I. A View of the Mutual Relations of the Greek and Latin Churches

The times of the Byzantine patriarchs Photius (in the ninth century) and Michael Cerularius (in the eleventh century) are quite rightly considered to be the epoch when the real division of the Church into Eastern and Western took place. But there is no doubt that this mutual enmity between the two sister churches would have subsided, would have been smoothed out, and in the course of time there would have arisen between them, if not unity, complete and complete, then at least more or less peaceful relations would have been established. But this was not destined to follow. The reason for this was the new and new clashes that took place in the mutual relations between the Greeks and the Latins during the rest of the existence of the Greek Empire in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. These circumstances not only did not contribute to the pacification of the enmity between the two above-mentioned Churches, but further intensified the mutual antagonism.

In looking at the history of the Eastern Church from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, i.e., before the fall of Byzantium, I would like first of all to explain what caused the progressive growth of the dislike of the Eastern and Western churches, and in what remarkable facts this is reflected.

One of the significant factors that contributed to this alienation of two kindred peoples, the Greeks and the Latins, was the Crusades, which began at the end of the eleventh century and lasted until the end of the thirteenth century. The Western Crusades brought the Greeks' dislike of the Latins to the highest degree of tension. First of all, these campaigns had the consequence that they flooded the Greek Empire with all sorts of entrepreneurs with economic tasks, immigrants from the West, who harmed the economic well-being of Greece.

It is not for us to inquire into what this depended on, only it is certain that from that time onwards industry, commerce, and capital passed into the hands of foreigners in the Greek Empire. It is true that even up to this time, especially the Venetians, had noticeably taken over commercial affairs in Greece; but from the twelfth century this became a kind of fatal law for the Greeks. Latins appeared in all the cities and towns of the Byzantine Empire; in Constantinople they occupied whole quarters. But what is worse of all: they were all moneyed people, who in the consciousness of their wealth looked with contempt at the Greeks. A Greek historian of the twelfth century (Kinnam) remarks about the Venetians: having the right to conduct trade without toll, without duty, they, "soon and immensely rich, became arrogant, began to treat (our) citizens as slaves, and treated in this way not only people from the lower classes, but also those who enjoyed great honors among the Greeks." [1] Another Greek historian of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Nicetas Choniates) speaks of the same Venetians in general: "They exchanged their native city for Constantinople in crowds and families, multiplied and grew stronger there, acquired great wealth and began to show insolence and pride, so that they not only were hostile to the Greeks, but did not pay attention to the royal threats and prescriptions. Their impudence surpassed all patience." [2] Of course, the Greek people could not cherish love and sympathy for the Latins, who had become rich at their expense and who were extremely conceited. This feeling could easily be mixed with the feeling of dislike that already existed among the Greeks as a result of the recent religious rupture between the Eastern and Western Churches. According to the customs of that time, when establishing each foreign trading post, first of all, a church was erected, then the square was smeared, houses, shops and shops were built. The trading post was something separate, closed, with a church in its center, where services were performed according to the customs and rites of the Western Church, where the liturgy was celebrated on unleavened bread, sang and read in the symbol: filioque, etc.3 How could one not feel the strongest hatred for these rich and proud Latins, because they, having their own churches, their own priests, without a doubt, looked upon themselves as the only true Christians in the community of heretics. On the other hand, the Latins in this case also had a reason to despise the Greeks even more, since the Greeks responded to contempt with contempt and avoided Latin worship. Thus, the influx of Latin foreigners to the East in the era of the Crusades was one, albeit small, but still a stumbling block, against which the religious unity of the Greeks and the Latins was more and more shattered. The main reason why the Crusades served to increase enmity between these Churches was, however, not in this, but in the barbarism, robbery and murder with which these campaigns of the Knights of the Cross accompanied the Greeks. The very first crusade terrified and numbed the Greeks. Could it be that these are our Christian brothers? This is the question that involuntarily came to the mind of every Greek when he saw the crusader hordes led by Peter the Hermit, Gottschalk. These advanced crowds of crusaders from the very first time persuaded the Orthodox against Western piety and piety. Their path was marked by such barbarism as the Greeks did not expect. The first crusaders were people who belonged to the lower, coarse, and depraved class of society. Of course, the Greeks, who bore the brunt of this campaign on their shoulders, had no time for the question: were they the best people of the West or the scum of society? They saw in them only villains who came from the West with the most sacred goals; hatred from these crusaders was transferred to the entire Christian West. In the opinion of the historian of the Crusades Michaud, the subjects of the Greek Empire suffered more from the first crusades than the Turks themselves from their first exploits. [4] True, the subsequent retinues of the Crusaders behaved incomparably better than their predecessors, but it was no longer possible to eradicate from the minds of the Orthodox people the prejudices against the Latins, represented by the first Crusaders. On the other hand, the leaders of the later crusader squads could not restrain the turbulent crowd and themselves keep within the limits of moderation. Many petty quarrels and skirmishes arose, and the result was that the Greeks saw in the Latins only people devoted to the deeds of darkness, blasphemously covering up the greatest crimes with the sign of the Cross. 5 It is not surprising, then, that the Crusades were, in the eyes of the Greeks, the greatest evil that the Latins ever declared themselves to be. As one modern Greek historian (Dositheus of Jerusalem) aptly put it, "the Crusades were holy war in the same sense in which leprosy is called a sacred disease." The Greeks wanted nothing more than that the end of these barbarian campaigns should come as soon as possible. Soon after the Latins flooded the East, the Greeks even clothed this desire, these hopes, in the form of a religious legend, recorded by a historian, a contemporary of the first Crusades. "During the reign of Emperor Alexios Comnenus in 1106, a comet appeared in the sky, going from west to east, it appeared for forty days and then disappeared. The emperor demanded that one of his courtiers (the prefect [6] Basil), who was considered wise, explain what the appearance and disappearance of this comet meant. The courtier, according to the historian, being perplexed, asked for time to think it over, and on the way he went to the church of St. John the Theologian and prayed. And when slumber fell upon him, he saw in a dream a saint dressed in sacred clothing, and to the proposed question about the comet, he replied that the appearance of the comet indicates an attack by the Latins (Celts) on the East, and that it disappeared indicates that the Latins will be exterminated." [7] It is evident that the Greeks of that time, wherever they happened, saw this or that indication of the hated Latins.

