ACCESSION OF CONSTANTINE DRAGASES; PATRIARCH GREGORY DEPOSED;
RENEWED ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN AID FROM THE WEST; EMPEROR
MEETS WITH LITTLE SUCCESS; ARRIVAL OF CARDINAL ISIDORE;
RECONCILIATION SERVICE DECEMBER 12, 1452, IN HAGIA SOPHIA;
DISSENSIONS REGARDING IT.
The emperor John left no son, and the succession had therefore to pass
to one of his three brothers, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas.
Constantine, the eldest, was at the time of the emperor’s death at
Sparta, but Demetrius claimed that as his elder brother was not born
in the purple, while he had inherited that honour, the crown ought to
be placed on his head. The dowager empress, the widow of Manuel, the
clergy, senate, the troops and people generally, declared in favour of
Constantine.[185]
While the matter was still under debate, Thomas, who had learned
at Gallipoli the death of his brother, arrived in the capital and
immediately supported the nomination of Constantine. An embassy
was sent to the Morea and on January 6, 1449, placed the crown on
the head of Constantine Dragases, the last Christian emperor of
Constantinople.[186]
On March 12, he arrived in the capital and his brother Thomas, who had
been appointed despot, went after some days to the Morea. There he was
shortly afterwards joined by Demetrius who had withdrawn his opposition
and accepted the situation.
The party opposed to the Union had now become sufficiently strong to
call together a Synod, which met in the autumn of 1450. The three
patriarchs of the East were present, and under their guidance the
assembly declared the patriarch Gregory to be an enemy of the Orthodox
Church and deposed him. In his stead they appointed Athanasius.
During the interval between the death of John and that of Murad,
on February 3, 1451, the Christian cause looked more hopeful.
Scanderbeg had maintained himself successfully in the field, Murad
had been compelled a second time to raise the siege of Croya. In four
separate battles the Turkish armies had been defeated. In the siege
of Sventigrad they lost thirty thousand men, and, though the brave
Albanian failed in capturing the city and had to raise the siege, his
campaign was a triumph.
It seems to have been generally recognised that young Mahomet, the
successor of Murad, had even before his accession determined to
lay siege to the city. The emperor, therefore, once more renewed
the efforts of his predecessors to obtain foreign aid. Once more
the insuperable obstacle to the Union of the Churches, the rigid
refusal of clergy and people, came to the fore. Constantine, like his
predecessors, tried and failed to coerce the Church. Athanasius, the
new patriarch, declared himself ready to maintain the Orthodox faith
and declined to recognise the acts of the Council of Florence. When
Constantine asked aid from Rome, he found that the deposed Gregory
had taken refuge there, and while the patriotism of the latter led
him to seek the pontiff’s help against the Turks, his Catholicism
compelled the pope to espouse his cause. Nicholas the Fifth summoned
the emperor, as the price of his support, to replace Gregory and to
take the measures necessary for formally completing the Union agreed
to at Florence. Constantine was willing to do what he could, but knew
the temper of his subjects. He knew himself to be distrusted by them
for what they regarded as his Romanising tendencies. When Mahomet was
at Magnesia, where the news of the death of his father reached him,
the Christians around regarded the new emperor unfavourably on account
of his predilection for the Union, and spoke of him as a usurper.
Constantine, who was on the look out for a wife[187] and had employed
Phrantzes on various expeditions to find one, had been compelled, on
account of the opposition of his subjects to any further relationship
with the Latins, to abandon his intention of marrying the daughter of
Foscari, the doge of Venice. He had thus given offence to a powerful
state, and, though he had offered all sorts of concessions, Venice
would only promise to send ten galleys to the help of the city.
The emperor temporised. He begged the pope to send ships and also
learned and capable ecclesiastics who could aid him to make the Union
acceptable to the clergy. In reply Nicholas promised to send a fleet,
although he was powerless to persuade other Christian princes to follow
his example. In answer to his second request he deputed Cardinal
Isidore, Metropolitan of Russia, whom we have seen at the Council of
Florence, to be his legate.
In November 1452, a great Genoese ship with the cardinal accompanied
by Leonard, archbishop of Chios, arrived at the city and was received
by the emperor with every honour. Isidore at once pressed for a formal
recognition of Union. The emperor and some of the nobles assented, but
the majority of the priests, monks, and nuns refused. Ducas says that
no nun consented and that the emperor only pretended to do so. It is
not unlikely that he is right. Mahomet had declared war. Preparations
for the siege of Constantinople were already being made, and not only
the emperor but many priests, deacons, and laymen of high rank were
ready to accept everything that Isidore proposed, provided only that
the city could obtain additional defenders. It was in this spirit
that they consented to be present on December 12, 1452, in the Great
Church in order to celebrate the Union and by so doing obtain aid
in their time of mortal anguish.[188] The service was destined to be
memorable. The party which would not accept the Union took offence at
the reconciliation service. While the emperor and a host of dignitaries
were present in Hagia Sophia a crowd went to the monk Gennadius, better
known as George Scholarius, and asked what they should do.
The man whom they went to consult was not a mere monk who had won the
popular ear. He was a scholar with a European reputation, the most
distinguished advocate in the long contest between the rival systems of
Aristotle and Plato which marks the transition from mediaeval to modern
thought. He was the last of the great polemical writers of the Orthodox
Church whose works were studied in the West as well as in the East.
His great rival in the controversy was Pletho, a celebrated Platonic
scholar. Both these writers had accompanied John Palaeologus to the
Councils of Ferrara and Florence.[189]
The reply of Gennadius, who was now a monk in the monastery of
Pantocrator (a little over a mile distant from the Great Church),
whither they had gone to consult him, was distinct enough. He handed
from his cell a paper asking why they put their trust in Italians
instead of in God. In losing their faith he declared that they would
lose their city. In embracing the new religion they would have to
submit to be slaves.
Something like a riot followed, and drunken zealots ran through the
streets declaring that they would have no Union with the Azymites--that
is, with those who celebrate with unleavened bread.
Meantime the congregation in the Great Church, after listening to a
sermon from the cardinal, formally gave their consent to the Union on
condition that the decrees of Florence should be again examined and,
if need be, revised. A Mass was celebrated in which Roman and Greek
priests took part; the names of Nicholas the Fifth and the restored
Patriarch Gregory were joined in the prayers, and both the cardinal and
the patriarch shared in the celebration in token that the old schism
was at an end and that the great reconciliation had been accomplished.
The reconciliation was, however, a delusion and a sham. Many who
accepted it, says Ducas, gave utterance to the thought, ‘Wait until we
have got rid of Mahomet, and then it will be seen whether we are really
united with these Azymites.’ Notaras, the grand duke and subject of
highest rank in the city, was reported to have declared that he would
rather see the phakiola of the Turk than the veil of the Latin priest.
Those who conformed did so under compulsion. They agreed with the mob
in regarding the Latin priests as the representatives of a foreign
tyranny. The most devout among the citizens were the most opposed to
a change of belief in order to obtain a temporal advantage. Without
going so far as Lamartine, who says ‘L’Église avait tué la patrie,’ we
may safely admit that it had greatly divided the people in presence of
their great enemy.
We have now arrived at a period within a few months of the final siege
of the city and have to limit our attention to the struggle which is
about to take place over against its walls, to the incidents of this
epoch-marking event, and to the _dramatis personae_ of the contest.