UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Chapter 1 : The period of the seven ecumenical councils. Primacy and caesaropapism.

For the relationship between the churches of East and West, the reign of Constantine the Great was of the greatest significance. First, he made Christendom legal , which from then on made the emperor a factor in church decision-making that could not be underestimated. The church came out of illegality, but rightly had to fear caesaropapism, interference by the secular ruler in the affairs of the church. One went to appeal to the emperor. Constantine single-handedly gave the Donatists a new trial at the Synod of Arles (314), convened the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea (325), and then had the church reinstate Arius.

Second, Constantine also founded the new imperial capital, Constantinople for economic and military reasons: Italy was impoverished, and war with the Persians required proximity to the empire leadership. Rome was then no longer a shadow of what it once was. Within a short time, however, the emperor's new residence rose to very high esteem. It received a bishop, who became archbishop and patriarch, who had to share in the prestige of the New Rome. As a result, he necessarily became the rival of the bishop of Old Rome, who until then had played the undisputed leadership role in the Church.

The first and most important ecumenical council of Nicea established against the Arians the dogma of the divinity of the holy and only Trinity to be worshipped. The Council of Sardica (Sofia) (343) gave the bishop deposed by the provincial synod of his diocese the right of appeal to the pope. In the fourth century appeals usually went to the emperor but in 343 the situation was different: there was an Arian Eastern Roman emperor, Konstantius, and a moderate-Aryan majority in the east. Just had it been decided in Antioch (341), that no appeal was possible for bishops. At Sardica, on the border of east and west, the eastern Arian delegation walked out, leaving the assembly to the powerful West Roman emperor, the westerners and the eastern orthodox bishops excommunicated by the Aryans. The Council of Sardica may have been a useful response to the Arian grab for power in the east but the question is whether it invested too much ecclesiastical power in Rome.

Emperor Theodosius II in 380 still called the patriarch of Alexandria as second after the pope in the law on religious freedom, but in 381 the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople granted the patriarch of Constantinople the second place of honor after the pope. Rome did not recognize this third canon. It also had a partisan counselor in Alexandria.

At the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431), Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated because of his teachings. Actually, this marked a triumph for Alexandria. In canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), “ta presbeia tes times” (honorary primacy for Rome) had already become “ta isa presbeia” (the same privileges as Constantinople), the patriarch was given de facto jurisdiction over the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, Thrace and barbarian territory, and it was suggested that the primacy of the pope should pass to the patriarch, now that Constantinople was the new imperial capital. Confident was Pope Leo's response: the claims of Constantinople come at the expense of Alexandria, Antioch and the three metropolitan bishops of the dioceses in question. And, “The imperial city cannot become an apostolic seat” pithily says that Rome's primacy cannot be moved to a city without Christian tradition.

Leo played an important role in Chalcedon. In his dogmatic letter to Flavianus, he had proposed a Christology acceptable to both contending parties, Alexandrians and Antiochens. With this he established his authority. The assembly repeatedly exclaimed: “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.” He remained known as the “pillar of orthodoxy.”

Justinian I dictated the events of the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (553). The city of Rome and the enslaved Pope Vigilius were in his power. No ecumenical council had been so under the influence of an emperor. Justinian wanted to bring the monophysites back into the empire church which did not succeed, even though he made many concessions: the three chapters were condemned and cyrillic-alexandrian (anti-antiochean) christological formulas were adopted. All this did no good to the relationship between the Greek and Latin churches: Milan, Aquileia and North Africa did not recognize Vigilius' successor Pelagius, and only Gregory the Great (around 600) was able to bring the breakaway churches back to communion with Rome. The new so-called neo-chalcedonian christological formulas are also stranger to the nevertheless somewhat antiochean West.

Phokas (602-610), a half-barbarian subaltern officer was put on the shield on a Danube expedition in the post-justinian crumbling of the empire. He ran a reign of terror and was good friends with Rome only because he lifted the schism by taking back the title ecumenical patriarch (meaning patriarch of the Christian empire, Byzantium). Patriarch John IV the Faster had usurped that title in 588. Phokas was given a statue in Rome in gratitude.

 Around 600 was also a fact the victory of the monastic movement, a devotional, contemplative, anti-hellenistic movement emanating from the monasteries. This victory marked a widening of the rift between East and West, because the monastics thought distinctly nationalistic, and also, because the easterner praying in isolation developed on a different spiritual path (of transfiguration and deification) as his Western counterpart, the Benedictine praying and working in society.

One can see the monastic movement as the center of resistance to the recognition of one divine energeia, and later one will (thelema) in the person of Christ. One should not underestimate the political importance of this issue: Herakleios (610-641) was reconquering the monophysitisohe east, i.e. Syria, Palestine and Egypt, from the Persians (with the fanatical support of the Church, by the way), so politically a religious settlement would be highly desirable. Patriarch Sergius was encouraged in his reconciliation efforts by Pope Honorius (625-638), who expressed himself not monenergetically but explicitly monotheletically. Politically, Sergius' efforts missed the mark: the Arabs were in Palestine and Syria by 638.

The orthodoxy of one or two energies or wills was not fixed in advance. At the Lateran Council of 649 and the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (680-81), people contributed all sorts of curious ancient books for citations to prove one or two wills from the fathers. They were like erudite congresses of antiquaries and paleographers. One cut the knot for the integrity of orthodoxy and decided in favor of two wills. Pope Honorius was anathematized with other malefactors, including patriarchs.

At the second Trullian Council (691-92) it became clear, that the two halves of the church could not live on geographically separated without one day revealing major differences. Under Justinian II, 102 canons sanctioned typically Byzantine customs, including priestly marriage, but also banned Latin customs. Consequently, the pope's signature is missing at the bottom of the acta.

The popes sought emancipation from the emperor after the tribulations of the seventh century. The monotheletic Konstans II (641-668) had put pope Martinus to death and made Ravenna autocephal, i.e. independent of Rome, in 666. In 726 byzantine emperor Leo III began his iconoclastic policy. In 732, he removed Sicily, southern Italy and eastern Illyria (Dalmatia) from Roman jurisdiction, because it was Byzantine territory and he could enforce his will there. In 751, the iconodoule defenders of Ravenna surrendered the city not to Rome but to the advancing Lombards. The Longobard advance was merely a pretext for the pope to provide himself with a new protector; his real motive was to get rid himself of the emperor, now impotent in central Italy. The pope traveled to France and fixed the treaty of Quiercy (754) with Pepin, who soon defeated the Lombards and granted Ravenna to Rome. Constantin IV Copronymos demanded restitution of his territory, but Pepin refused.

It has never been established whether or not Charlemagne had prior knowledge of the imperial crown, which fell to him in Rome on Christmas Day 800. In any case, unlike his successors, he refused to use the official imperial title (emperor of the Romans, imperator romanorum). He only wanted to be the equal of the eastern emperor. Pope Leo III, through the imperial crown, sought to impose on Charles the function of protector, i.e. servant, of Rome. An additional motive was to bind Charles to Rome by his title and to keep him from founding a second Rome in Aachen. But above all, the imperial coronation is directed against the east: it is the completion of the emancipation of the pope from the eastern emperor.

In Syria, beyond the reach of the emperor, John Damascene, the wesir of caliph Mu'awija, formulated the monastic, orthodox way of image worship. The persecuted iconodouloi went abroad and appealed to the pope at Rome. In itself, an appeal to Rome was not a recognition of the papal monarchy, since at the same time the idea of pentarchy (five-member church government by the four patriarchs and the pope) was assumed and used as an argument against Constantinople. In the lull after the first ikonoclastic wave, image worship was reinstated by Irene at the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicea (787). Patriarch Tarasius' orthodox formulation there of the exit of the Holy Spirit: ekporeuetai dia tou Yiou (proceeding through the Son), and especially the Nicene decisions on images were fiercely opposed by Charles' court theologians in the Libri carolini. The Franks had the political upper hand in Europe; now they wanted to set the tone theologically as well. In the first instance, caesaropapism had led the pope to seek the protection of a Frankish king. Soon it would become apparent that even so foreign armies appeared in Rome and the pope's integrity would be tested. From now on, contacts between pope and eastern emperor will take place only from a political necessity.

Chapter 2: The period of the two great schisms.