One of the most important facts of the first century of the Crusades, facts which made a strong and indelible impression on the Greeks, and which added more and more bile to the cup which the Greeks now drank from the Latins, was the deplorable event of the devastation, desolation, and desecration by Latin immigrants from the West of the most important among the Greek cities, Thessalonica, which was considered the "second eye of the empire." [8] This incident took place in 1185. At the capture of Thessalonica, the Latins expressed to a terrible extent the hatred with which they were filled with regard to the Greeks. The latter met here not with brothers in Christ, but with some fiends of hell. The Latins looked upon the Thessalonians as people rejected by God and condemned by Him to punishment. The Greek historian Nicetas Choniates presents us with a striking description of the atrocities of foreigners in Thessalonica. Let us listen to what he says: "It is not that they have robbed things, but that they have thrown the Holy Spirit to the ground. icons of Christ and His saints, trampled them underfoot, and if any decoration was found on them, they tore it off at random, and the icons themselves were taken to crossroads to trample on passers-by, or used instead of fuel when cooking food. Most intolerable and impious of all is the fact that some of them, jumping on the Altar, danced on it, jumped disorderly, singing some barbaric, most disgusting folk songs, and performed shameful things in the holy place. One of the leaders, sitting on a horse, rode into the church of the Martyr Demetrius. The myrrh flowing from the grave of this martyr was scooped up by the Latins with jugs and saucepans, poured into fish braziers, anointed their boots with myrrh, and used without any respect for other needs, for which oil is usually used. When the Orthodox gathered in church for divine services, the rude and impudent Latin soldiers did not leave those gathered in peace. They came to church at this time and, pretending to be praying, talked disorderly among themselves and shouted ugly, forcibly grabbed one of the worshippers by the throat, crushed them and thus interrupted the singing. Not only that, but some of them, pretending to sing along, shouted shameful songs or barked like dogs." [9] As for the everyday relations of the victors to the vanquished, the historian Nicetas Choniates tells such things that it remains only to keep silent about them. [10] In describing the occupation of Thessalonica by the Latins, the Greek historian, struck by this event, lavishes many of the harshest expressions, the most energetic exclamations, and concludes his speech with significant words, full of deep conviction and power, which fully explain the relations in which the Latins and Greeks found themselves towards the end of the twelfth century. we cannot unite in souls, although we are in external relations and often live in the same house." The historian calls the Latins "damned". [11]

