Constantinople

Constantinople (Gr Konstantinoupolis, city of Constantine), capital, formerly of the Byzantine, now of the Ottoman, Empire.

THE MODERN CITY.—It occupies one of the most beautiful and advantageous sites in the world, uniting as it does Europe with Asia and putting in communication the Black Sea and all Southern Russia with the greater part of Europe and Asia, and even with distant America. It is surrounded by water on all sides except the west, which is protected by walls. Its sea front is about eight miles in length. The air is generally pure, and the climate very temperate. Constantinople forms a special district (sanitary cordon) divided into three principal sections, two in Europe and one in Asia. The two European sections are Stamboul (ancient Byzantium), whose suburbs border the Sea of Marmora; Galata and Pera, more or less Europeanized quarters, with many villages rising in rows along the green hills that look down on the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. The Asiatic section is Scutari (Turk. Uskudar; Chrysopolis) and Kadi-Keui (Chalcedon), with their extensive suburbs on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus, the pleasant coasts of the Gulf of Nicomedia, and the Isles of the Princes. The city is divided into ten quarters or circles, each with its own municipality. The population is estimated (1908) at 1,200,000 inhabitants, four-fifths of whom are in Europe. There are about 600,000 Turks or other Mussulmans; the remainder include, in order of numerical importance, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and foreigners of various nationalities.

The Bosporus separates Europe from Asia; it is about eighteen miles long and varies in width from about half a mile to a mile and a half. The Golden Horn separates Stamboul from Galata and Pera, extends inland for about four and one-half miles, and ends abruptly at the Valley of the Sweet Waters beyond Eyoub. Two wooden bridges unite Galata with Stamboul, which latter section is mostly inhabited by Turks, and still preserves its ancient ramparts with their towers and gates. The chief monuments of the city are: St. Sophia, the magnificent church built in the first half of the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian, now a mosque; about 2000 other mosques (e.g. the Suleimanieh, the Ahmedieh, the Bayazidieh, Mohammed’s mosque, etc.); many ancient churches; beautiful fountains; imposing “turbes”, or tombs of sultans and other great personages; the Seraskierat or war office, with its enormous tower; the Tcharshi, or bazaar (more than 10,000 merchants); Yedi-Kouleh or the Seven Towers Castle, where ambassadors and other men of note were often imprisoned; the palace of the public debt; the large postoffice; the old seraglio of the sultans. The imperial museum has a remarkable collection of sarcophagi and another of cuneiform texts. In the Galata section the Genoese Tower (over 150 feet) attracts attention, as in Pera the residences of the ambassadors. Beyond, on the European shore of the Bosporus are the large palaces of Dolma-Baghtche and Tcheragan, also the Yildiz Kiosk, the residence of the reigning sultan. On the Asiatic shore are the palace of Beylerbey, many beautiful mosques, and the great Mussulman cemetery at Scutari, the Selimieh barracks (largest in the world), the magnificent new school of medicine, quite close to which is the little port of Haldar-Pasha, whence starts the railway line to Bagdad.

EARLY HISTORY OF BYZANTIUM.—Constantinople was founded c. 658 B.C. by a Greek colony from Megara; the site was then occupied by the Thracian village of Lygos. The chief of the Megarian expedition was Byzas, after whom the city was naturally called Byzantion (Lat. Byzantium). Despite its perfect situation, the colony did not prosper at first; it suffered much during the Medic wars, chiefly from the satraps of Darius and Xerxes. Later on, its control was disputed by Lacedaemonians and Athenians; for two years (341-339 B.C.) it held out against Philip of Macedon. It succeeded in maintaining its independence even against victorious Rome, was granted the title and rights of an allied city, and its ambassadors were accorded at Rome the same honors as those given to allied kings; it enjoyed, moreover, all transit duties on the Bosporus. Cicero defended it iii the Roman Senate, and put an end to the exactions of Piso. Later on, the Roman emperors entrusted the government of the city to prators, at once civil and military magistrates, who maintained, however, the earlier democratic forms of government. For a while Vespasian placed it under the Governor of Mcesia. The city continued prosperous to the reign of Septimius Severus, when It sided with his rival, Pescennius Niger. After a siege of three years (193-196) Severus razed to the ground its walls and public monuments, and made it subject to Perinthus or Heraclea in Thrace. But he soon forgave this resistance, restored its former privileges, built there the baths of Zeuxippus, and began the hippodrome. It was devastated again by the soldiers of Gallienus in 262, but was rebuilt almost at once. In the long war between Constantine and Licinius (314-323) it embraced the fortunes of the latter, but, after his defeat at Chrysopolis (Scutari), submitted to the victor.