During iconoclasm, a division into akrivists and liberals became noticeable in the Byzantine Church. The akrivists, led by the monks of the Stoudiou Monastery, had their supporters among the monks and the people. They were against any theological compromise, almost xenophobic and pro-Roman during iconoclasm. The liberals were well-educated and more likely to yield to imperial power over the church. Theodora permanently restored iconoclasm in 843. To accommodate the Stoudites, she made the castrated son of Michael I (811-813) patriarch. In the coup of Bardas in 859, this Ignatius had to give way to the liberal scholar Photius, who rapidly went through all the ordinations. Ignatius appealed to Rome, to Nicholas I, who was imbued with the idea that Rome represented the highest authority in the Church.

In 863 Nicholas declared Photius and those he ordained to be deposed. In 867 Photius excommunicated Nicholas, but had to enter the monastery the same year, because Basileios I had seized power and wanted church peace. Ignatius was allowed to return and have Photius condemned at the council of Constantinople. Ignatius died in 877 and Photius was allowed to return. At the Aya Sofia council, his excommunication was lifted. In 880, Pope John VIII approved the acta, so far as was known to him. Assuming a second schism, it would have been resolved in 899.

The main cause of the Photian schism was the Bulgarian issue. Boris, the Bulgarian king (853-880), wanted to be baptized and turned to Constantinople for priests and preachers. He also requested a patriarch for Bulgaria, but received no permission. He then turned to Rome for more. Rome was interested. He got his priests and preachers under the leadership of Formosus of Porto, but no patriarch from Rome either. Formosus came to reorganize the church already somewhat built up by the Byzantines. He made the filioque sing in the creed and forbade priestly marriage and Easter fasts in the Byzantine manner. The reaction in Constantinople was fierce: Rome established its authority in traditionally Constantinopolitan dioceses, Thrace and Illyria, and introduced the filioque, signaling German emperor Louis' victory in Rome. German expansion in the Balkans was now feared.

A second cause was that the East did not understand Roman claims: Rome had not kept pace in the matter of images and had not lived up to her leadership during the second stage of the iconoclasm. The east had been bewildered when the pope crowned a barbarian prince as western emperor and placed himself under his protection.

The increasing power of the papacy led to further primacy claims in Nicholas' time, but opposition to this in the east grew analogously. Nicholas brought the land issue into play with authority in the church. However, the filioque in Bulgaria ruined Rome's standing in the east.

Leo the Wise (886-912) jeopardized good relations with Rome through his fourth marriage because the patriarch of Constantinople, Nikolaos Mystikos, would not grant dispensation. Leo sent Nikolaos away and sought justice from the other three patriarchs, but especially from Rome. When Nikolaos became patriarch again after Leo's death, he broke communion with Rome until reconciliation in 923.

In general, however, from the photian period until the schism of 1054, the relationship between the churches was undisturbed. The patriarch ruled the Byzantine church almost autonomously, while also being more comfortable with the emperor (in 969 a Byzantine Canossa for John Tzimiskes). The papacy was weak and scandalous. In the ninth century the Greek monks were still supporters of Rome's leadership, in the tenth and eleventh centuries their disposition turned, due in part to the experiences of the Greek monks in southern Italy, the powder keg under unity.

Precisely where contact was more frequent, political conflicts and mutual antipathies worsened. Basileios I lost Sicily to the Arabs in 878, but gained a foothold in southern Italy at the expense of the Duke of Beneventum. This made Byzantium the main permanent power in politically unstable Italy for the next century and a half. The southern Italian countryside was Latin and Longobardic; in the cities, Greek and Latin churches coexisted. The Normans, who began to conquer southern Italy from 1040 onward, were Latins. The papacy, strongly influenced by Lotharingian and Cluniac reform ideas since the capture of Rome in 962 by the German emperor, Otto I the Saxon, with its emphasis on uniformity in customs, did not want the conquered territories to fall back into the Byzantine rite. Consequently, this was soon banned by local synods and the Norman government.

The patriarch of Constantinople was Michael Cerullarius, once a candidate for the emperorship, now deeply dissatisfied with the possibilities of his office to achieve great power development. He had been a civil servant, rigid, uncultured, but popular. He was a declared opponent of the Byzantine commander in southern Italy, the Apulian Argyrus, who was his rival with the emperor and advocated a political coalition of the empire with the papacy.

The banning of the Byzantine rite stung Michael, but more threatening to him was the coalition with the papacy. If it materialized, he would have to cede power and prestige to the papacy. And he knew, that under the influence of the Cluniac monks, the papacy was sharpening its primacy claims.

Michael had the Latin churches in Constantinople closed in 1052, and had the archbishop of Ochrid, Leo of Bulgaria, in a letter to the synkellos and Latin bishop John of Trani (southern Italy), attack particularly mercilessly the Latin use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist (1053). The Latins ate at the table of the Jews. Cardinal Humbert made a colored translation of that letter, and Pope Leo IX, the Lorraine Bruno of Toul, elected in 1048, was out of his mind. Then letters arrived from the emperor and from the patriarch, very conciliatory and reasonable. Then the pope fell ill, and had Humbert handle the matter. It was decided, that three Roman legates, including Humbert himself, should go and call the Patriarch of Constantinople to order. One left in the spring of 1054. The sequel is well known. Leo died on April 1, 1054; the envoys had lost their mandate and became increasingly isolated in Constantinople. Nevertheless, Humbert placed the banbulla on the main altar of the Aya Sofia on July 16, 1054.

Relevantly, the schism occurred under a decidedly weak emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos, who took life and government lightly. Normally, in view of the pope's political power, the Byzantine emperors were the most outspoken advocates of good relations with Rome. Thus, because of a weak emperor, the following three people came to be opposed. Leo was the nephew of the German emperor, but as pope he strained to free the church from the yoke of the German emperors. Leo is the exponent of the self-consciousness of the reformed papacy. He surrounded himself with Cluniacs like Humbert. It is unfortunate that he allowed Humbert to commit and not be able to desavourage him more. Humbert had radical views on Roman primacy. He was the exponent of Cluny, which had a strong interest in the pope's unassailable authority over the church. Humbert was more of a fighter than Leo, uncompromising and convinced he was right. His attitude was also anachronistic and clashed with Byzantine psychological reality. He disregarded the tradition and disposition of the Byzantine clergy.

Cerullarius was the exponent of the Byzantine Church, which, with its recently acquired vast Slavic hinterland, could no longer bow to Roman supremacy. Photius had still tolerantly said of customs: every church its own. Cerullarius chose them as a tactical weapon, making ecclesiastical union impossible because of the Normans. It seems like a demagogic trick, but well, the controversy over customs is justified by the real political, cultural and theological disputes, and symbolize the gap between the two worlds.

The result of 1054 was bitter. The reformed papacy turned the spotlight on the events and the Greek polemic. Humbert retained his supremacy in the curia until his death (1061); his friends Hildebrand and Frederick of Lorraine became pope. At the level of the common people, 1054 passed unnoticed, but gradually public opinion nevertheless began to see the other side as heretical.

The schism of 1054 is also a symptom of a change of power throughout the Mediterranean. The Seljuk Turks settled in the heart of Asia Minor after the victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071. Also in 1071, the Normans took the last Byzantine stronghold in Italy, Bari, and would threaten Greece for two centuries. The reformed papacy became increasingly self-conscious. The decree of 1059 stipulated that no longer the German emperor, but henceforth the Roman cardinals, would choose the pope.

Immediately after the schism, the emperors' attempts to establish union with Rome began because the pope could control the Latin Normans. He could also provide mercenaries. In 1072, Pope Alexander II offered union to the Byzantine church in exchange for subordination. Patriarch Xifilinus caused the union talks to be shelved. Michael VII requested military support against the Turks in 1073. The pope, Gregory VII (Hildebrand), was willing, but was kept busy by the investiture struggle (1077 Canossa), and in addition, Xifilinus again delayed negotiations.