The Greeks were indelibly impressed by the occupation of Thessalonica by the Latins, who indulged in unexpected barbarism. This impression, in addition to the Greek historian, is beautifully depicted by the Greek writer of the time, Metropolitan Eustathius of Phassalonica, a contemporary, who described this sorrowful event in his work "On the Conquest of Thessalonica by the Latins." [12] To what we have said about the conquest of Thessalonica, on the basis of the historian Nicetas, we can add the following characteristic features found in Eustathius: the streets were covered with corpses, which all, thanks to the predation of the conquerors, remained in a naked state. Not only that: the Latins allowed themselves the most impudent mockery of the corpses of the defeated Greeks. Human bodies were deliberately placed next to fallen donkeys, killed dogs and cats, and moreover they were given such postures as if they wanted to embrace and satisfy sensual lusts (cap. 98). The corpses of the dead remained unburied for a long time, and when the conquerors were asked to fulfill this universal duty, they replied with mockery: "We are used to this; moreover, such a sight and such a smell give us pleasure." Finally, the bodies of the dead were burned, but together with the corpses of various animals (cap. 107). The Greek temples not only did not stop the fury of the victors, but, it seems, inflamed it even more. Many of the vanquished, in view of the severity of the calamities, sought for themselves, if not protection, then consolation in the temples, and exclaimed: κύριε έλέησον,[13] but the Latins burst into the churches and, not in the least respecting the sanctity of the place, slaughtered the pilgrims, saying: "This is what it means: κύριε έλέησον," and laughed madly at this (cap. 99). Women and maidens fell prey to the bestial passion of the soldiers, and cynicism knew no bounds (ibid.). Many men and women from among the Thessalonians, unable to bear the misfortune, threw themselves from the roofs and broke or drowned in wells (cap. 104). Those who survived the conquest of the city by the Latins began a terrible life for them: the noses of the vanquished were either broken or cut off by the victors, so that the friend could not recognize his friend's face and had to ask: "Who is he?" (cap. Ill); almost no one had clothes: many considered themselves lucky to have a scrap of matting with which they could cover their loins (cap. 108); There was no bread, and if a Greek asked a Latin for bread, he received in response the name "devil" and blows (cap. 113).