THE CHRISTIAN CITY.—It has quite lately been established that Byzantium received its new name of Constantinople as early as the end of 324 (Centenaire de la societe nationale des antiquaires de France, Paris, 1904, p. 281. sqq.). Nevertheless, the solemn inauguration of the new city did not occur until May 11, 330; only after this date did the Court and Government settle permanently in the new capital. It was soon filled with sumptuous edifices like those of Rome; like the latter it was situated on seven hills and divided into fourteen regions; in the matter of privileges also it was similar to Rome. Among the new public buildings were a senate house, forums, a capitol, circuses, porticoes, many churches (particularly that of the Holy Apostles destined to be the burial-place of the emperors). The most beautiful statues of antiquity were gathered from various parts of the empire to adorn its public places. In general the other cities of the Roman world were stripped to embellish the “New Rome“, destined henceforth to surpass them all in greatness and magnificence. Traces of Christianity do not appear here before the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. In 212 Tertullian commemorates the joy of the Christians at the defeat of Pescennius Niger (“Ad Scapulam”, iii: “Caecilius Capella in illo exitu Byzantino: Christiani gaudete”). About 190, an Antitrinitarian heretic, Theodotus the Currier, a native of Byzantium, was expelled from the Roman Church (“Philosophoumena”, VIII, xxxv; St. Epiphanius, “Adv. Haer.,” liv). A probably reliable tradition makes the Byzantine-Church a suffragan of Heraclea in Thrace at the beginning of the third century. In the fifth century we meet with a spurious document attributed to a certain Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre at the end of the third century, according to which the Church of Byzantium was founded by the Apostle St. Andrew, its first bishop being his disciple Stachys (cf. Rom., xvi, 9). The intention of the forger is plain: in this way the Church of Rome is made inferior to that of Constantinople, St. Andrew having been chosen an Apostle by Jesus before his brother St. Peter, the founder of the Roman Church.

The first historically known Bishop of Byzantium is St. Metrophanes (306-314), though the see had perhaps been occupied during the third century. It was at first subject to the metropolitan authority of Heraclea, and remained so, at least canonically, until 381, when the Second Ecumenical Council (can. iii) gave the Bishop of Constantinople the first place after the Bishop of Rome. (For the exact meaning of thiscanon see Hefele, Hist. des Counciles, tr., Leclercq, Paris, 1908, II, 24-27.) Fuller details are given in Fischer, “De patriarcharum Constantinopolitanorum” catalogis (Leipzig, 1894); Scherrnanu, “Prophetenitnd Apostellegenden nebst JE ngerkatalogen des Dorotheus and verwandter Texte” (Leipzig, 1907); Vailhe, “Origines de l’Eglise de Constantinople” in “Ethos d’Orient” (Paris, 1907), 287-295.