The reign of Alexius I Komninos (1081-1118) had the greatest impact on the east-west relationship. Alexius had to protect the totally dilapidated empire from all kinds of eager neighbors. In 1082 he granted Venice extraordinarily favorable trade terms in exchange for an alliance against the Norman Guiscard, who had taken Dyrrhacion in Epirus in 1081. Alexius concluded a provisional union with Pope Urban II in 1089, which was not converted into a definitive one because the stipulated period of eighteen months by which the disputes should have been settled expired. On the political front, Alexius made it through. However, he was short of mercenaries to push back the Seljuks. In March 1095 his legates were allowed to address the Council of Piacenza, and Urban, thinking that at least a whole army of the Cross was needed, made his call for holy war on November 27, 1095 at the Council of Clermont. Urban had two motives: he wanted to help Eastern Christianity, and to expel the infidels who occupied the Holy Sepulchre and made life difficult for pilgrims. Alexius only wanted to fight the Turks, who threatened his empire and persecuted the Orthodox. If possible by diplomacy. He needed mercenaries, not an independent army. Holy war was foreign to the Byzantines, and the center of the Christian world was not Jerusalem, but Constantinople.

The troublemaker among the crusaders was Guiscard's son Bohemund, who was embittered: he had fallen short of the throne in 1085, had experienced the Norman failure after 1082 in Epirus, and now the emperor refused to make him commander-in-chief. To Alexius, Antioch, with its strategic location and Greek population, was a Byzantine claim, but Bohemund claimed Antioch for himself in 1098, despite his feudal oath to the emperor, by which he had pledged to transfer ancient Byzantine possessions. After earlier difficulties, the patriarch of Antioch, John the Oxite, left the city, leaving his seat to the Latins, according to the Latins, to rule over Latins. But John resigned in Constantinople and his senior clergy chose a successor there recognized by the entire East. Formally, this event in Antioch is the first cause of the further separation of the churches of east and west.

The three crusades of 1101 failed in Anatolia. The emperor, who also maintained diplomatic contacts with the Turks, was blamed for everything. Bohemund returned to Italy to organize a crusade against Byzantium with the pope, Paschalis II, by now also convinced of Byzantine perfidity. This papal support was the second cause of the further disintegration of the churches. Bohemund, however, lost in 1108 in a clash in Epirus.

In 1138 John II (1118-1143) visited Antioch as feudal lord, and renounced claiming the Latin patriarchate there, preferring an alliance with Rome. Innocent II threatened in 1139 to ban the Latins from serving in the Byzantine army if John interfered in the Antiochean question. The emperor Manuel nevertheless installed a Greek in 1165, but the animosity surrounding the failed Second Crusade (1147-1149) in particular thoroughly spoiled relations. Manuel made a truce with the Turks to keep the Crusaders in check. This was blamed on him, although the Norman Roger II attacked undefended Greece in 1147. Runciman points out that at this time political events brought the schism to the level of the people. The Byzantine was perfidious, the Westerner barbaric. These were no longer fellow Christians.

Manuel was “latinophrone” and also had ambitions in the west: the coastal strip of Ancona was occupied in 1155-1156. After his death, Greek frustration with the Franks (Frankoi=Westerners), who held the best posts in the empire, and with the Venetians, who enriched themselves at the expense of the empire, is expressed. After the regency of Manuel's second wife, the Latin Mary of Antioch (1180-1182), the coup of Andronikos Komninos slaughtered Franks and Venetians in Constantinople. The Crusaders had committed greater massacres in Jerusalem (1099) and Cyprus (1156), but this time it was a spontaneous popular movement, born of the conviction, that the Latins were in control of the government. On the third crusade (118-91), Richard the Lionheart conquered Cyprus, which he gave on loan to the Lusignans. The Greek clergy there became subordinate to a foreign, Latin episcopate.

Innocentius III lost control of his own project, the Fourth Crusade, when Boniface of Montferrat was elected leader of it. A pretender to the throne, Alexius IV Angelos, led the Crusaders to Constantinople, had himself placed on the throne but was unable to fulfill his promises. The Crusader army then took the city, plundered for three days and founded the Latin Empire. Innocentius disavowed the method but was pleased with the result. Then he missed an opportunity in 1206, when after the death of Greek Patriarch John Kamateros in Bulgaria, the Greek clergy asked the pope to be allowed to become a unified church (autonomous with its own liturgy and patriarch, but recognizing the supremacy of the pope). It would have made him the champion of the Greeks against the Franks, having divided the Greeks and made the Latin empire permanent. But Innocent did not respond, believing he had to uphold the newly appointed Venetian Morosini. The Greek clergy then rushed to Nicea to elect a patriarch who fully supported the claims of Theodorus Laskaris, the emperor. The Greek lands were never Latinized.

John Vatatzes laid the foundation for the reunification of the empire from Nicea. Michael VIII Palaiologos bought on March 13, 1261 for a very high price (85% of the tolls) the assistance of the Genoese for the recapture of the capital, so that Byzantium was henceforth a plaything of two rather than one Italian sea republics. But still in 1261, on July 25, his general Strategopoulos received Konstantinopel unguarded. The West, disappointed in its ambition and harmed in its economic interests, thwarted the restoration of the empire. It was Michael's fate, having to fight the West, while it would turn out that the longer-term more dangerous enemy was coming from the East. The expelled Latin emperor, Baudouin II, found an ear with the pope, who was willing to cancel a crusade against Constantinople by the alliance of Viterbo (pope, Charles of Anjou, Villehardouin of the Peloponnesus and the Latin emperor) only if Michael lifted the schism. That meant subordination of the Byzantine Church. Michael showed his good will as much as possible, as the pope could set in motion the terrible machine of the crusade. In 1271, the situation became particularly tenuous: Charles of Anjou obtained Dyrrhacion and had his hands free to attack the empire. But the choice of pope in 1271 favored Michael. Gregory X had a passion for the Holy Land and hoped for Byzantine participation in a crusade. He announced an ecumenical council by May 1274, on church reform, union of the churches and crusade.

Michael now began a propaganda campaign for union. The spokesman for the opposition, the chartophylax (archivist) of the Aya Sofia, Johannes Bekkos was imprisoned in 1273 with a selection from the Latin church fathers. He returned still in 1273 as leader of the official unionist party. Gregory X must have thought union was possible. He ordered Charles to postpone his undertaking. The synod of bishops of Constantinople in February 1274 signed a superficial document of submission (recognition of primacy, right of appeal to Rome, the pope in the diptychs), but the emperor signed a detailed confession of faith. Patriarch Joseph 1 resigned. Georgius Akropolites, diplomat and scholar, and former Patriarch Germanos II (1265-66) went to Lyons, where the union of the churches was celebrated in July.

Ultimately, the union of Lyons was a diplomatic triumph of Michael over Charles of Anjou. But the union work did not run smoothly. Nicholas III (from 1277) expressly forbade Charles to attack Byzantium, but at the same time demanded absolute subordination of the Byzantine Church. Michael proceeded to persecute, but at a synod at Constantinople in 1279 got very few signatures for Nicholas' heavy demands. In 1281, Charles concluded a treaty with Venice and the titular Latin emperor at Orvieto. Joining them was the French pope Martin IV, who excommunicated Michael. The alliance was joined by Epirus, Thessaly, the Peloponnese, Bulgaria and Serbia. Michael proved his talent, using the diplomacy of a second ring around the aggressors to avert the threat. He sought help from Mamluks, Mongolian Golden Horde, Hungarians, Genoese and Aragon. The latter took Sicily by surprise on March 30, 1282, the Sicilian Vespers. Charles' fleet was destroyed in the port of Messina. The struggle for existence cost the empire religious strife and economic exhaustion.

The restoration of orthodoxy under Andronikos II (1282-1321) was not an unmixed blessing for the empire, as he was too much at the hand of the party that had suffered most under his father, the Zealots, leading to new unrest. In 1288, Osman inherited his father Erthrogul's possessions of Dorylaion (Eskishehir) and its environs. The Ottoman Turks owed their success, compared to the other emirates, to their proximity to the giant goal, Constantinople. This allowed the fire of holy war to stay alive. Moreover, fairly early on they formed an organized state with stable and permanent institutions. By 1300, until recently Byzantine Asia Minor was already almost entirely Ottoman. The rest of the empire suffered from the plunder of the Catalan Company (1303-1308), two civil wars (1321-28 and 1341-47), exploitation by the Italian sea republics, and the struggle over palamism, which was sanctioned at a synod at Constantinople in 1351.

The West did become alarmed by the Turkish advance, and Venice in particular saw its colonial interests threatened. Byzantium was not allowed to participate in the anti-Turkish league, concluded at Avignon in 1334, because it was schismatic. The league's expedition against Smyrna was unsuccessful. In 1343 the Italian widow of Andronikos III, Anna of Savoy, did her best to bring the defense of the empire to the league's attention: in a letter she declared her submission to the Holy See, along with that of her eleven-year-old son John V, prime minister Alexios Apokaukos and even Patriarch John Kalekas. But actual help she had to buy, by pawning the Byzantine crown jewels in Venice in 1343.