But the capture of Thessalonica was not the only instance of the Latins' fury against the Greeks. What happened during the occupation of Thessalonica by the Latins was later repeated during the invasion of Byzantium by the same Latins. This event, which took place at the beginning of the thirteenth century and had a sad consequence for the capital, overflowed the cup of suffering, which the Greeks had to drink to the dregs through the fault of their Western brethren in the faith. The conquest of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders, who turned their sword instead of the infidels against Christians like themselves, took place in 1204, on April 13. It is necessary to know with what pride and admiration the Greeks looked at their capital, Constantinople, with its sacred monuments of antiquity, with its most remarkable works of art, in order to understand what irreconcilable hatred they must have breathed upon the Latins after this event. The Greeks liked to call Byzantium "the common capital of the entire universe and the universal harbor." [14] But the pride of the Greeks, Byzantium, was not only conquered by the Latins, but also plundered, but also desecrated; Could the Greeks ever forgive the Latins for this? Nicetas Choniates, a contemporary and eyewitness of the event, has left us both a vivid image of the sorrow that every Greek was imbued with at the sight of misfortune, and a description of the very fury of the Latins in Byzantium. Nikita writes: "Here are the remains of the martyrs scattered in unclean places! What is terrible to hear about, this very thing could be seen then: namely, how the divine Blood and Body of Christ were thrown down and spilled to the ground. Plundering precious vessels, the Latins broke some of them, hiding the jewelry that was on them in their bosoms, and others turned them into ordinary use at their table, instead of baskets for bread and goblets for wine, as the true forerunners of the Antichrist," the historian notes. "The precious altar of the St. Sophia Church, consisting of a variety of substances, merged into one beautiful whole by means of fire, was chopped into pieces by the crusaders and divided among themselves. All jewelry, gold, silver, precious stones were torn from their places. Beasts of burden were brought into the church, on which the treasures of the church were taken out, they were brought to the very altar, and since some of them slipped and could not rise to their feet because of the smoothness of the polishing of the stone floor, they were stabbed with daggers here, thus desecrating the sacred church platform with their dung and spilled blood. Here is a certain woman, the historian continues to depict, full of sins, a whistle of indecent, seductive and shameful melodies, sat down on the patriarchal seat (co-throne), singing her shrill melody, and then threw herself into the dance, quickly whirling and shaking her legs. [15] And not only these iniquities were committed, and others were not, — or these are more, and others less; but all kinds of crimes were committed with equal zeal by all" (i.e., the victors). "And now we have seen," the historian continues, "many things that were completely contrary to what Christians call pious and in accordance with the word of faith." [16] It is remarkable: not only soldiers participated in the robbery, but also Latin clergymen. From ancient times, Constantinople was famous not only for its wealth, but also for its abundance of shrines. The emperors of Greece collected sacred and venerable objects of Christian antiquity from everywhere. [17] And so, while the soldiers were plundering gold and silver and jewels,18 the Latin monks and abbots rushed rapaciously upon the precious treasures of the shrines, and did not neglect any violent means to achieve their goal. One of these, the Abbé of Paris, Martin Lietz, has become famous for his insolence in the plunder of shrines, and yet this man is called by Western chroniclers for all this, though a predator, but a holy predator — praedo sanctus. [19] In this way many of the sacred treasures of the Greek Church passed to the West; the churches in Rome, Paris and Venice were especially enriched by them. [20] What could the Greek people feel, except the utmost hatred, when they saw all this? The social position of the Greeks in Constantinople reaches an intolerable extreme. Nicetas Choniates notes: "The Latin soldiers gave no mercy to anyone or anything; they did not want to have communion with the subjugated, even in food and maintenance, behaved arrogantly and uncommunicatively towards them, turned them into slavery or drove them out of their homes." Wives and nuns were regarded by the brutal conquerors as natural prey for their sensuality. [21] The story of the conquest of Constantinople which we have quoted might perhaps be doubted, since it is borrowed from a Greek witness, if the modern Western Church itself, for its part, did not give us testimony that what the Greek writer told us was not in vain, not a slander against the Latins. Pope Innocent III wrote the following letter to Cardinal Peter in the East, directing a speech against the Crusaders who had forgotten their vows: "You have vowed to use your efforts to liberate the Holy Trinity. The land is out of the hands of the infidels, and instead they have foolishly deviated from the purity of your vow. You have taken up arms not against the infidels, but against the Christians, you have desired not the return of the Holy Spirit. But the possession of Constantinople, preferring earthly riches to heavenly blessings. And the worst of it is that some of you have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex, but, committing fornication and adultery in the eyes of all, have abused not only ordinary wives, but also virgins who have dedicated themselves to God. The imperial treasures and the property of noble and simple people were not enough for you, you stretched out your hands against the riches of the Church and, what is most criminal, against sacred objects, for you stole sacred vestments and carried off icons, crosses and relics, so that the Greek Church, with all its sufferings, will not wish to return to the apostolic see, and, seeing in the Latins pernicious examples and works of darkness, he will justly hate them more than dogs." [22] Innocent, as we see, in his description of the sack of Constantinople by the Latins, almost literally repeats the testimony of Nicetas Choniates about the same event, and thus confirms beyond any doubt the story of the Greek historian. The Pope was not mistaken when he said that for these actions the Greeks would hate the Latins like dogs. The Greeks were deeply outraged by the violence and disrespect for their religious beliefs by the Latins! And indeed, how could one not be indignant? In the opinion of a modern historian, "this conquest of Constantinople by the Latins brought about the greatest changes in the condition of the Greek people like no other event. The supremacy of Roman law and civil institutions is now undermined in the East, and from here, according to it, all the later sad and unfavorable phenomena in relation to the Byzantine kingdom, the Orthodox Church and the Greek nation must be produced." [23] Seeing the strange behavior of his Western brethren in Christ, Nicetas Choniates, drawing the attention of his contemporaries to the events in Constantinople, exclaimed: "Look, such are the Latins, "this people, who consider themselves more pious and righteous, more faithful keepers of Christ's commandments than the Greeks; here are these zealots who have raised their Cross on their shoulders; they," remarks Choniates, "turned out to be utter hypocrites." [24] Without a doubt, under the influence of the awareness of the severity of the disasters to which the Latins subjected the Byzantines, under the pretext of the liberation of St. John. This historian declares directly and decisively: "The excessive hatred of the Latins for us and our extreme disagreement with them do not allow for a single moment the thought of friendliness between us." [25] The Greeks began to expect only one evil thing from the Latins, and that to the highest degree: "What most terrible evil will men not do," says Nicetas of the Latins, "who have gathered in their hearts such a malice towards the Greeks as the ancient serpent himself, the enemy of the human race, never had?" [26] After this, could one expect that the disunity of the Christian Church, which took place in the eleventh century, would again come to its wholeness, heal in the centuries following this sad event? And the Greeks are not to blame for this!

