The most dangerous question, after that of the Double Procession, regarded the pope’s supremacy, and was apparently not made the subject of a public discussion.
In July 1439, after twenty-six sittings of the Council, the Union accomplished, July 14, 1439.Union was signed and all was ready for its formal proclamation. Earth and heaven were called upon to rejoice that the dividing wall between the Churches of the West and East had been broken down. In August, the Act of Union was published with imposing solemnity in the cathedral and a Te Deum was sung in Greek.
The embassy from Constantinople had been greatly impressed by the dissensions among the Latins. No French or German bishops had taken part in the meetings at Ferrara or Florence. Fifty out of the sixty-two bishops who were present were Italians, the remainder Spaniards or Burgundians. When the latter were admitted to the Council they saluted only the pope, doing this with the manifest intention of slighting the emperor. The adherents of Bâle were, indeed, openly hostile, and as they were known to have great influence among the princes of the West, the Greeks lost the illusion that if they came to an agreement with the pope, aid would gladly be sent from the great Catholic states.
It had been with difficulty that the emperor and the court party in Constantinople had persuaded the Churchmen to go to the West. While the former were willing to make many sacrifices, even perhaps to accept the pope’s supremacy, in the hope of obtaining aid against the Turks, when they recognised that the influence of Eugenius was not what they had believed it to be, they were less urgent, and certainly less able, to coerce the distinguished ecclesiastics who had been persuaded to accompany them. All were, indeed, miserably disappointed and disillusionised. Though the emperor never wavered in his determination to come to an agreement which would aid in the preservation of his empire, his own brother, Demetrius, refused to sign the Act of Union. Mark of Ephesus would not attend at the solemn proclamation, nor were George Scholarius or Gemistes or any of the bishops from Georgia present. The bishop of Heraclia, on his return to Venice, was required to recite the Creed in St. Mark’s, but he did so with the omission of the Filioque clause. The same bishop declared on his return to Constantinople, that he would rather his right hand had been cut off than that it should have subscribed the Union. In order to avoid the scandal of an open rupture, the four copies of the decree did not mention the supremacy of the pope. Other copies signed only by the Latin bishops were not recognised as authentic by the Greeks.[110]
The patriarch, a man of eighty, died just before the decree of the Union was signed, and was buried in the Baptistery of Florence. Religious animosity dogmatised over his grave about his opinions. Some of the Greeks subsequently pretended that his death was one of the several causes which rendered the Council illegal. Some of the Latins maintained that he had left a declaration of his acceptance of the Roman doctrine, and even of the supremacy of the pope.
John returns to Constantinople, August 1439.
The two persons who had shown themselves sincerely desirous of accomplishing a Union were the pope and the emperor. The former, who had paid the expenses of the Greek mission, now urged foreign states to prepare and send forth armies in aid of the Greeks. On the departure of John, in August 1439, for his capital, the pontiff not merely promised all the aid he could furnish, but undertook to maintain, at his own expense as long as he lived, three hundred men in the imperial service. He at once sent two well-armed galleys, and declared that he would furnish twenty ships of war during a period of six months. Eugenius and John had loyally stood by each other, and so far as depended upon them the Union had been accomplished.
With the object of giving effect to the decisions arrived at, the pope retained Bessarion and Isidore, both of whom he made cardinals. The latter, we shall see, was present at Constantinople during the final siege. He was metropolitan of Russia, and on his return to Moscow proclaimed the Union. He gave dire offence by naming the emperor before the grand duke, and the pope before the patriarch.
In 1442, the pope once again summoned certain princes, and especially Ladislaus, king of Poland and Hungary, to aid Constantinople, Cyprus, and Rhodes against the Turks. He, however, was at war in Italy, and consequently unable to furnish the aid which he had promised. Ladislaus was permitted to retain the Peter’s pence on condition that he would employ it in raising troops against the infidels. The pope persuaded Alphonse of Aragon to furnish armed galleys, and granted indulgences to all who sided in the struggle against unbelievers. But all attempts to arouse a general crusading spirit failed. With a few exceptions, those who went to fight the battles of Christendom against Murad belonged to nations whose vital interests were at stake. Many causes contributed to this result, and among them the awakening to new life in Italy. The Renaissance which was now in progress substituted the classic spirit for the Hebraic. Paganism itself, among scholars and statesmen, was in competition with Christianity, and the great movement which was destined to give birth to modern Europe and which was greatly assisted, as we shall see, by the Greek scholars from Constantinople, was antagonistic to the crusading spirit. A common Christianity was no longer a bond of union to those who were dreaming of a classic revival and of a return to pagan ideals. Except to men who were outside the influence of the new movement, the pope and churchmen appealed in vain.
News of the accomplishment of the Union was received in Constantinople with mingled feelings. Hopes had been damped. The advantages to be gained by sacrificing their Orthodox Faith were found to be doubtful. The conservative party, led by Mark of Ephesus, gained greatly in strength. Finding that the emperor had consented to the appointment of a new patriarch who accepted the Union, Mark resumed his denunciations both of it and of the Latin Church. The patriarchs of Syria and Egypt refused to recognise the decisions of Florence and threatened with excommunication the priests ordained by the patriarch of Constantinople.