John Kantakuzinos had used the Turks of his friend the Ottoman sultan Orchan for his campaigns in Europe. They envisioned the country's location and an endless area to plunder. Under Suleiman, they occupied Gallipoli on the Dardanelles in 1354 as soon as it was abandoned by its inhabitants due to an earthquake.

The empire at the enthronement of John V (1354-91) was in size only a third of that under Michael VIII, a century earlier. It included Thrace with four offshore islets, including Limnos; Constantinople; Thessalonica; the last enclave in Asia Minor, Philadelphia; half of the Peloponnese; and Lesbos and Chios. John expected salvation from the league, as did his mother. In 1355 he ceded Lesbos and Chios to the Genoese, a significant financial drain. He turned to what he believed to be the most influential western power, the pope. “He was small in spirit and a mediocre man, overwhelmed by the magnitude and tragedy of events,” Nicol says. He may have already converted to the Latin faith in private meetings with the papal legates in 1361. The crusade of 1365 was directed against Egypt and ended in failure. John then went to ask his closest Catholic neighbor King Louis of Hungary in Budapest to take up the cross against the Ottomans. Louis articulated the papal position that conversion comes before help. In 1369, John then went to Rome to personally submit to the pope. He had no Byzantine cleric with him. In 1371 the Serbs on the Marica lost the most important battle before 1453 and became Turkish vassals. It was a catastrophe because the Balkans were now open. John formally made peace with the Turks in 1272-73, under conditions that also made him a vassal.

 

Chapter 3 : The direct antecedents of the union council.

3.1 The pope versus the conciliarists.

At the beginning of the reign of Manuel II (1391-1425), the empire consisted of hardly more than the city and the Peloponnese under the “despot” Theodorus I, Manuel's brother. In empire ideology, however, the emperor was still the pater familias of all other Christian sovereigns. Gradually, the ecumenical patriarch, whose authority was still recognized throughout the Slavic hinterland, commanded more respect than the emperor. Sultan Bajezid laid siege to Constantinople in 1394, for eight years and varying in intensity. Manuel went to Europe in 1399. He asked for unconditional help, where his father had come as a beggar. The omens were favorable: the West also now saw the Turkish danger more clearly, and people were more sensitive to Manuel's plea because of the humanists' newfound thirst for classical Greek culture. But sympathy was to be expected from the West, help not: “the Schism within the Latin Church had split it from top to bottom,” the Latin Church was torn from head to toe. Moreover, the Hundred Years' War divided European princes. For Manuel, it was useless to offer union. To whom? In 1401-2, the philosopher-king in Paris wrote in his spare time, in response to a tract by a French priest, a treatise on the procession of the Holy Spirit and the primacy of the pope.

Georgios Sphrantzes, friend of the Palaiologoi, high official and chronicler, handed down a conversation of Manuel with his son John about the reunification of the churches: “So as for me, exert yourself for the cause of the council, and pursue it, especially when you expect something from the infidels (Turks) to fear. But never try to hold the council, because I do not consider ours fit, to find any other way of unity, peace and concord, than to make them (the Latins) return to what we were from the beginning. Since this is almost impossible, I fear that a deeper schism will arise; and behold, we would be unprotected from the unbelievers. - But the emperor (John) seemed to disagree with his father, rose silently and went away.” Manuel also had no need to promise union after the Mongols' victory over Bajezid in 1402. Nor did he under the weak Suleiman (until 1410) and the Byzantine-backed Muhammad 1 (until 1421).

In the West in the first decade of the fifteenth century, conciliarism was rapidly gaining ground. Its goal was to replace the one-headed church government of the pope with the authority of regularly held ooncilies. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) ended the deadlock of schism within the Western Church by deposing the three popes and electing Cardinal Odo Colonna as pope, Martin V, in 1417.

Sigismund of Hungary, the German emperor was the initiator of Constance and invited Manuel to send a delegation. Manuel Chrysoloras, the traveling Byzantine ambassador, had been present from the beginning, but already died in March 1415. The accomplishment of the union, the reductio graecorum was postponed to a subsequent council due to lack of time. Manuel's envoy led by Nikolaos Eudaimonoioannes arrived in 1416 and made a lost union proposal in 36 articles. What was specifically achieved was a papal indulgence for those who contributed to the defensive wall on the isthmus of the Peloponnesus, and papal permission for two marriages of Palaiologian princes to Italian princesses.

In the years following Constance, animated diplomatic traffic took place between the pope and the emperor, based on unfounded optimism on both sides about an early church reunion. Manuel asked in 1418-1910 for an ecumenical council, to be held in Constantinople (i.e., with a Greek majority) and to be funded by the pope.

The pope took pains to evade the conciliar decrees of Constance. In particular, to the decrees Haec sancta of April 6, 1415 and Frequens of October 9, 1417. The former affirms that the authority in the church is the general councils (i.e., not the pope), and Frequens stipulates a first general council within five years, a second within twelve years and every ten years thereafter. Few conciliarists had gathered at the Council of Pavia, later Siena (1423) convened at the agreed time. For Italy was the land of the sacerdotium and papist. Martin in 1424 seized on the low attendance as an argument to dissolve the council. At Pavia-Siena they also determined, after hearing the heavy demands of the Byzantines, that there was no progress in the union.

In 1426, a Greek envoy negotiated with the pope. It was agreed to hold the union council now in Italy, and the pope reluctantly (you think we have florins óover here) accepted the enormous expense. For the Greeks, an ecumenical council was an absolute must; they could get that now, in Italy, in addition to military assistance for Constantinople and payment for travel to and maintenance at a union council.

After this, the Dominican Andreas Chrysoberges encountered an emperor in Constantinople, who, after consulting back with the patriarch, was less than enthusiastic. Andreas had to return to Rome without a clear answer.

Not until 1430 did John send a new envoy, Iagaris and Makros, who returned with a draft of sorts. Since holding a council in Italy was quite a new development, the emperor convened a conference of politicians and prelates, which agreed. The patriarch protested most vehemently, according to Syropoulos on his own theme as well: maintenance and free retreat of the Greeks, regardless of the outcome of the council. These had to be guaranteed. The Byzantine envoys were returning from Gallipoli when they learned of the death of Martin V (Feb. 20, 1431) on the way.

Gabriele Condulmer, the cardinal of Siena was elected pope on March 3, 1431. He became Eugenius IV. At the Council of Pavia-Siena, it had been announced that the next general council would be held in Basel. This was against Eugenius' wishes, because Northern Europe was conciliarist. He sought from the beginning, to move the council to Italy. Italy was papal. Eugenius did confirm Martin's appointment of Giuliano Cesarini as papal legate to the Council of Basel. In the relevant appointment bulletin, church reform was mainly mentioned as a program; at this point the Greek question was unimportant. Only one line : “(we appoint you as legate to work) reductionem orientalis ecclesie et quorumlibet aliorum oberrancium ad gremium ecclesie militantis (bringing back the Greek Church and of whatever other errants into the bosom of the contending Church).” Cesarini began urging most of the participants to come to Basel in September and, to that end, also sent Canon Jean Beaupère as an envoy to the pope.

Eugenius gives four reasons for his order of Nov. 12, 1432 to Cesarini to dissolve the Basel Council and continue it in a year and a half at Bologna: the approaching winter; his own weak health; Beaupère's account had filled him with doubts about Basel being as yet poorly attended, hussitic and impossible to reach without mortal danger; and the fact, that the Greek emperor's envoy, Demetrios Angelos Kleidas (in Rome in September), had power of attorney to accept Bologna as a council site. In the dissolution bull of December 18, Quoniam alto, Basel's self-imposed invitation of the Hussites is an additional reason for dissolution: the pope perceived this as an encroachment on his authority.

Of course, the preference of the Greeks was not so important that one should move the council for that. The dissolution bull says most clearly, that for Eugenius his authority was at stake.

His true motive was to move the council from conciliar soil to Italy, where it could be better controlled.

