LATIN PATRIARCHATE
Together with the Latin Empire a Latin patriarchate had been established in 1204 at Constantinople, on which occasion the Greek patriarch took refuge at Nicæa. Notwithstanding the missions of Cardinal Benedict a Sancta Susanna (1205-1207) and Pelagius of Albano (1213), negotiations, and even persecutions, the Latins failed to induce all their Greek subjects to acknowledge the authority of the pope. In its best days the Latin patriarchate never numbered more than twenty-two archbishoprics and fifty-nine suffragan bishoprics, situated in Europe, in the islands, and even in Asia Minor. However, the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople outlived the Latin Empire, after the fall of which the Latin patriarchs resided in Greece or in Italy. From 1302 the Holy See reserved to itself the appointment to this office and united with the patriarchate first the Archbishopric of Candia, later the Bishopric of Negropont; this was still the situation as late as 1463. A consistorial decree of 1497 reserved this high title to cardinals; the rule, however, was subject to many exceptions. In modern times a contrary practice has prevailed; the Latin titular Patriarch of Constantinople ceases to bear this title only on entrance to the Sacred College. Of course, after the fall of the Latin or Frankish Empire in 1261, the Latin patriarch could not deal directly with the Catholics of Constantinople; they were committed to the care of patriarchal vicars, simple priests chosen usually among the superiors of religious orders resident in the city, Observantine or Conventual Franciscans, and Dominicans. This lasted until 1651, when the Latin patriarch was allowed by the sultan to have in Constantinople a patriarchal suffragan bishop, who was free to administer the diocese in the name of the patriarch. Finally, in 1772, the Holy See suppressed the office of patriarchal suffragan an appointed patriarchal vicars Apostolic, which system is yet in existence.
RESTORATION OF GREEK EMPIRE; EFFORTS AT REUNION OF THE CHURCHES
Having anticipated a little we may here take up the thread of our narrative. By the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, Michael Palæologus had drawn on himself the enmity of some Western princes, especially of Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis and heir to the rights of the aforesaid Latin emperors of Constantinople. To forestall the crusade with which he was threatened, the Greek emperor opened negotiations with the pope and accepted the union of the Churches. It was proclaimed at the Ecumenical Council of Lyons in 1274, and was confirmed at Constantinople by several particular councils held under the Greek patriarch, John Beccus, a sincere Catholic. It was not, however, accepted by the Greek people who remained always inimical to the West, and, on the emperor's death in 1282, it was rejected at a council held in the Blachernæ church. Thenceforth the rulers of Constantinople had to reckon with the ambitious claims of Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, and of other Latin pretenders to the imperial crown. The city itself was remit by the theological disputes of Barlaamites and Palamists arising from Hesychasm (q. v.), also by the domestic dissensions of the imperial family during the reigns of the two Andronici, John Palæologus, and John Cantacuzene. With the aid of Turkish mercenaries John Cantacuzene (the hope of the Palamists) withstood the legitimate emperor and conquered the city.
The Byzantine Empire was now in face of its last and greatest peril. The smaller Greek Empire of Trebizond controlled since 1204 a part of its Asiatic provinces. The Fourth Crusade had caused almost all the islands and a great part of its possessions in Europe to fall into the hands of the Venetians, Genoese, Pisans, and local dynasts. It feared most, however, the new empire of the Osmanlis that was rapidly overflowing all Asia Minor. The Osmanlis were originally a small Turkish tribe of Khorassan; in the thirteenth century they had settled near Dorylæum (Eski-Shehir), whence they gradually annexed all the sultanates and principalities of the Seljuk Turks and others. As early as 1326 Brusa in Bithynia had become the centre of their power. A Genoese fleet soon conveyed their army into Europe, where they took Gallipoli in 1397. Thenceforth, while the popes were especially anxious to save the Greek East and Constantinople, the Byzantines, excited by their priests and monks, appeared daily more hostile to the West and exhausted their opportunities in useless theological disputes. The memorable defeat of the Serbs and Bulgarians at Kossovo in 1389, and that of the crusaders at Nicopolis in 1396, seemed to indicate the hopelessness of the Byzantine cause, when the Mongol invasion of Timur-Leng (Tamerlane) and the defeat of Sultan Bayazid at Angora in 1402 combined to assure another half-century of existence to the doomed empire.
