INTERIOR OF S. SOPHIA
Among the crowd of events witnessed under the dome of S. Sophia, there are three scenes of paramount importance in the religious history of the world that lend to the Great Church an extraordinary interest. The first occurred on the day on which the envoys of Vladimir attended service in the cathedral, and were so overwhelmed by the splendours of the worship, that they hastened back to Russia to tell their sovereign that they had seen the glory of the true God. “We know not,” they are reported to have said, “whether we were not in heaven; in truth, it would be impossible on earth to find such riches and magnificence. We cannot describe to you all that we have seen. We can only believe that there in all likelihood one is in the presence of God, and that the worship of other countries is there entirely eclipsed. We shall never forget such grandeur. Whosoever has seen so sweet a spectacle will be pleased with nothing elsewhere.” The conversion of the Slavic peoples to the Christian faith, a work commenced in the ninth century by the mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs of Bulgaria and Moravia, is one of the most important services rendered by the Church of the Byzantine Empire to the cause of European civilisation. So far as its political significance is concerned, it can stand comparison with the conversion of the Teutons by the Western Church. It accomplished what the victories of Zimisces failed to achieve.
It was the moral conquest of Russia, and the source of her upward life, until that country was opened also to the influence of Western civilisation. It probably saved Russia from becoming a Mohammedan State. The Slavic peoples rightly cherish a regard for Byzantine Constantinople, similar to that which Western Europe feels for Athens and Rome.
The second scene, to which we refer, took place on the 15th July 1054. On the morning of that day, as Divine worship in the cathedral was about to commence, three papal legates, Cardinal Humbert, Cardinal Frederic, and the Archbishop of Amalfi, made their way through the crowd of worshippers to the steps of the altar. Having denounced the Patriarch Michael Keroularius for insubordination to the Holy See, the legates placed upon the altar a bull of excommunication against him and his adherents. They left the church, shaking its dust off their feet, and exclaiming, “Videat Deus et judicet.” In due time the patriarch hurled back a counter-anathema; and, thenceforth, the Christian world was divided in two bitterly hostile camps. It was the wave precipitated against the shore by waves that had tossed the ocean’s expanse, for league upon league. It was the consummation of a long process of disruption between the West and the East, the course of which is marked by such events as the foundation of Constantinople, the jealousy between Old Rome and New Rome, the invasion of the Teutons, the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, race antipathies, and wrangles over the phrase Filioque, the use of images, the celibacy of the clergy, and the employment of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Behind all this discord, we may be able to detect men groping for the truth, and resisting absolutism in Church and State. But it has left Christendom weakened both as a political and a religious power to this day.
On the 29th or 30th of May 1453, Sultan Mehemet the Conqueror alighted from his horse at the gate of S. Sophia. It was most probably at the “Beautiful Gate,” at the southern end of the noble inner narthex of the church, the entrance through which the Emperors of Constantinople usually proceeded to the cathedral. According to one account, the Sultan stooped down at the threshold, took some earth, and scattered it on his head in token of humiliation before God. Entering, he saw a Moslem breaking the marble pavement. He struck at the vandal with a scimitar? for daring to injure a building that belonged of right to the sovereign. Then, in what to the Eastern world was the Holy of Holies of Christendom, an imaum ascended the pulpit and cried aloud, “There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet.” And so it has been ever since.
The Church of S. Saviour Pantepoptes, the All-Seeing (Eski Imaret Djamissi), the Church of S. Saviour Pantocrator, the All-Powerful (Zeirek Kilissé Djamissi), and the interior of S. Saviour-in-the-Chora (Kahriyeh Djamissi), recall the period of the Comneni and the Angeli (1081-1204).
In their erection ladies of considerable importance in the history of Constantinople had a part. The first was built by Anna Dalassena, the mother of Alexius I. Comnenus; the last was restored by his mother-in-law, Mary Ducæna, a Bulgarian princess famous for her beauty; the second was an erection of the Empress of John I. Comnenus, the daughter of Geysa I., King of Hungary. These churches represent the age when Constantinople was stirred by the march of the earlier Crusades through the territory of the Empire, when Peter the Hermit and Godfrey de Bouillon encamped their followers within sight of the city walls, to be dazzled by the splendours of the Palace of Blachernæ, and cajoled by the diplomacy of Alexius I. Comnenus. They also recall the time when Henrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, brought his fleet and the troops of the Fourth Crusade to the Golden Horn, and founded the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople. It was on the terraced ground beside the Church of Pantepoptes that the Emperor Alexius Murtzuplus pitched his vermilion tents and drew up his reserve forces. There he stood to see the walls on the shore below attacked by the Venetian ships and carried by Frankish knights. From that position he fled at the approach of a body of the enemy’s horsemen, and under his unstricken vermilion tent Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut, soon to succeed him as Latin Emperor of Constantinople, spent the night of that memorable day.
The monastery of the Church of the Pantocrator became the headquarters of the Venetians during the Latin occupation of the city. In the relations of Western and Eastern Christians to each other during the period of the Crusades there is nothing of which we can feel proud. The former were barbarous, the latter were decadent; neither of them worthy to recover the San Graal in search of which so much heroism and devotion were displayed for two centuries. But it is well to remember that the encounter of the East and the West during those expeditions contributed not a little to the “infiltration,” as it has happily been phrased, “of ideas, knowledge, and art from the Grecised Empire into Western Europe.” It brought the influence of an older and riper civilisation to bear upon the younger life that had come into the world, and aided that life to evolve a new and better order of things.
The Venetian occupants of the monastery of Pantocrator, for instance, could learn much from the admirable organisation of the hospital maintained by that House for the benefit of the poor. The hospital contained fifty beds, of which ten formed a ward for surgical cases, eight a ward for acute diseases, ten for ordinary maladies, and twelve a ward for women. A fifth ward contained ten beds for the reception of applicants for admittance into the other wards of the hospital, until the physicians should decide upon the gravity of the cases. Each ward was in charge of two doctors, three medical assistants, and four servitors.
To the women’s ward were attached a lady-physician, six assistant lady-surgeons, and two female nurses. All patients were treated gratuitously. Upon arrival at the hospital a patient’s clothes were laid aside, and replaced by a white dress provided by the institution. There was a liberal allowance of bread, beans, onions, olive oil, and wine, for all able to partake of such food, while from time to time gifts of money were distributed. The beds were kept clean, and a house-doctor went through the wards every day to inquire of the patients, whether they were satisfied with their treatment, and to examine their diet. In addition to the hospital, the monastery maintained, on the same liberal scale, a Home for Old Men, accommodating twenty-four persons.