Cesarini refused. He wrote back in 1432 that a union council was an uncertain project (ista cantilena de Graecis iam tricentis annis duravit et omni anno renovatur, this song about the Greeks has been sung for three centuries and it is repeated every year) and that first the Hussite heresy and the low state of the German clergy had to be addressed. Basel continued the conciliar line of Constance, but through internal organization was also more decisive in its decision-making. Basel's organization in deputationes (fidei, for heresies; pacis, for union; reformationis, for church reform; communis, for order and external contacts) instead of nationes led to less nationalistic bickering, less influence of bishops and princes and more influence of the lower clergy, especially those of the Paris University, who were at an advantage because they were accustomed to disputing and formed a homogeneous group. Basel became busier because of the support of most of the European princes, who wanted to restrict papal jurisdiction and taxation north of the Alps. The most powerful, Sigismond, wanted the hussite problem solved as quickly as possible. In the summer of 1433, Basel adopted its first reform decree, which stripped the pope of the right to beneficia (appointments to offices with income), where previously elected. Basel also threatened the pope to suspend him. It seemed headed for a rift between Basel and the pope, which neither Sigismond nor Cesarini wanted, as it would cost Basel the support of the princes. The pope was not put on suspension, in return for which, of course à contre coeur, but in Dudum sacrum of December 15, he approved “wholeheartedly” the continuation of the council. He gave in, because rebellion in the Church State even there now shook his position.

3.2 The tug-of-war over the Greeks.

The disagreement between pope and council created a “three-sided situation” in the union negotiations. Council and pope both hoped to establish their authority in the church by concluding the union with the Greeks. As early as January 2, 1433, Basel sent the bishop of Souda Antonius and Albertus de Crispis to Constantinople to invite the Greeks to come to Basel. Three Greek envoys did not arrive in Basel until July 12, 1434, due to setbacks along the way. It had been agreed by Demetrius Kleidas in 1431 that the emperor would send an envoy to the pope to negotiate the location of the union council. This envoy was still in Rome in May 1433, but had to do with what Syropoulos said was a pope little prepared for union. Eugenius sent Christophorus Garatoni in July, who provisionally agreed in Constantinople that the council would be held there. The West would be represented by a papal legate, prelates and theologians. This turn in the pope's politics can be explained by his précaire political and financial situation.

During the period of truce between pope and council (Dec. 15, 1433- June 1436), the Greeks concluded an agreement with Basel which was put down in the Basel decree Sicut pia mater of Sept. 7, 1434: A union council at partly Greek expense in Constantinople, or at Basel's expense in one of the named cities in the west (mentioned were Calabria, Ancona or another area by the sea, Bologna, Milan or another Italian city; outside Italy Budapest, Vienna or in the extreme case Savoy). Furthermore, outward and return travel of the Greeks, their maintenance and military assistance for Constantinople would be paid for. The Greeks demanded that the pope approve this treaty by bull, and be present in person or represented by a delegate. Simon Fréron went to Florence to seek the pope's approval. From about this time, the latter saw his position improved by the defection of cardinals from Basel and the recapture of the Ecclesiastical State by the condottiero Sforza and the bishop of Recanati, Giovanni Vitelleschi. On Nov. 15, 1434, the pope wrote a letter to Basel, mildly reproaching the fathers for acting independently of him: Garatoni he had sent to Constantinople in July 1434 for a second mission. If Basel persisted in negotiating independently, Eugenius would approve the decree. Shortly after the letter, it became known that Garatoni had converted the provisional agreement of 1433 into a final one.

Two agreements was an embarrassing situation. The Greeks were not to blame. They probably did not fathom the finer points of the matter, for they were always told that Pope and Council were one of will in the matter of union. The patriarch was more inclined toward the pope, the emperor toward Basel. The agreement with Garatoni must have been considered final by them (it was also very advantageous, a Greek majority), although the emperor made a secret reservation. The negotiations with Basel were cancelled by imperial letter of Nov. 12, 1434.

Eugenius now proceeded with caution. He refused the Greek envoys, Georgius and Manuel Dishypatos, who had returned with Garatoni, ratification of the agreement and sent all three to Basel, where they arrived in mid-March 1435.

The church meeting in Basel was indignant. The pope seemed to have acted arbitrarily and the Greeks would have played double games. The five Greeks in Basel (the old and new envoys) were faced with a choice: either the Basel agreement, or Garatoni's agreement or a non-oecumenical council at Constantinople, later to be ratified by Basel. The latter was the Basel variant of the papal accord, which did not require Basel to be dissolved. All five Greeks chose the Basel accord.

Matthias Meynage and Johannes Bechenstein were sent to the pope in June 1435 to seek approval of the new conciliar decisions. The pope could support the agreement with the Greeks, not, however, the decision that seriously threatened papal revenues, the abolition of the annates, the tax on the confirmation of elections to office. Furthermore, Basel proposed an indulgence to cover the costs of the council and asked the pope to withdraw his own indulgences. Of course, the pope could not agree. It would make him financially dependent on the council, which was gradually appropriating the functions of the curia as well. He therefore demanded an alternative source of income. In this prelude to the open rupture between pope and council, Ambrogio Traversari, a papal legate in Basel, plays a role. He gives the advice between August and November 1435, which will no doubt have come to Eugenius' attention, to move the council to Italy, give only bishops voting rights (Italian majority assured) and revise the Konstanzer decrees Haec sancta and Frequens. It is again the scenario that failed in 1432-33.

The pope proposed all sorts of compromises on the Basel decisions, but did not submit to the council enough to Basel's liking. On April 14, 1436, Basel issued a union indulgence in his own name, and on May 11 the papal envoys received a long and bitter tirade against Eugenius as an official response to their mission. Eugenius, for his part, renewed hostilities. His position was somewhat stronger again. He had Rome and many of his northern possessions back. Cardinals defected; the princes urged Basel to be more conciliatory. Eugenius drafted the Libellus apologeticus in June 1436 for the benefit of the internuntii, who were to visit the European princes to win their support. In the Libellus he denounced the conciliar reform program as dangerously revolutionary, and enumerated four scandalous acts of Basel: 1. Claiming authority over the church, 2. Abolishing the annates, 3. Making the curia more independent of the pope by reform, 4. Issuing full indulgences on his own authority. Relatively of less importance he considers Basel's own initiative in the union negotiations.

In the Greek question, again, there were new developments. Basel, following the Greek choice of the Basel agreement, had sent Heinrich Menger, Simon Fréron and Johannes Ragusa to Constantinople, where they arrived at about the same time as Garatoni on Sept. 24, 1435. They had to draft a new preamble to the decree before they got it approved. The Greek protest concerned an indeed unflattering phrase equating the Greeks with the Hussite heretics: Quamobrem recens illud Bohemorum antiquumque Graecorum dissidium prorsus extinguere (therefore end the recent disagreement with the Hussites and that old one with the Greeks at the earliest opportunity). Nor was the retreat guaranteed in the event of the failure of the union council in writing. The location of the union council was still not fixed. The Greeks preferred to go to nearby Italy, the Baselers preferred a city more nearby, such as Avignon, Savoy, Vienna or Budapest, but preferably, of course, Basel itself. Again there was a requirement that the pope be present at the union council.

Menger had to return to Basel for ratification of the preamble. The documents did not arrive back in Constantinople until September 6. All these ten months negotiations had been at a standstill. Fréron had died of the plague so that Ragusa remained as Basel's only envoy to Constantinople. At Ragusa's expense, messengers were sent to the three patriarchs and to Trebizonde, the Slavic world and Iberia (Georgia). On November 20, 1436, the emperor sent John Dishypatos to Basel and Manuel Tarchaniotes Boullotes to the pope at Ragusa's expense. They were authorized to make an agreement with the pope if Basel did not comply with what had been agreed upon. The pleading of Garatoni, arriving in Constantinople for the fourth time on Nov. 12, may have prompted this instruction. The Basel letters probably also revealed the disagreement between the council and the pope.

In the West, Basel did anything rather than move to Italy. On December 5, 1436, they opted for a union council at Basel, possibly Avignon or a city in Savoy. Savoy occurred at least in Sicut pia mater (ad ultimum Sabaudia: in the extreme case Savoy). Since it was already known that the Greeks rejected Basel, Avignon undertook to pay for the time being for the honor of hosting the council. Dishypatos protested against such implementation of the treaty. However, Avignon did not pay by the deadline, so the council was free to make a new choice at its April 12 session. The majority stuck to Avignon, the rest with Cesarini chose an Italian city: named were Florence and Udine. At the tumultuous session of May 7, both decrees were read. Cesarini had the council seal in his possession, but which decree should now be sealed? Taranto stole the seal and sealed the minority decree, which was seized when attempts were made to smuggle it out of the city.

