800
years ago . . . the armies of the Fourth Crusade attacked and ransacked the
city of Constantinople.
Within days of the attack, which began on April 12, 1204, the warlords and
soldiers of the armies of Western Europe
stripped the ancient center of Orthodox Christendom bare of its store of art,
monument, and treasure, and killed a great many people. What was not defaced or
damaged by their systematic destruction was carried off as cultural plunder to
enrich the monasteries, abbeys, public squares, and churches of Western
Christendom. Consecrated ceremonial vestments, liturgical vessels, icons, and
the city's holiest relics were highly prized by the cardinal legate of the
expedition and his clergy.
Today,
testimony of the conquest lies in Western Europe-most
notably, in French and Italian cities and museums. For example, the precious
remains of St. John Chrysostom in the end found their way to St. Peter's
basilica, where they were enshrined by their Venetian looters. More disturbing
was the fate of the cathedral of the Holy Wisdom. Its original altar and
sanctuary, furbished entirely with gold and silver by its founder, the emperor
Justinian, simply vanished in the calculated vandalism. All that remained of
the place where the Orthodox liturgy took its present shape was an empty shell.
Memorializing the Fourth Crusade
Perhaps it is unnecessary to summarize again the sheer barbarism of that
day. After all, its details are well known. The literature on this chapter of
the crusades is vast. And furthermore, while the expedition was at first
proclaimed by Pope Innocent III to be a godly enterprise, it was recently
condemned as a betrayal of the Gospel by Pope Innocent's successor, Pope John
Paul II. . . . The pope apologized expressly for 1204, and for Roman past and
present sins of "action or omission" against Orthodox Christians. Earlier papal
pronouncements had also implied as much by condemning intolerance and violence,
and by urging honest acknowledgement of past sins against Christian unity.
. . . Reflecting on [the Fourth Crusade's] meaning and significance for contemporary
issues is in order. The lessons of this world-shattering event can shed light
on both the old, but persistent, questions of the East-West schism, and on the
current discussion within the American Orthodox Church about the nature of war
in our time (to say nothing of the wider public discourse on the rise of radical
Islamic fundamentalism). These questions come together in the broad crusading
movement in general, and the 1204 campaign in particular.
A Factor in the Schism
The complex story of the schism cannot be told without reference to the
momentous events of 1204. It is now commonplace for scholars and Orthodox
theologians to emphasize the progressive nature of Christian division. Orthodox
writer Jaroslav Pelikan deftly echoes this conviction in observing that "like
most divorces," the real break came slowly and "was a consequence of
estrangement, which turned into alienation, which turned into hostility, which
turned into separation." The break cannot be confined to a single incident or
precise date; its history was far more involved and uneven. Despite the anathemas
of 1054, Eucharistic communion and diplomatic negotiations did not cease. Though
still occasionally acclaimed as marking the permanent collapse of Christian
unity, 1054 was not the decisive moment of division.
After 1054, the unresolved theological differences and overall strained
relations worsened. The leadership of the First Crusade set up dioceses and a
rival parallel Latin hierarchy in areas that had never before come under Roman
jurisdiction. The local Orthodox clergy were excluded. Mutual antagonism and
suspicion deepened. Ominously, in describing the western settlers in their new
homes in 1100, Fulcher of Chartres famously informed them "we who were occidentals
are now orientals." Finally, relations deteriorated to the breaking point with
the armies of 1204, when the Church of Rome installed itself in the Orthodox
capital, forcibly uniting the Churches. A Venetian was then consecrated Latin
patriarch in the ancient See of Sts. John Chrysostom and Photius. This was
widely perceived by the Orthodox as a tacit theological endorsement by the
papacy of the invasion and the occupation. An overt act of aggression and
conquest had received papal sanction, and the Orthodox and the Christian West
parted ways. The real victim of the crusades had turned out to be the Christian
East - and Christian unity.
This wasn't the original intent. The crusading movement was conceived by the
Latin West in large part as a defensive response to the threat posed by
militant Islam to the Christian holy land. Its goal was to defend the faith, by
recovering the lands that had once belonged to Christendom. However, in
contrast to its impact on Christian unity and the Byzantine state, its impact
on the Islamic world was slight. The crusaders failed to expand deep into
Muslim territory, and the movement quickly lost most of the lands it had
gained, including Jerusalem. It should come as no surprise that the Arabs
viewed the Latins mostly as a minor nuisance, and that the crusades were never
a serious military threat to Islam. Their ultimate victim was elsewhere.
Thankfully, the heritage of resentment and ill-will generated 800 years ago is
today in decline. This is due in large measure to new openness born of the
ethos of ecumenism and to simple Christian charity. Mutual respect and dialogue
are preferable to the prejudice and hostility common in the past. However,
while the non-theological factors for the schism have practically vanished, the
theological causes have not. The Greek theologian Nikos Nissiotis had it right.