Constantine had chosen this city as the new capital of the Roman Empire, but owing to his wars and the needs of the State, he rarely resided there. His successors were even more frequently absent. Constantius, Julian, Jovian, and Valens are found more habitually on the Danube or the Euphrates than on the Bosporus; they reside more regularly in Antioch than in New Rome. It was only under Theodosius the Great (379-95) that Constantinople assumed definitive rank as capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, its ambitious prelates did not wait so long to forecast the future greatness of the new city. In 339 Eusebius, and in 360 Eudoxius, quitted the great Sees of Nicomedia and Antioch for what was yet, canonically, a simple bishopric. Both the city and its inhabitants suffered much during the Arian controversies; the Arian heretics held possession of the Church for forty years. Honorable mention is due to two of its bishops: St. Alexander, whose resistance and prayers were crowned by the sudden death of Arius in Constantinople; and St. Paul the Confessor, a martyr for the Faith. We must add the eighty martyrs put to death simultaneously by Emperor Valens. St. Gregory of Nazianzus restored religious peace in this Church early in the reign of the aforesaid Theodosius. From the council of 381 may be said to date the ecclesiastical fortunes of Constantinople. Its bishop began thenceforth to claim and to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the six provinces of Thrace, hitherto subject to Heraclea, and soon over the twenty-two provinces of Asia Minor and Pontus, originally subject to Ephesus and Caesarea. These rights of supremacy, though usurped, were acknowledged by the twenty-eighth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (451), from which time the bishops of Constantinople ruled over about 420 dioceses. In 431 began an almost continuous conflict with the Roman Church, that was crowned with success in 733, when an Iconoclast emperor withdrew from the jurisdiction of Rome all ecclesiastical Illyricum, i.e. more than a hundred dioceses. About the end of the ninth century, when Photius broke with the Roman Church, his own patriarchate included 624 dioceses (51 metropolitan sees, 51 exempt archbishoprics, and 522 suffragan bishoprics). At that time the Roman Church certainly did not govern so great a number of sees. At this period, moreover, by its missionaries and its political influence, Constantinople attracted to Christianity the Slav nations, Serbs, Russians, Moravians, and Bulgars, and obtained in these northern lands a strong support against the Roman and Frankish West.

This ecclesiastical prosperity coincided with the political and municipal grandeur of the city. At the death of Theodosius the Great (395), when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts, Constantinople remained the center and capital of the Eastern Empire. The Western Empire was destined soon to fall before the onslaughts of the barbarians. While its provinces were held by uncouth German tribes, Constantinople alone remained to represent Christian civilization and the greatness of the Roman name.

Simultaneously the city was enlarged and embellished, particularly under Theodosius II, Justinian, Heraclius, and Basil the Macedonian. In 413 it reached its actual (1908) size on the right bank of the Golden Horn, under the city prefect, Anthemius. In 625 Heraclius added the famous quarter of Blachernae with its venerated church of the Blessed Virgin, whose image was considered as the palladium of the city. The circumference of the walls was then (and still is) eleven or twelve miles. They were often rebuilt, especially under Tiberius III (c. 700), Anastasius II (714), Leo III (740), Nicephorus I (803), Theophilus (831), Michael VIII (1262), Andronicus II (1316), John VII (between 1431-1444). To protect the territory of Thrace from the invasions of the barbarians, Anastasius I, in the early part of the sixth century, built a great wall about fifty miles in length and about twenty feet in breadth from Silistria to the Lake of Derkoi. The ramparts of Constantinople had many gates: the principal one was the Golden Gate, the terminus of the Triumphal Way. On the Sea of Marmora numerous havens gave shelter to boats and barques; the present unique port of the Golden Horn had not yet been created. The strongly fortified Great Palace was a real town. Other splendid pal-aces adorned the city (Boucoleon, Chalice, Blachern); many graced the European and Asiatic suburbs. Hundreds of churches and monasteries, thousands of clerics, of monks, and nuns, attested an intensely religious life. The church of St. Sophia alone, the glory of Justinian’s reign, owned 365 estates. How vast these domains were may be judged from a law of Heraclius (627) that established 625 clerics as the number necessary for the service of St. Sophia. The little church of Blachernae had 75 endowed clerics. The names of at least 463 churches are known, 64 of which were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. As early as 536, 68 superiors of local monasteries were present at a council in the city.