In January 1437, Ragusa in Constantinople knew which places Basel proposed, but he defended them in vain with the Greeks. The three patriarchs were not allowed to travel by the Turkish rulers. They appointed by letter clergymen as deputies, with, according to Ragusa, too limited powers of attorney. He arranged for them to be broadened. The emperor set up a commission of prelates and officials to discuss tactics for the council.

Conflicting rumors circulated in Constantinople about events in the West. Then at last, on Sept. 3, 1437, a light ship walked in with Garatoni, now bishop of Koroni, and two Baselers, the bishops of Digne and Oporto, so it seemed that pope and council had made peace. For a long time Ragusa's great joy did not last.

Gradually it became clear what had happened in the West. Eugenius had acted quickly. With the Greek legates and the messengers of the “sanior pars” (the healthy part) of the council, including Nicholas of Cusa, he had come to an agreement in Bologna and had accepted the minority decree on May 30. Upon arrival in Constantinople, the place would be called Italy. As early as July 9, Garatoni and his followers left Bologna. The three large galleys (galeae) that were to take the Greeks to Italy arrived in Constantinople on Sept. 24. The Basel fleet arrived on Oct. 3. The emperor held talks with both sides and made sure they did not clash. Soon it became clear that the emperor had chosen the pope. He now denied any obligation to Basel, since three conditions had not been met: 1. In the negotiations in October 1435 the deadline of May 1436 for the union council had been set; 2. Basel had not adhered to Sicut pia mater by appointing Avignon as the place of the council; 3. Basel could not guarantee the presence of the pope.

3.3 Conclusions.

One must ask whether this is an accurate picture of the motivations that led emperor and patriarch to decide for the pope. First, Basel's letting the term expire is not a sought-after argument. It played a role in Greek considerations, for the extremely difficult communication with Basel must have frustrated the Greeks considerably. After Meng's departure, they had to wait ten months for the ratified charters. And more trips took that long, such as that of the three Greek envoys to Basel in 1434, which took six months. As for the deadline, the pope had bothered to extend it in Bologna.

Second, Basel could not have made a more perspective decision in December 1436 than Basel, Avignon or a place in Savoy as a council seat, and then give the honor to Avignon. Basel reasoned: Avignon is a terra maritima, a city by the sea (an impossible interpretation of Sicut pia mater), and it is on the road to Savoy (not, however, to that part of Savoy to which the emperor seemed to want to go, Piedmont in present-day Italy). Basel priced itself out of the market.

Third, the presence at the union council of the pope, the traditional negotiating partner, the monarch of the West, had been demanded by the patriarch. The emperor was faced with a choice: at a council without the pope, papal primacy would not be a point of contention and the emperor could assert his power all the more easily. He also knew that the European princes supported Basel, and military aid against the Turks was his first motive. Perhaps because of the Baselers' intransigence regarding the council site, the emperor had already begun to doubt the possibility of returning from the far west with a reasonable result.

In any case, the scales finally tipped in favor of the papal camp thanks to the deposit of centuries of diplomatic experience present there. While only in May 1437 the treaty at Bologna had been concluded, already in September arrived in Constantinople: three ships for the transportation of the Greeks, sums of money, 300 Cretan archers for the defense of the city and finally some of the Basel council fathers. This must have made an impression. The pope had shown himself decisive and sacrificial, winning the argument. And his strongest asset was that he was able to execute Sicut pia mater and offer a place in Italy.

This does not say all that is necessary about the period between the Councils of Constance and the Union Council. One may wonder, how the “three-sided situation” could arise. Basel sent an envoy to Eugenius on September 17 and at the end of December 1431, requesting that envoys be sent to John VIII to invite the Greeks to Basel. Eugenius invoked this mandate in his union negotiations. In fact, he had already received Kleidas in September 1431, who had expressed a preference for an Italian city. Eugenius used the Greek preference as a pretext for his translation bull Quoniam alto of Dec. 18, 1431. Basel now received a huge influx in 1432. Supported by this success, Basel itself established relations with the Greeks in January 1433 to take the wind out of the sails of the as yet very reluctant Eugenius.

One might further ask whether the competition between Basel and the pope brought any advantage to the Greeks. The answer is yes. Exactly the same agreement was reached with Martinus V as early as 1426 and 1430 as that with Eugenius at Bologna. One cannot avoid praising Martin for his willingness to make concessions to achieve union. He was pro-Greek out of gratitude for what he saw as the great role the Greeks had played in his election at Constance. One can assume, that he did not use union only as a weapon in the fight against the conciliarists. Only under the pressure of Basel's competition did his successor Eugenius, less committed to the union, have to sign the same agreement.

A third question is whether Basel would not have been preferable to the Byzantines for a better result. As mentioned above, papal primacy would not have been a point of contention. Gerson's speech on union with the Greeks before Charles VI of France in December 1409 further shows the conciliarist of the University of Paris as a mild interlocutor in dogmatic matters. But one cannot say anything with certainty. The conciliarists of Basel had shown themselves to be as inflexible and haughty in the finally lost battle for the Greeks, as Eugenius' church in Ferrara and Florence would prove to be. It was probably Basel or the pope that mattered, in retrospect. Yet one more speculation: if the uniqueness question had been resolved north of the Alps, it would have resulted in tremendous interest in the Greek problem there.

The last and most important question concerns the ecumenicity of the Pope's Counter-Council. The representation of pope, emperor and patriarchs seems to have fulfilled the traditional conditions for ecumenicity. But the Western Church was represented almost exclusively by Italians, from the Ecclesiastical State, Venice and Tuscany. Of the at most ten bishops delegated by foreign countries, some were also Italian or not from their diocese. If we leave aside the difficult question, who represents Latin orthodoxy, Basel or the Pope, and rely only on the numbers, we must conclude that the more legitimate representation of the Latin Church was in Basel: bishops, universities and orders.

 

Chapter 4 : The Greeks in Ferrara. The discussions about purgatory.

4.1 Arrival in Italy and preparation for the discussions.

On November 27, 1437, about 700 Greeks embarked on the papal ships. Among them the emperor, the patriarch, bishops, monastics, scholars, officials, soldiers and servants. Landing in the port of Korcula at the end of January 1438, the emperor and patriarch learned of the death of Sigismond of Hungary (Dec. 9, 1437), the initiator of Basel. Had they heard this in Constantinople they would not have left at all. On February 8, 1438, they arrived in Venice. Perhaps letters from Basel had caused the emperor to doubt the choice already made, but certainly the now final rupture between the pope and Basel. And more voices are rising in the Greek camp, to go to Basel after all. Then two payments of papal money do their work and a Greek commission to the emperor decides by majority vote to go to the pope after all.

After Cusa and his men left Basel in May 1437, Basel gave Eugenius an ultimatum to appear (July 31, 1437). Eugenius replied with the bull Doctoris gentium of Sept. 18, 1437, moving the council from Basel to Ferrara in the Ecclesiastical State. Sigismond's death removed perhaps the only figure from the scene who could have healed an open rift between pope and council, since both sides reluctantly promised to accept his mediation. Eugenius could now push through his own council, thus forcing Basel to suspend him (Jan. 25, 1438) and deposed him (June 25, eleven days before Eugenius' union with the Greeks). The deposition cost Basel the support of many European princes and bishops. Equally, Sigismond's death was a severe blow to the emperor John: he was only served by a united West, which could provide maximum assistance against the Turks.

The emperor left Venice on Feb. 27 and traveled by ship across the Po to Ferrara, where he arrived on March 4. The patriarch Josepg II arrived on March 7, and informed of the custom that each brought the pope the kiss of feet, he remained on his ship until the pope withdrew his demand late at night. The patriarch had resolutely threatened to go back to Venice.

Terror must have gripped the Greeks' hearts, because it did not bode well for the pope to make such an unrealistic demand even at first contact. In the patriarch, the skevofylax Syropoulos even sees consternation because he had counted on the pope in freeing the Greek church from servitude to the emperor. Joseph could not meet the demand. This was not just a joust over etiquette or custom. He, as a representative of the Greek church, would deny the principle equality of the churches by foot-kissing. “This is a novelty, and I will never approve or do that” he said. Novelty (kainotomia) was the designation of what in Greek eyes were impermissible Latin deviations from ritual and dogmatic tradition. The dogma of filioque was one such novelty. Joseph's words indicate that he sees the Latin demand in the perspective of relations between the churches.