As soon as the fact of the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins took place, a series of measures began aimed at restricting and suppressing the Orthodox faith and the Church; and this continued during the reign of the Latin emperors in Constantinople for more than fifty years. It turned out that Pope Innocent himself was only performing an empty formality when he condemned the Crusaders for the capture of Byzantium; In his heart, he was glad of such an event and admired the possibility of important religious consequences. Innocent expressed these heartfelt thoughts in a letter addressed to the bishops and abbots who were among the Crusaders in Constantinople. The Pope pathetically wrote: "In the Scriptures it is said, God changes the times and sets up kingdoms; in our time, to our joy, this is apparently being fulfilled in the kingdom of Greece. God handed over the Byzantine Empire from the proud to the humble, from the disobedient to the obedient, from the separated to the faithful sons of the Church, i.e. from the Greeks to the Latins." [27] In another letter to the East, the Pope expresses the hope that with the conquest of Constantinople not only the Byzantines will turn to the Roman faith, but also Jerusalem and the Church of Alexandria. [28] To this end, Innocent made orders that threatened both the faith and the Greek Church. As early as the same year, when the occupation of Constantinople by the Westerners took place, the Pope ordered that priests and clergy be appointed in Constantinople to perform the Latin divine services; At the same time, the pope impressively remarked that it would be reprehensible to remain without divine services according to the Roman rite where the Latin people were perhaps destined to remain rulers forever. [29] Under the influence of such ideas, the Latin Patriarch in Constantinople, whom the Westerners hastened to appoint, soon came to the question: Should not the Greeks be forcibly converted to Latinism? With this question, the Patriarch addresses Innocent. For the first time, the Pope answers this question not quite definitely, but in any case with a clear inclination in favor of a positive solution to the question put to him. Innocent wrote to the Patriarch: "If the Greeks cannot be turned away by you from their divine services and from their celebration of the sacraments, then leave them both, until I, after mature reflection, lay down something else regarding this matter." [30] This mature reflection was not long awaited by the Greeks on the part of the Pope. In 1213, a strong persecution of Greek Christians by the Latins flared up. This persecution became especially intense on the arrival in Constantinople of the papal legate Pelagius (cardinal, bishop of Alban), who struck the Greeks both by his arrogance and by the splendor of his retinue, which shone with the purple color of their clothes, to which, according to the natives, only the emperors had the exclusive right. He began his activity by threatening and persecuting all those who refused to obey the statutes of the Roman Church; he banned Greek worship, threw Orthodox priests and monks into prison, threatening the stubborn even with the death penalty. Many of them sought refuge in flight, while the noblest Byzantines, alarmed by the cruel measures, demanded that the then Latin emperor in Constantinople, Henry (Eric in the Greek pronunciation), avert persecution. They directly said to the emperor: "We recognize your authority, but only in external matters, and not in spiritual and matters of conscience. We cannot give up our rites and what we consider sacred for ourselves." Fearing indignation within the very walls of the capital, Emperor Henry ordered the Greek churches to be unlocked and the monks and priests who suffered for their adherence to Orthodoxy were released from prison. [31] But, of course, this measure did not erase the heavy, painful impression that the arbitrariness and intolerance of the Latins must have made and did make on the Greeks.