Scarcely had Manuel II heard of the Turkish disaster when he pulled down the mosque in his capital and abandoned his negotiations at Rome, where he had initiated proposals of peace, but only for political reasons. However, the Turkish power had not been destroyed on the plain of Angora. From June to September, 1422, Sultan Murad II laid siege to Constantinople, which he nearly captured. Though finally repulsed, the Turks tightened daily their control over all approaches to the city, which only a new crusade could have relieved. At the Council of Florence, therefore (1439), the Greeks again declared themselves Catholics. This formal reunion, however, imposed by the emperor and again rejected by the Greek nation, could not in the beginning be proclaimed even at Constantinople, in spite of the election of a patriarch favourable to Rome, and of Western promises to help the Greeks with men and money. Mark of Ephesus and after him Gennadius Scholarius were omnipotent with clergy and people, and infused into them fresh hatred of the Latins. Nevertheless, the promised crusade took place under the direction of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini. János Hunyady and Iskender-Beg (Scanderbeg) performed miracles of valour, but in vain. The crusaders were completely defeated at Varna in 1444, and nothing was left to Constantinople but to perish honourably. The reunion with Rome, as accepted at Florence, was at last proclaimed officially in St. Sophia by Cardinal Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev (12 Dec., 1452). It was thus fated that Emperor Constantine Dragases, the last heir of the great Constantine, was to die in the Catholic Faith.
FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE; CAPITAL OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE
When the tragic hour struck, the emperor had only about 7000 men, including all foreign succour. Since March, 1453, the Turks, to the number of 200,000, had invested the city; the preceding year they had built on the Bosporus the redoubtable fortress of Rumeli-Hissar. Their fleet also held the entrance to the Dardanelles, but was prevented from entering the Golden Horn by a strong iron chain that barred its mouth. But Mohammed II caused seventy of his ships to slide on greased planks behind Galata; in this way they entered the Golden Horn (22 April). He then cast across it a bridge of boats broad enough to allow the passage of five soldiers abreast, while his troops, constantly renewed, kept up without ceasing their attacks by land. Eventually the defenders were exhausted by the toils of a continuous and hopeless conflict, while their ranks grew steadily thinner through death or wounds. The population gave no help and was content to taunt the Latins, while waiting for the miracle of Heaven that was to save them. Finally, 29 May, 1453, about 4 o'clock in the morning, a furious assault of the Turks broke down the walls and gates of the city, and the besiegers burst in from every side. Emperor Constantine fell like a hero at the gate of St. Romanus. St. Sophia was immediately transformed into a mosque, and during three days the unhappy city was abandoned to unspeakable excesses of cruelty and debauchery. The next year, at the demand of the sultan himself, Gennadius Scholarius, Rome's haughty adversary, was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople, and soon the Greek Church was reestablished, almost in its former position.
Thus was granted the sacrilegious prayer of so many Greeks, blinded by unreasoning hate, that henceforth, not the tiara, but the turban should rule in the city of Constantine. Even the name of the city was changed. The Turks call it officially (in Arabic) Der-es-Saadet, Door of Happiness, or (chiefly on coins) Konstantinieh. Their usual name for it is Stamboul, or rather Istamboul, a corruption of the Greek expression eis ten polin (pronounced stimboli), perhaps under the influence of a form, Islamboul, which could pass for "the city of Islam". Most of the churches, like St. Sophia, were gradually converted into mosques. This was the fate of SS. Sergius and Bacchus -- a beautiful monument built by Justinian, commonly called "the little St. Sophia"; of the church of the monastery of Khora, whose splendid mosaics and pictures, mostly of the fourteenth century, are among the principal curiosities of the city; of the churches of the celebrated Pantocrator and Studium monasteries, etc. Other churches were demolished and replaced by various buildings; thus the church of the Holy Apostles gave way to the great mosque built by the conquering Sultan Mohammed II. The imperial tombs in this church were violated; some of their gigantic red porphyry sarcophagi were taken to the church of St. Irene. The latter is the only church taken from the Greeks that has not been changed into a mosque or demolished; it became, and is yet an arsenal, or rather a museum of ancient weapons.
The sultans in turn endowed their new capital with many beautiful monuments. Mohammed II built the castle of Yedi-Kouleh, the Tchinili-Kiosk (now a museum), the mosques of Cheik Bokhari, of the Janizaries, of Kassim-Pasha, of Eyoub, where every sultan at his accession is obliged to be girt with the sword of Othman, etc. Bayazid II built the Bayazidieh (1458). Soliman the Magnificent built the Suleimanieh, the most beautiful Turkish monument in Constantinople. His architect Sinan constructed fifty other mosques in the empire. Ahmed I built (1610) the Ahmedieh on the foundations of the imperial Great Palace, a pretty fountain near St. Sophia, etc. The buildings of the old seraglio at Seraglio Point are also of Turkish origin; nothing is left of the Byzantine imperial palaces that once stood there. The Blachernæ palace has also disappeared; its church was accidentally burned in the seventeenth century. Not far distant are the important ruins of the palace of the Porphyrogenitus. When the Turks took Constantinople, the hippodrome was already in ruinous decay. There remain yet three precious monuments of ancient imperial splendour: the Egyptian obelisk brought thither by Theodosius the Great, the Serpentine Column brought from Delphi by Constantine, and the Byzantine monument known as the Walled-up Column. Near them has been constructed, on the plans and at the expense of the German Emperor, William II, a fountain in Byzantine style. The Turks have also respected some other relics of antiquity, especially the columns of Constantine, Marcian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, the aqueduct of Valens, and many of the great subterraneous cisterns.