Eugenius' demand was incomprehensibly undiplomatic. He knew through Traversari that the patriarch considered him as a brother but he may have been greatly stumped by the refusal on 26-2-1438 of the patriarch's emissaries, the bishops of Herakleia and Monemvasia , to kiss his foot, while the imperial emissaries did kiss the foot. What is striking is the similarity of Eugenius' course of action to the Latin tactic of making harsh demands without the slightest concession, common later at the council. It is possible that Eugenius saw it fit to use these tactics already when establishing the protocol at the meeting with the patriarch.

Of the historians who have described the incident surrounding the foot kissing, most disapprove of the Latin demand. But the preeminent researcher on the council, Joseph Gill, expresses no opinion on the claim. He is also silent on any psychological effect on the Greeks. If we then also see, that Gill barely discusses the whole incident, we must conclude that he downplays the importance of the incident.

Then another Roman Catholic author already took a more understanding position in 1923. It was Mohler, who said: who will blame the patriarch for refusing so stubbornly? Furthermore, Mohler indicates, how the mood among the Greeks deteriorated due to still other minor incidents. Leidl takes roughly a middle position between Gill and Mohler. He comments: wir konstatieren zu Beginn eine ziemlich frostige Atmosphäre. Laurent calls another occasion, the welcome in Ferrara of the patriarch by only six bishops and no cardinal, flawed and ungracious.

On March 8, in a separate room, in secreta camera, the pope greeted the patriarch and his clergy in groups of six each. This instead of the intended grand ceremonial reception. In the days that followed, the emperor demanded of the pope a period of four months for inviting, and discussing with, the princes and the Basel majority. The union council could be opened in the meantime, but dogmatic discussions were not to begin for another four months. Eugenius gave in. This cost him a great financial sacrifice, for he had to support all the Greeks and many Latins. The Greeks now also stipulated payment of money, whereas the pope had wanted to provide them with food in kind. As a result, the papal coffers became even emptier, payments were regularly delayed, while food prices doubled in Ferrara.

With the placement of the seats in the San Giorgio, no one was satisfied. The Latins sat on the right side, the Greeks on the left when seen entering. The patriarch, however, had the most reason to complain because his seat was behind that of the emperor, directly opposite that of the first cardinal and a meter lower than that of the pope. After the Greeks gave in, according to Syropoulos, on April 2, the first monthly funds were distributed. On April 9, the Wednesday before Easter, the union council was opened. From the ailing patriarch they read the consent to the council; then the bull Magnas omnipotenti deo was read, in which the pope declared his hope for union. At the end of April, the plenipotentiary of the patriarch of Jerusalem, Dionysius of Sardes, who before his death had appointed Dositheus of Monemvasia as his successor, died.

The pope urged the emperor to hold preparatory discussions during the four-month period. Initially, emperor and patriarch made vague promises. The emperor's will was, to keep the Latins in the dark about Greek positions for the time being. This is evidenced by the emperor's ban on dealing with Latins and by the incident with Mark of Ephesus, who complied with Cesarini's request (since recently in Ferrara) to write a eulogy (enkomion) on the pope, which Cesarini indignantly gave to the emperor because of its contents. The emperor became beyond angry. Not because Marcus bars in the eulogy rejected the additio of the filioque and unleavened bread in the Eucharist, but because he had lifted a tip of the veil on Greek positions.

According to Syropoulos because money ran out and new distributions did not occur, the emperor allowed some conciliar activity to begin. Before May 12, four meetings of ten Latins and ten Greeks took place in the sacristy of the San Francesco. The emperor urged the Greeks not to discuss the dogma and to report everything. At the first meeting, Cesarini, as Latin orator, asked for preliminary discussions on the dogma. The Greek orators were Marcus Eugenicus , bishop of Ephesus, unpolished and not as courteous as Cesarini; and Bessarion, much more the Latin's equal in language and gallantry. At the second meeting, Marcus, now in better shape, again, refused to discuss the dogma. At the third meeting, Cesarini listed the four main disputes that divided the churches: the procession of the Holy Spirit, unleavened bread, purgatory and the primacy of the pope. He offered the Greeks to pick a point. At the fourth meeting, Marcus, by orders of the emperor, allowed the Latins to choose between purgatory and primacy, and they chose to discuss purgatory. After reaching this agreement, the second monthly money was paid on May 12. During these weeks, a rumor caused great unrest in the Greek camp: the Turks were preparing a major attack on Constantinople. Above that, after taking Bologna on May 22, the Duke of Milan now threatened Ferrara as well.

On June 4, the first theological debates of the union council began, again in closed sessions in the sacristy of the San Francesco with the same delegations. The procedure was, that one made a speech and afterwards submitted it in writing to the other party. The discussions were to be free, as had already been guaranteed in 1426. Here the Greeks were allowed to challenge the doctrine already established by the Latin Church, on the basis of the Bible and Church Fathers. This is not to say, that the Latins considered this a major concession in the purgatory matter. They wanted first and foremost to get to know the Greeks in the debate, and they did not attach such great importance to the doctrine of purgatory. The Greeks also considered the issue unimportant. Bessarion, on a first whim, said, I have nothing to say about this (Ouk echoo ti legein peri autou). The Greeks debated pro forma, to fill the four months but remained anxiously vague, so as not to give the Latins too many clues about Greek positions in the dogmatic debates.

4.2 History of the purgatory doctrine.

What happens to souls after death and before Judgment Day is an issue, about which East and West have been theologizing separately and differently for a thousand years. That this was an important dogmatic dispute had actually only come to light, when a Franciscan on his way to the religious conference of Nymphaion (1234) became embroiled in a conversation about purgatory with the bishop of Kerkyra, and one noted errors in the other.

In Ferrara, the discussion focused mainly on two questions:

1. Is there temporary punishment by fire for souls who are neither blessed nor damned?

2. Do the souls of the blessed see God immediately after death, or only on the day of judgment?

In the Latin tradition, there is the cleansing by fire, which dates back as far as Ambrose and Augustine. Leo the Great speaks of “credendum est” (must be believed). In a letter from Innocent IV of 1254 (twenty years after Nymphaion), it is presented as the Latin doctrine. Prescribed dogma becomes purification (and not fire) when the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 adopted the creed of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII.

The heresy (Dykmans' choice of words) that no one enters paradise nor hell before Judgment Day was first attributed in the West to the passagians (a judaizing sect) around 1200, and thereafter to the Cathars. The scholastic theologians reacted with lightning speed to the account of the Franciscan who went to Nymphaion: in the forties of the thirteenth century the postponement of salvation until after the judgment already figures in the polemic against the Greeks. The great scholastics, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas still speak moderately of the error of “some” Greeks. But the epigones of the most popular work of this genre, the “Contra Graecos” (1252) of the Dominican missionaries in Constantinople, attributed the error to all Greeks. The “Thesaurus fidei” of the dominican Bonaccorso of Bologna, who was working on Euboia by 1300, was made on the model of “Contra Graecos.” An excerpt from it came into the hands of John XXII in 1326. He too, the best known and most energetic of the popes at Avignon, was very much inclined to postpone seeing God until the last day, preached about it, but finally submitted to his theologians, who rejected this view. His successor Benedict XII (1334-42) then defined Roman doctrine by bull on Jan. 29, 1336.

A clear line in the Latin polemic can be identified, running from the passagians through John XXII to the Greeks at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. For the roman Dominican John Lei, counselor at the council of the Latin orators and the pope wrote the work “De visione beata” (What the blessed see), a refutation of the eschatology of deferral of the Greeks. Lei, however, largely used Durand de St.Pourçain's 1333 polemic against John XXII. Durand depended entirely on the “Summa contra Catharos et Waldenses” (1241-44) of Moneta of Cremona, who in turn copied the “Summa contra hereticos” (c. 1200) of a certain Primicier regarding eschatology.

The West also had a tendency in the purgatory question, from compelling logic and law thinking, to prescribe what was to be believed. Even in the above-mentioned polemic against the Greeks one can see a striving to make one's own positions uniform in every detail.