So many rich churches and monasteries, imperial or private palaces, not to speak of the luxury of the court and the great imperial dignitaries, naturally excited the covetousness of barbarian peoples. Constantinople had, therefore, to sustain numberless sieges; it was attacked in 378 by the Goths, by the Avars and Persians during the reign of Heraclius (610-41), by the Arabs during the reign of Constantine Pogonatus (668-85), and again by the Arabs under Moslemeh in 717; many times also by Bulgarians, Patzinaks, Russians, and Khazars. But the city always defied its besiegers, thanks to the solidity of its walls, often to the valor of its soldiers, but chiefly to the gold that it distributed in profusion. More grievous, perhaps, were the domestic conflicts that broke out in almost every new reign; the quarrels between the Blue and Green factions that clamored for imperial favor in the races of the hippodrome; the conflagrations and earthquakes that sometimes levelled the city with the ground, e.g. the conflagration that broke out during the Nika revolt (532), on which occasion Justinian nearly lost his throne, more than 80,000 persons were killed, and fire destroyed the greater part of the city.

HERESY AND SCHISM.—When Photius (d. 891) began the schism consummated by Michael Caerularius in 1054, the Byzantine Church had, since the death of Emperor Constantine in 337, been formally out of communion with the Roman Church during 248 years (55 years on account of Arianism, 11 on account of the condemnation of St. John Chrysostom, 35 on account of Zeno’s Henoticon, 41 on account of Monothelism, 90 on account of Iconoclasm, 16 on account of the adulterous marriage of Constantine VI). On the whole, therefore, Constantinople had been out of communion with the Apostolic See one out of every two years. During this period nineteen patriarchs of Constantinople were open heretics, some of them quite famous, e.g. Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eudoxius, Macedonius, Nestorius, Acaeius, Sergius, Pyrrhus. On the other hand must be mentioned several orthodox bishops, e.g. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Flavian, St. Germanus, St. Tarasius, St. Methodius, and St. Ignatius, the opponent of Photius, whose virtues and literary fame compensate for the scandalous heterodoxy of their confreres. Nor can we omit illustrious monks and hymnographers like St. Romanus (Melodus), the greatest liturgical poet of the Byzantine Church, St. Maximus Confessor, St. Theodore, the noble abbot of the famous monastery of Studium (Stoudion), and many others who suffered martyrdom during the reigns of Iconoclast emperors.

Many councils were held in Constantinople, sometimes against heresies, sometimes in favor of them. Chief among these councils are: the ecumenical councils of 381, 553, 681, and 869; the Trullan Council (692), very important for the history of canonical legislation; the councils of 712 and 878 which ratified, respectively, Monothelism and the revolt of Photius against Rome. The schism of Photius was not at once followed by its worst consequences. The learned but ambitious patriarch was yet living when union with the Roman Church was reestablished by Emperor Leo the Wise in 886; he obliged Photius to quit the patriarchal throne. From that time to the patriarchate of Michael Caerularius (1043-1049), in spite of the Filioque question, relations with the papacy were generally cordial. There were indeed, at the beginning of the tenth century, some difficulties caused by the emperor’s fourth marriage, but in this conflict both the opposing patriarchs attempted to obtain from the Roman Church justification of their conduct. It was only under Michael Caerularius that the schismatic condition was finally confirmed, almost without any apparent motive and only through the bad will of this patriarch. After long and sharp disputes between the two Churches, the pope’s legates, with the approbation of the imperial court, deposited, July 15, 1054, on the altar of St. Sophia the Bull of excommunication against the patriarch. This act resulted in a popular revolution. Five days later Michael Caerularius replied by excommunicating the pope and the “azymite” Latins. The weak-minded and lewd emperor, Constantine Monomachus, dared not resist the all-powerful patriarch. It must be noted, however, that, unhappily, the idea of schism had long been familiar to the minds and hearts of the Greeks. The first period of the schism was coeval, especially at Constantinople, with a remarkable literary revival, inaugurated as early as the tenth century by the Macedonian dynasty and carried to its perfection under the Comneni and the Palaiologi. This revival, unfortunately, did not affect favorably the morality of the population, being chiefly an unconscious return to models of antiquity, indeed a kind of neo-paganism. We owe to it, however, beautiful works in literature, architecture, and painting.

