The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks

by Edwin Pears

Their departure for Ferrara was with a like magnificence. Twelve noble galleys and an innumerable number of gondolas, whose occupants and sailors were bright with silks of various colours, attended them. The imperial eagles were mingled with the gonfalons of St. Mark, and the city which more than any other lends itself to display has seldom presented a more brilliant spectacle.

Meantime the pope had threatened excommunication against the fathers of the Church who should continue to sit at Bâle, and had given them four months within which to present themselves at Ferrara. Their reply was a formal deposition of Eugenius.

First meeting of Council.

Upon the arrival of the imperial party at Ferrara and after long negotiations regarding questions of precedence, it was decided that the first meeting of the Council should be held on March 9, 1438, and it was so held, the business being merely formal. Four cardinals, twenty-five bishops, and other nobles had previously received the patriarch and conducted him to the pope, who rose from his throne, embraced him, and led him to a seat near him similar to those occupied by the cardinals. No decision could be taken during the four months’ delay. As the recalcitrants did not come in at the appointed time, a further postponement of two months was granted, probably for the reason that the pope knew that the princes of the West were still disposed rather to sympathise with the Council than with him. All this delay was in the highest degree irksome to the Greeks. Many of them had left their homes without much hope of arriving at a reconciliation, but when on reaching Ferrara they realised the discord which existed in the Roman Church itself not a few concluded that before anything could be done to complete the Union a reconciliation must take place among the Catholic factions themselves. During their long wait the restrictions imposed upon their movements aroused their suspicions. They complained that they were treated as prisoners. They could not leave the city without a permit. Three of the leading men who escaped to Venice were ignominiously brought back. They again escaped and this time found their way back to Constantinople. Nor was the treatment of the ecclesiastics such as might have been expected from hosts to guests. The bishop of Ferrara refused to allow the Greeks to celebrate in one of his great churches, declaring that he would not permit it to be polluted. The emperor and patriarch, for political reasons among others, were impatient to return, and did their utmost to urge on the work for which they had left their homes.

In October the second meeting of the Council was held. By this time a considerable number of the fathers of the Church had made submission to Eugenius and had arrived in Ferrara. Gibbon’s remark that ‘the violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the cause of Eugenius’[108] is just. The delay had undoubtedly strengthened the papal authority. Hence at the second Business of Council commences.meeting of the Council its business began at once to progress. Six Latin and six Greek theologians were selected to formulate the questions in difference. These related to the Procession of the Holy Ghost; the nature of the penalties of purgatory; the condition of souls before the last judgment; the use of unleavened bread in communion, and lastly, the supremacy of the pope.

Meantime plague had broken out in Ferrara. Five only out of the eleven cardinals remained, and all that had been done was to formulate the points of difference. For some reason which is not quite clear, the Council was transferred to Florence. The unhealthiness of the city was alleged, but Syropulus says that the plague had ended. The Greeks were extremely reluctant to go to so remote a place as Florence, but they finally consented, in the hope of speedily concluding their mission.

At Florence the Council got fairly to work. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had been president of the Council at Bâle, and John, the head of the Dominicans in Italy, were the champions on the Latin, and Isidore of Russia, Bessarion, and Mark, bishop of Ephesus, on the Greek side. Long, weary, and profitless discussions took place on the subject of the Double Procession. Two questions were involved: first, was the doctrine itself orthodox—that is, did the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son; second, assuming the Double Procession to be orthodox, by what authority had the Latin Church, claiming to speak as the Universal Church, presumed to add to the Nicene Creed the words Filioque, which proclaimed the disputed dogma, before the decision of a General Council had been pronounced. After many meetings among the Greeks alone, it was decided that as the Latin Church held that the Procession was not from two ‘principles’ but from one, and this by one operation, its teaching was in accord with that of the Orthodox Church, which acknowledged that the Procession is from the Father but through the Son. The scholars who brought about this agreement were Bessarion and George Scholarius, the latter of whom was destined afterwards to play an important part during the siege of Constantinople. The declaration of the Greeks was approved at a meeting of the Council.

Greater difficulty arose on the second point, of the conduct of the Latin Church in adding the clause to the Creed. The emperor was at length convinced, or professed to be, that the clause had formerly existed in the Creed at the time of the Seventh Council,[109] but it required all his influence to persuade some of the Greek ecclesiastics who were not convinced of this fact to avoid an open rupture. The debates were obstinate and angry. But emperor and pope were determined on Union, and each used all his influence and authority to convince or compel the more refractory to obedience. Finally, it was decided that the words Filioque had been lawfully and with good reason inserted in the Creed.

The question of purgatory and the condition of souls in the intermediate state occasioned little or no difficulty. On the use of unleavened bread, however, the controversy became so violent that on five different occasions the Greek bishops were with difficulty prevented from leaving the Council. It was at length decided that each Church might maintain its usage in regard thereto.