It is in these features that historians depict the attitude of the Latins towards the Greeks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The discord, which was more and more established between the two Christian peoples, became even sharper and more decisive when the Greeks, for their part, did not miss an opportunity to harm the Latins in the East at the time under consideration. They took advantage of the opportunity to respond to the arrogance and rudeness of the Latins by causing them trouble. Their patience, especially with the passage of time, was wearing thin, and cruelty was the retribution of this people for their Acts. If we read in Nicetas Choniates' account of the attitude of the Greeks under the emperor Manuel towards the army of a certain leader of the Crusaders, Conrad III, we shall see that even before the sack of Constantinople the Greeks looked with suspicion and unfriendliness at the hordes of Latins, who frightened the former by their movements through the regions of the Eastern Empire.

The emperor himself did not stay away from these actions. He either ordered secret ambushes against the passing troops, or persuaded the Turks to attack the crusaders by surprise. [32] This is how the Greeks treated the Crusaders, the temporary guests of their countries, just as they treated or even worse the Latins, who had previously settled in the Byzantine Empire. Worthy of historical attention is the following case of an outburst of popular indignation on the part of the Greeks against the Latins in the second half of the twelfth century. This was enough for the Byzantines to massacre the Latins in Constantinople. According to Nicetas Choniates, "the inhabitants of Byzantium rose up against the Latins, agreeing among themselves to a united attack, and a battle began on land and sea. The Latins rushed to save themselves as best they could, leaving their houses full of wealth to the mercy of the robbers. Some of them scattered throughout the city, others took refuge in noble houses, others sought salvation on the ships of their fellow tribesmen. And those who were caught were all condemned to death and all without exception lost their property." [33] The Western historian of the time, William of Tyre, relates stories of terrible things that happened during this revolt of the Greeks against the Latins. "A whole part of the city inhabited by Latins," he says, "was burned. Also, the churches in which many of them sought refuge were set on fire. In the Latin hospital, the patients were thrown out of their beds. Even the bones of dead Latins were dug out of graves and dragged through the streets and alleys. The papal legate, Cardinal John, was beheaded, and his head was tied to the tail of a dog, which walked around the city. The Greek priests and monks, according to William, showed the most active participation in this. They rewarded the murderers with money, went from house to house and found the Latins who had hidden in them and handed them over to the executioners. More than 4,000 Latins, as slaves, were sold to the Turks and other barbarians. The Latins, for their part, fleeing on ships from Constantinople, plundered all the Greek cities that they met on the way, and beat the inhabitants with the sword." [34]

Here are the facts of deep national enmity in which in the XII and ΧΠΙ centuries the mutual dislike of the Latins and Greeks was expressed. These facts took place in the political and social relations of the two Christian peoples, but at the same time they quite naturally placed new insurmountable obstacles to the brotherly rapprochement of the East with the West in the religious sphere as well. Sworn enemies in life could not be friends of conviction. The Latins saw in the Greeks people who were unfit in all respects, and, consequently, had a low regard for both religious rites and their convictions; In turn, the Greeks saw in the Latins barbarians in all respects, including religion.

Now, in what ecclesiastical-historical facts was expressed the ever-increasing hostility of the Latin Church to the Greek Church and vice versa at the time under consideration, a hostility that had been strong even before that time, and as a result of the circumstances we have narrated, it increased tenfold?