IMPERIAL SUCCESSION; CRUSADES; LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.—After the division of the Roman Empire in 395, Constantinople beheld the passage of many great dynasties: that of Theodosius, prolonged by adoption until 602; that of Heraclius, from 610 to 711, with intrusion of several usurpers; that of Leo the Isaurian, from 717 to 802; the Amorium dynasty from 820 to 867; that of Basil the Macedonian from 867 to 1057; finally from 1081 to the Frankish conquest in 1204, that of the Comneni and the Angeli. Succession, of course, was not always regular; even in the legitimate dynasties murder and cruelty, it is well known, often marked the accession of an emperor. Sometimes the streets of the capital were on the same day decked with flowers and drenched with blood. Nevertheless, till the middle of the eleventh century, the empire held its own in Asia Minor against the Arabs. The latter were now gradually supplanted by their coreligionists, the Turks, who, towards the end of that century, occupied most of the Asiatic peninsula and set up their capital at Nicaia, not far from Constantinople. Then began the Crusades, that great overflow of the West towards the East, started by the pious wish of all Christian Europe to deliver the Holy Sepulchre. Constantinople saw the crusaders for the first time in 1096. The contact between the two civilizations was not cordial; the Greeks gave generally to the crusaders an unkindly reception. They looked on them as enemies no less than the Turks, except that the crusaders, marching in the name of Christ and backed by all the strength of the West, appeared much more dangerous than the Mussulman Turks. On the other hand the Franks were only too ready to treat the Greeks as mere unbelievers, and, but for the opposition of the popes, would have begun the Crusades with the capture of Constantinople.

These sad quarrels and the fratricidal conflicts of Christian nations lasted nearly a century, until in 1182 Emperor Andronicus Comnenus, a ferocious tyrant, ordered a general massacre of the Latins in his capital. In 1190 the Greek patriarch, Dositheus, solemnly promised indulgences to any Greek who would murder a Latin. These facts, together with the selfish views of the Venetians and the domestic divisions of the Greeks, were enough to provoke a conflict. The Greek Emperor Alexius III had dethroned his brother and stripped his nephew of all rights (1195); the latter sought a shelter in the West (1201), and, together with his brother-in-law, Emperor Philip of Swabia, with Venice, and Boniface of Montferrat (chief of the projected crusade), he turned aside the Fourth Crusade and directed the knights, first to the siege of Zara in Dalmatia, and afterwards to Constantinople. In spite of the formal veto of Innocent III, the crusaders laid siege to the city, which soon surrendered (July 17, 1203). Emperor Alexius III took flight. His brother, Isaac Angelus, was taken from prison and crowned emperor, with his son Alexius IV. The crusaders had hoped that the new emperors would keep their promises and reunite the two Churches; confident of this they wrote to Innocent III (August, 1203) to justify their behavior. But the imperial promise was not kept; indeed, it could not be executed. In November, 1205, Alexius IV broke off all relations with the crusaders. Thereupon the hostility between the Greeks and the Latins was in almost daily evidence; brawls and conflagrations were continually taking place. Alexius IV and his father were dethroned and put to death (February, 1204) by a usurper who took the name of Alexius V Murtzuphlos. The latter made haste to put his capital in a state of defense, whereupon the crusaders began a second siege. After several onslaughts the city was taken (12 and April 13, 1204) amid scenes of great cruelty; the slaughter was followed by an unbridled plunder of the countless treasures heaped up during so many centuries by the Byzantine emperors. The holy relics especially excited the covetousness of the Latin clerics; Villehardouin asserts that there were but few cities in the West that received no sacred booty from this pillage. The official booty alone, according to the same historian, amounted to about eleven millions of dollars whose purchasing power was then of course much greater than at this day. The following May 9, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, became emperor; Boniface of Montferrat obtained Thessalonica and Macedonia; the knights, various feudal fees; Venice, the islands and those regions of the empire that assured her maritime supremacy. This new Latin Empire, organized according to feudal law, never took deep root. It was unable to hold its own against the Greeks (who had immediately created two empires in Asia, at Nicaea and at Trebizond, a despot-ate in Epirus and other small States) nor against the Bulgarians, Comans, and Serbs. After a much disturbed existence it disappeared in 1261, and Constantinople became again the center of Greek power with Michael Paheologus as emperor.

