The last and greatest attempt to bring about a Union was now about to be made, and deserves fuller notice than has been given to any which preceded it.
In 1429, in the fourth year of his reign, John sent to request the pope to despatch a messenger to Constantinople to treat of Union. Eugenius gladly complied and sent a friar to arrange conditions with the emperor and patriarch. It was agreed that the canonical method of arriving at a binding conclusion on matters of dogma should be adopted. The matters in dispute were to be submitted to a Council of the Church at which John and the patriarch were to be present.
Meantime Eugenius employed his influence during the next three or four years to induce the Venetians and Genoese to unite against the common enemy, to give aid to the knights in their defence of Rhodes, and to prevent any attacks upon the empire from the West. So far all looked promising. Unfortunately, however, at this time the Latin Church itself was divided. Rival popes, one in Italy, the other at Avignon, had denounced each other as pretenders. A Council of the Church opened at Bâle in March 1431 was by a papal Bull ordered to be transferred to Bologna after the expiry of eight months. The principal reason assigned for the transfer was the greater convenience of John and the imperial party. Eugenius had taken this step without consultation with the cardinals, and the change of place was at once strenuously opposed. A majority of the Council refused to obey and replied that as the Bohemians, the followers of John Huss, had been formally cited to appear at Bâle, the place of meeting could not be changed. As to the convenience of the representatives of the Greek Church, ‘the peace of Germany is not to be sacrificed for the old song which has rung in the ears of Europe for three centuries and ended in nothing, the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin Churches.’[105]
The Council was supported in its opposition to Eugenius by the Emperor Sigismund, by the duke of Milan, and by many kings, princes, bishops, universities, and cities. Only four cardinals remained on his side. Nevertheless he fearlessly denounced the Council as a Synagogue of Satan. For a while the more he threatened the more the dignitaries of the Church flocked to Bâle. Eugenius in vain endeavoured to extort from the Emperor Sigismund the dissolution of the Council as the price of his consent to place the imperial crown on his head. Sigismund would not yield, and Eugenius had to crown him. With the exception of Venice and Florence, all Western Europe was against Eugenius. An insurrection in Rome forced him to leave the city, and he escaped in a mean disguise. He was driven for a while to withdraw his denunciations and to admit the legality of the Council and of its acts.
A temporary reconciliation was of short duration. The claims of the rival parties were incapable of reconciliation. The Council was determined to limit the power of the pope; the pope would endure no limitation.
Two years were lost in useless negotiations. John strongly urged that the Council should consider the question of Union without delay, and sent a representative to Bâle in October 1433. When the members refused by a two-thirds vote to remove to Italy the emperor’s representative suggested that the meeting-place should be Constantinople. The Council in 1434 declared against this proposal, but offered to pay the expenses of the Greeks if they would come to Bâle. The latter, possibly from their ignorance of the geographical situation of the city, refused to go thither. Other places were suggested and the pope again gave his approbation for Bologna or some other place in Italy.
Representatives arrived in Constantinople from both the Synod at Bâle and the pope, who were again in opposition to each other. To such an extent had these hostilities grown that the Council declared Eugenius guilty of perjury and schism and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. Eugenius retorted by calling them an assembly of devils.
The deputies from Bâle brought with them to Constantinople a comminatory decree of the Council against the pope. The emperor and patriarch had therefore to choose between the Council and Eugenius. Each had invited them, had offered to bear the expenses and menaced them in case of refusal. The deputies from Bâle were heard at a public session of the Synod and threatened that if the Council were not recognised, the nations of the West would make war upon the empire, and this notwithstanding the aid of the pope, whose decrees they insisted were null and void. The ambassadors from Eugenius, who had arrived with a band of three thousand crossbowmen, offered terms as to transport and convoy similar to those which the messengers from Bâle had proposed, and suggested that the proclamation calling the meeting of the Council might be issued in the emperor’s name. They were also heard in a public sitting of the Synod in September 1437, a few days after the audience of the deputies from Bâle. John and the patriarch decided to accept the proposal of Eugenius.[106]
When the news reached the pope he at once issued a Bull fixing Ferrara as the meeting-place of the Council. In November 1437, the emperor, with a large suite, embarked. The imperial party arrived at Venice in the following February. The Venetians had been excommunicated by the Council of Bâle as adherents of Eugenius, who was their fellow-citizen, and, probably with a desire to induce the Greeks to throw in their lot entirely on the side of the pope, received John and the patriarch with unwonted honour. The doge and the senate in the ‘Bucentaur,’ with the galleys belonging to the republic and a crowd of gondolas, went out to receive them. Lodging was found for their followers on the Lido. Syropulus, who attended the patriarch and whose history from the Greek point of view is the most trustworthy narrative of these proceedings, was amazed at the display on the reception in Venice. ‘You could as easily number the leaves on the trees or the sands of the sea as the gondolas and galleys of the Venetians.’ Phrantzes is not less enthusiastic. He speaks of ‘Venice the marvellous, the most marvellous: Venice the wise, the most wise; the city predicted in the psalm, “God has founded her upon the waters.”’[107]
The Greeks were shown the treasures of St. Mark, but Syropulus remarks that as they gazed upon them arose the thought, ‘These were once our own. They are the plunder of Hagia Sophia and our holy monasteries.’