The Greek Church has no clear, let alone official, teaching on the fate of souls after death. The tradition, which consists of Scripture, the ecumenical councils and the Greek Church Fathers, gives too little guidance for this. The Greeks reject fire in the state after death and before judgment, even though Gregory of Nyssa taught it. He speaks plainly of a purifying fire after death, but this father was known to have been influenced by Origenism. Origenes taught the apokatastasis pantoon, the universal return of all, including the damned, even Satan, to their original spiritual state. For Origenes, the fire of hell in this way is not eternal. He was condemned regarding this doctrine at the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

For the Greeks, the temporary fire of the purgatorium evokes too many associations with the Origenist heresy. Thus, Gregory of Nyssa's statement is a private opinion (speculation, theologoumenon), and should not be considered the doctrine of the whole Church. For the Greeks, Latin fathers such as Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory the Great equally express a private opinion when they speak of a fire. Apparently, in addition to eternal punishment by fire, they wanted a milder form, an escape in purgatory, the Greeks reasoned.

Some fathers also teach a partial postponement of glorification until after the judgment. We know, that this was not the opinion of every Greek in Ferrara but was that of the Greek orator after June 14, Mark, palamist.

According to palamist doctrine, before the judgment the saints see God in appearance (di' eidous) , but after it face to face (prosopon pros prosopon) however the essence (ousia) of God remains unknowable. One perceives the energeia, the uncreated divine action. These doctrines made an agreement at Ferrara seem unattainable, for first, any delay in glorification is contrary to the doctrine, laid down by Benedict XII, of seeing God directly. Second, Western Thomism was opposed to Palamism in its teaching on the distinction between divine essence and energeia, is action. Third, it had to be feared, that in the Greek camp itself great disagreement would break out on this matter. Understandably, the emperor had forbidden discussion with the Latins about palamism.

4.3 Discussions on purgatory.

At the first session, Cesarini sets forth the Latin purgatory cedula, taken almost verbatim from the creed that Michael VIII had offered at Lyons in 1274. Those who die damned go to hell, those who die blissful go to heaven. Before the day of judgment arrives, souls who are neither blissful nor damned reside in the purgatorium (katharterion), where they are cleansed by purifying punishments (poenis purgatoriis).

After this, Cesarini proves for form's sake, that there is an intermediate state between death and judgment. This proof is superfluous because it is self-evident. Next he shows that in that intermediate state there is punishment by fire. This is the Latin view; the Lyonese formula speaks only of purifying punishment. Cesarini's quotes are from Scripture and the Greek and Latin Church Fathers. He gives the argument that, after all, sins must be blotted out.

Mark hereafter calls the difference between the churches slight (oligen euriskoo ten metaxu hemoon diaforan). John of Torquemada, from now on the Latin spokesman, also appears briefly at the end of the first session.

Marcus and Bessarion then cannot agree in a dogmatic committee on the Greek position to be taken. Here one sees how the Greeks were at a disadvantage at this council: the Latins always debated from a thoroughly prepared and unanimous position. But the Greeks had apparently already arrived divided. The divide in the Greek camp already existed in the fourteenth century. Bessarion represented the current of humanist scholars, adherents of a skeptical agnosticism, who transformed theology into a dialectic, starting from tradition. Bessarion himself had been a student of the humanist Filelfo, and even before he had taken one step on Italian soil, had fallen in love with that country. Mark of Ephesus was the foreman of the palamist movement in the Greek Church, which defended a theology of communion, of true knowledge, based on the true tradition of the Greek fathers. The palamists were certainly ready for union: they never opposed union negotiations and the descent into Italy.

Finally, Marcus and Bessarion each write a separate refutation of the Latin purgatorycedula, and the two pieces are merged into one by a dogmatic commission. In fact, Marcus' arguments are maintained, as promised to him by the emperor (to son dothesetai kai ouk allo). To a modest extent, using Bessarion's more cultured language, retouches are made. Bessarion read the Greek play on June 14. It admits a state between death and judgment, but denies that the cleansing of sins would be done exclusively by fire. It successfully refutes the Latin Bible quotes and the quotes from the Greek Church Fathers: either no fire is mentioned by name, or the fire is that of hell (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:13-15). Remains Gregory of Nyssa, who has the fire from Origenes, who was condemned for it in 553. Bessarion denounces the invocation of the authority of Rome: how can one unite with such a church, which so insists on what it itself teaches? He ends by contrasting ten arguments with the one Latin one.

The Latin answer came on June 27, defending the cedula against the Greek attacks. Torquemada also challenged Marcus with questions, for once revealing the Greek teaching, rather than attacking the Latin. On June 30, the Greeks received the third month's money, according to Syropoulos, because they had expounded Greek doctrine. This would then have happened in the so-called Second Discourse on Purgatory in which Mark declares as the doctrine of his church, that before Judgment Day, the righteous and the wicked experience their destiny in moderation. The Greeks justified a punishment in the sense of shame or repentance in anticipation of judgment, but not punishment by fire. The prayers of the Church should relieve the fate of the damned and the middle classes, and apply even to the righteous, who, after all, are not yet fully perfect.

On July 16, the emperor called the Greeks together to draft a common declaration on purgatory. Many fathers were consulted, after which the emperor asked each one his opinion. There were, according to the Acta Graeca, three sides: the saints do, do not, or only partially enjoy salvation before the judgment; all these three opinions were heard. This created such an argument that it also took July 17 to arrive at the following yes-and-no formulation.

“Although souls enjoy perfectly (the eternal good) as souls, they will enjoy it even more perfectly in the resurrection with their own bodies, and then they will shine like the sun or also like the light, which our Lord Jesus Christ radiated on Mount Tabor.” Part of the issue is evaded here. Nothing is said about purgatorium as the cleansing of sins, or place, or form of cleansing, or the prayers of believers. The Tabor light is the term in palamist theology for the uncreated light of Jesus' divine nature, as seen at the glorification on the mountain (Matt. 17:1-4).

Syropoulos describes the end of the purgatory debates. For the Latins, the spokesman now was Andrew of Rhodes, who again presented new arguments. Perhaps at his questions, Marcus pronounced the so-called Answer to Some Latin Questions. He again further specified the Greek position: the provisional state of righteous souls is one of hope, as faith rules the world and love after judgment. They enjoy somewhat the ultimate joys. These joys do not enjoy at all those souls, who work in the world to help the living. The state of the damned is one of loss. Their fate is somewhat alleviated by the prayers of the Church, and they are not punished by fire before judgment. The state of the middle class is that of uncertainty about the time of their salvation, of sin consciousness and shame, which can only be taken away by the prayers of the church or by penance of souls themselves.

At the end of July, the discussions came to a dead end. As soon as Chrysoberges in the last meeting asked emphatically about the Greek position on operation and essence, Marcus, obedient to the emperor's ban on discussion of palamism, had to refuse to answer, and thus the discussions on purgatory were over: Kai en toutois epausan kai hai peri tou pourgatoriou dialexeis.

The only result the purgatory discussions produced was that the parties got to know each other in the debate. In terms of content, they did not come closer to each other; the Greeks did not even fully clarify their views. Nor could they, because tradition is inconclusive and palamism divided them among themselves and was not negotiable with the Latins. There was also friction: The Latins noticed that the Greeks would have preferred to say nothing. For their part, the Greeks were offered the Latinized Emperor Michael VIII's creed (Paris vaut bien une messe) as a Latin demand.

The Greeks spent the summer in fear and idleness in Ferrara.

One could not travel here in Italy without a boulla, a safe-conduct. The emperor also had the Greeks' freedom of movement restricted outside the city so that Ferrara became a prison. Three clerics managed to obtain an imperial boulla and fled to Constantinople. The patriarch suspended them. Furthermore, Milan still threatened Ferrara in the person of Piccinino. Then from mid-July the plague raged in Ferrara, reason of the summer recess of the council; they even considered translation. Isidorus, envoy to Basel in '34 and '35 and metropolitan of Kiev since 1436, arrived between August 15 and 20 with 200 Russians, most of whom, according to Syropoulos, succumbed to the plague while no Greek died. Because of the plague, most of the Latin clergy left the city. But the pope and five of 11 cardinals and 50 of 150 bishops stay. The Greeks are bored: there has not been a single public discussion. They are homesick. The fourth monthly money in Ferrara would not be paid until Oct. 21. The need for money is acute. People sell personal belongings: a mule, a chalice. The emperor had found a monastery six miles from Ferrara where he installed himself. He devoted all his time to hunting, waiting for Basel council fathers and European princes, who never came.