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 Nicaea. 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 and 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 Palaeologus 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 Blachernae 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 rent 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 Palaeologus, 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 over-flowing all Asia Minor. The Osmanlis were originally a small Turkish tribe of Khorassan; in the thirteenth century they had settled near Dolyheum (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 center 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 favorable 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. Janos Hunyady and Iskender-Beg (Scanderbeg) performed miracles of valor, but in vain. The crusaders were completely defeated at Varna in 1444, and nothing was left to Constantinople but to perish honorably. The reunion with Rome, as accepted at Florence, was at last proclaimed officially in St. Sophia by Cardinal Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev (December 12, 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 succor. 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 (April 22). 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, May 29, 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 T-jv Trbaw (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 Blachernae 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 splendor: 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.

THE TURKISH CITY.—This is not the place to narrate the later history of the city, so often the scene of sanguinary events, revolts of the Janizaries, palace-revolutions, etc. In 1826 Mahmud II suppressed the redoubtable praetorians, but the tragic domestic revolutions go on as before. In 1807 a British fleet threatened the city, which was courageously defended by Sultan Selim III and the French ambassador, General Sebastiani. In 1854 Anglo-French armies encamped at Constantinople before and after the Crimean expedition against Russia. In 1878 the Russians advanced to San Stefano, a little village in the European suburbs, and dictated there a treaty of that name. In 1821 the Greek patriarch, Gregory V, with many bishops and laymen, was hanged on the occasion of the outbreak of the Greek War for Independence. In 1895-1896 the capital, as well as the provinces, saw many Armenians massacred by the Kurds, with the complicity, or rather by order of the Government. Even the dreadful physical catastrophes of former times have been renewed; great conflagrations in 1864 and 1870 destroyed entire quarters at Stamboul and Pera. In the latter place many thousands of lives were lost (most of the houses are built of timber). In 1894 an earthquake laid low a great part of the Bazaar and killed several thousand persons. The city is now undergoing a slow process of cleansing; it is lit by gas, and there are some tramways in its streets, most of which are still very narrow and dirty, and are at all times obstructed by vagrant dogs. A cable railway joins Galata to Pera.

NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS STATISTICS.—The population, we have already said, is (1908) at least 1,000,-000, perhaps 1,200,000; Turkish statistics are very uncertain. The Turks seem to form about three-fifths of this population. There are more than 2000 mosques, near which are generally found elementary schools for boys and even for girls; often also medressehs or Mussulman theological schools. The tekkes are Mussulman monasteries for dervishes of various orders. Superior instruction is given at the Lyceum of Galata Seraglio. It has about 1200 pupils (mostly Mussulmans), and instruction is given in both Turkish and French. Efforts are being made to transform this college into a university. There are also about 20 secondary schools, a university of law, a school of medicine, military schools, and other professional and special schools. The libraries annexed to the great mosques contain precious Eastern manuscripts. There are many Turkish hospitals, several of which are in charge of Catholic Sisters of Charity, an asylum for the poor, a Pasteur institute, and other charitable foundations. The Persian Mussulmans, generally Shiites, have their own religious organization, with a hospital at Stamboul, conducted by Sisters of Charity. The Jewish population increases rapidly, and is of two kinds: the Spanish Jews who came to Turkey in the sixteenth century when expelled from Spain, and still speak a bad Spanish; others, who came and still come from Russia, Rumania, Austria, Germany, etc. The latter often obtain good situations; not so the former, whose social status is low and unhappy. There is also among the Jews of the city a diversity of rites, synagogues, schools. and works of beneficence. The Christians seem to number over 300,000. If we except an insignificant body of Jacobites and their bishop, the rest may be divided as Monophysites, Protestants, Orthodox Greeks, and Catholics. The Monophysites are Armenians, who call themselves Gregorians, after their apostle, St. Gregory Illuminator. They number about 100,000, with a patriarch resident at Koum-Kapou (Stamboul), many churches, 53 elementary schools, 2 colleges, a large charitable establishment at Yedi-Kouleh, etc.

