NeverthelessMichael Palæologus,A.D.1260-1282, who brought this dynasty to an end, strove on political grounds in every way possible to overcome this ecclesiastical schism. The patriarch Joseph of Constantinople and his librarian, the celebratedJoannes Beccus, stubbornly withstood him. The latter indeed in imprisonment became convinced that the differences were unessential and that a union was possible. This change of mind secured for him the patriarch’s chair. Meanwhile the negotiations of the emperor with the pope, Gregory X., in which he acknowledged the Roman chair to be the highest court of appeal in doctrinal controversies, were brought to a point in the œcumenicalCouncil at Lyons,A.D.1274, reckoned by the Latins the fourteenth. The imperial legates here acknowledged the primacy of the pope and subscribed a Roman creed, while to them was granted liberty to use their creed without the addition and to practise their peculiar ecclesiastical customs. Beccus vindicated this union in several treatises. But a change of dynasty overthrew him inA.D.1283. Joseph was restored and the union of Lyons was broken up leaving no trace behind.
§ 67.5. The advance of the Turks made it absolutely necessary for the East Roman emperors to secure the support of the West by reconciling and uniting themselves with the papacy. But the powerful party of the monks, supported by popular prejudice against the proposal, thwarted the imperial wishes on all sides. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem too were zealous opponents, not only animated by the old bitterness toward their more prosperous rivals on the chair of Peter, but also influenced against the views of the emperor by the policy of their Saracen rulers. The emperorAndronicus III. Palæologuswon to his side the abbotBarlaamof Constantinople, hitherto, though born in Calabria and there educated in the Roman Catholic faith, a zealous opponent of the Western doctrine. Barlaam went at the head of an imperial embassy to Avignon where the pope at that time, Benedict XIII., resided,A.D.1339. Negotiations, however, broke down through the obstinacy of the pope, who demanded of the Greeks above all unconditional submission in doctrine and constitution, and also showed not once any wish for renewing the conference.—On Barlaam, comp. §69, 2.—The political difficulties of the emperor, however, continually increased, and soJoannes V. Palæologustook further steps. He himself inA.D.1369 in Rome passed over to the Latin church, but neither did he get his people to follow him, nor did pope Urban V. get the Western princes to give help against the Turks.
§ 67.6. The union attempts ofJoannes VII. Palæologushad more appearance of success. The emperor had won over the patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, as well as the clever and highly cultured archbishopBessarionof Nicæa, and went personally in company with the latter and many bishops, inA.D.1438, to the papal Council atFerrara(§ 110, 8), where the pope, Eugenius IV., fearing lest the Greeks might join the reformatory Council at Basel, showed himself very gracious. The Council, nominally on account of the outbreak of a plague at Ferrara was transferred toFlorence, and here the union was actually consummated inA.D.1439. The primacy of the pope was acknowledged, though not altogether without dubiety of expression, the ritual differences as well as the priestly marriages of the Greeks tolerated, the doctrinal difference reduced to a misunderstanding and the orthodoxy of both churches maintained. In the Latin text of the decree referred to the pope was acknowledged as “Successor of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the vicar of Christ,” as “head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians, to whom plenary power was given by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church”—yet with the significant addition “in such a way as it is set forth in the œcumenical Councils and in the sacred Canons,” by which certainly the Greeks thought only of the Canons of Nicæa and Chalcedon referred to in §46, 1, but the Latins mainly of the Pseudo-Decretals of §87, 2; and thus it happens that in most of the Greek texts the propositions that define the universal primacy of the pope are either wanting, or essentially modified. The first place after the pope is given to the patriarch of Constantinople. In regard to the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit it was admitted that the Greek formula “ex Patre per Filium” was essentially the same as the Latin “ex Patre Filioque,” and by the definition “quod Sp. S. ex P. simul et F. et ex utroque æternaliter tanquam ab uno principio et unica spiratione procedit,” the latter was saved from the charge of dualism. A new difference, however, came to light in reference to Purgatory (§61, 4). The intercessions of the living and the presenting of masses for the dead were allowed by the Greeks as helping to secure the forgiveness of their still unatoned for venial sins, but they decidedly opposed the view that any of the dead could obtain this by his own temporary endurance of penal sufferings, and they would not hear of a fire as a means for its attainment. The Latins also taught that the unbaptized or those dying in mortal sin immediately pass into eternal condemnation and the perfectly pious immediately pass into God’s presence; while the Greeks maintained that this happens only at the last judgment. After long disputes, the Greeks, urged by their emperor, at last gave in on both points. Without much difficulty they accepted the seven sacraments of the Westerns (§ 104, 2). Thus was the union consummated amid embracings and jubilant shoutings. But in reality everything remained as of old. A powerful party at whose head stood archbishop Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus, who had been shouted down at Florence, roused the whole East against the union that had been made on paper. The new patriarch Metrophanes, whom they repudiated, was ridiculed as Μητροφόνος, and inA.D.1443 the rest of the Eastern patriarchs at a Synod at Jerusalem excommunicated all who maintained the union. When moreover the hoped for help from the West did not come even the union party lost their interest in it.Bessarion passed over to the Roman church, became cardinal and bishop of Tuscoli, and was as such on two occasions very near being made pope.193
§ 67.7. The Byzantine Christian empire went meanwhile rapidly to decay. On the 29th May, 1453, Constantinople was stormed by Mohammed II. The last emperor, Constantine XI., fell in a heroic struggle against tremendous odds. Mohammed conferred upon the patriarch Gennadius (§68, 5) the spiritual primacy and even temporal supremacy and full jurisdiction over the whole orthodox inhabitants of the empire, making him, however, answerable for their conduct. The other two patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch were in religious matters co-ordinate, in political matters subordinate, to him.For the executing of his spiritual power he had around him a Synod of twelve archbishops, of whom four as holders of the four divisions of the patriarchal diocese resided in Constantinople. The Synod chose the patriarchs and the Sultan confirmed the elections.—All union negociations were now at an end, for the Porte could only wish for the continuance of the schism. The enormous crowds of Greek refugees who sought protection in foreign lands, especially in Italy, Hungary, Galicia, Poland, Lithuania, either went directly over to the Roman Catholic church, or formed churches of their own under the name of United Greeks, purchasing liberty to observe their old church constitution and liturgy by accepting the Romish doctrine and the papal primacy.