He was asked by Hans Kung, "What still separates us from the Catholic Church?" Though
himself a persuasive Orthodox advocate of ecumenism, Nissiotis was unwavering. His
Church, he politely corrected Kung, has never been separated from the One,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ. It was the Roman Church that had
defected, and that bears the major responsibility for the division. The
question was itself fraught with danger by laying emphasis on "what is in fact
the most controversial point of all" between Rome and the Orthodox! Just so.
Baptizing War: Jihad and Crusade
We also can benefit from remembering the Fourth Crusade during the current
debate about the nature of warfare. The Orthodox East was confronted with both
jihad and crusade, believed by those who waged them to be divinely-ordained
forms of war. The novel seventh century concept of jihad, which obliged Muslims
to defend their faith with military force, is in some ways similar to the
western concept of crusade. It is likely that the idea of jihad influenced
feudal Europe during its re-evaluation of war
service in the course of the eleventh century. The crusade is characterized by
several features that are practically identical to the Muslim ideology. Both
concepts are essentially a form of "holy war" with specifically religious goals
in mind. Both jihad and crusade can be distinguished from ordinary, so-called
"normal", military conflict, which does not require formal endorsement by a
religious authority. Jihad and crusade by definition do. Also, both jihad and
crusade historically involved the granting of exceptional spiritual advantages
to the warriors by the same authority that had first endorsed them. While the
Muslim soldier gained Paradise if he died in
battle, the crusading knight was promised the remission of sins by way of a
full (plenary) indulgence. This spiritual inducement made participation in such
a war seem a highly rewarding option.
As a matter of military strategy, the Byzantine Empire
should have lost no time in embracing the sort of canonized war advocated by
its closest neighbors. Warfare practically held center stage in the Byzantine
world. Byzantium
as an empire was in a state of siege for most of its long existence. Its vast
territory was open to invasion from all sides. A holy war mentality would have
had obvious advantages. For all that, the empire never developed its own brand of
religiously-driven warfare. The western drive to "baptize" war simply failed to
find anchor in Orthodox society, popular piety, or spirituality. Military
operations remained essentially "secular," in the hands of the lay authority-the
emperor, who alone was responsible for the defense of the empire.
The Church's Answer
This is not to say that the Church failed to support the state in time of
war. Orthodox clergy as a rule accompanied imperial expeditions for the daily
celebration of the liturgy, matins, and vespers, during which divine favor for
the emperor and army was invoked. The icon of the Theotokos Blachernitissa
normally traveled on campaign, as did sacred objects, reliquaries, processional
crosses, and imperial war banners. And such items were usually blessed by the
clergy. But this support was standard procedure and typical of all war-then as
well as now. It doesn't qualify in any sense as Byzantine holy war. On the
contrary, the Church was loath to pronounce in favor of such ideology. In the
960's, the Church was asked by the emperor Nicephorus Phocas (who evidently was
familiar with the Muslim notion of jihad) to proclaim as martyrs soldiers who
might die in combat against Muslims. The Church refused. Canon law denies the
Eucharist for three years to anyone who sheds blood in battle. The Church
determined that killing could not be a justification for spiritual rewards, and
the papal idea that the Church could declare a war as holy and actually wage it
was rejected. War remained first and foremost an imperial matter. The Church
could embrace or advocate war while remaining faithful to the truth of the
Gospel.
Taken as a whole, the consequences of the crusades were costly and tragic. Religious
militarism and fanaticism are clearly part of their legacy. The goals of the
crusades-defeat and conversion of the Arab world-were never achieved. The
western armies managed instead to inspire an Arab counter-offensive and
contribute to the beginning of an Islamic revival. More pernicious, however,
was the impact of the crusades on Christian unity. Although the root cause of
the East-West rivalry was doctrinal and theological in nature, the role played
by the crusading movement in the final collapse of Church unity was decisive. The
schism is bound to the infamous campaign of 1204. If before the launching of
the first crusade in 1095 Christians still believed in a single, undivided
Christendom, very few did so by the thirteenth century. All attempts to
reestablish full sacramental unity after 1204 proved impossible. The
consummation of the schism had become reality.
Aristeides Papadakis is professor
emeritus of Byzantine and Medieval History at the University of Maryland. He is the author (with John Meyendorff) of The
Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy
and of Crisis in Byzantium, an account of the Byzantine response to
the filioque controversy.
This article originally appeared in AGAIN Vol. 26 No. 1, Spring 2004. It is
reproduced here courtesy of www.conciliarpress.com.
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