Protestantism is represented by English, American, German, and other foreign colonies, also by about one thousand Armenian converts. Its chief institutions, apart from several churches, are the Bible house at Stamboul with its brandies (homes for sailors and foreign girls), Robert College a t Rumeli-Hissar on the Bosporus Ca large American school founded in1863, with about 600 pupils), and a high school for girls at Scutari. There are also some elementary Protestant schools and a special mission for the Jews, finally an English and a German hospital. The Schismatic Greeks who call themselves Orthodox, number about 150,000, some thousands of whom are Hellenes, i.e. subjects of the Kingdom of Greece. The ecumenical patriarch, who resides in the Fanar (Greek quarter, along the Golden Horn), is the bishop of the diocese (there are metropolites at Kadi-Keui and at Makri-Keui, the latter with the title of Derki). He is aided in the administration of his office by the Great Protosyncellus. There are 40 parishes, 12 of which are first class, 11 second class, and 17 third class. The principal churches prefer instead of a simple priest, a titular bishop or chorepiscopus: they are five in number. Recent statistics show 72 schools, 64 of which give elementary and middle, and 8 superior teaching. Among the higher schools are included the so-called Great National School in the Fanar (said to date from the Middle Ages), the commercial and theological schools at Halki, etc. The theological school is a seminary for future bishops of the Greek Church. These Greek schools have 398 teachers and 13,217 pupils; the elementary schools have 10,665 pupils, and the superior schools 2562. We may add that many Greek boys and girls, also Armenians, are taught in foreign schools, chiefly in those of the French religious congregations and at Robert College. The Greeks have a large charitable establishment at Balekli and an orphanage. Quite important also are their various associations (syollogi), the principal one being the important learned body known as the Literary Greek Society, with a rich library. The libraries of the Metochion, of the Holy Sepulchre, and the theological school at Halki are also remarkable for their manuscripts. For the general organization of the Greek Schismatics, see Greek Church. The Russians have at Constantinople 3 monasteries, a school, a hospital, and an archaeological institute, with a rich library. The Serbs and Rumanians have also their national establishments. There are in the capital about 15,000 Bulgarians. They are considered schismatics by the Greek Church, from which they have completely separated. Their exarch, who has jurisdiction over all native Bulgarians and those of European Turkey, resides at Chichli (pronounced shishli), where there are also a seminary, a school, and a hospital for Bulgarians. His cathedral is at Balata, Stamboul.

CATHOLIC LIFE AND STATISTICS.—The Catholics include those of the Roman or Latin Rite, and others of Eastern rites often called Uniats. Among the latter, the Catholic Armenians deserve most attention; they number about 5000. Their patriarch resides at Pera, and to their special organization belong: 6 elementary and 3 middle schools, also a large charitable establishment for orphans and for poor or sick people. They have four congregations conducted as follows: The Mechitarists of Vienna have 2 residences, 19 monks; the Mechitarists of Venice, 1 residence, 8 monks; the Antonines, 1 residence, 8 monks; Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 3 residences, about 100 nuns. The Melchites or Arabic-speaking Syrians of Byzantine Rite have a church with 3 priests, one of whom acts as vicar of his patriarch for all affairs of the “nation” that come before the Sublime Porte. The Catholic patriarchs of the Chaldeans and the Syrians are similarly represented by vicars to whom are subject the few faithful of their rites present in the city. The Catholic Greeks, few in number as yet, are subject to the Apostolic delegate; they have two parishes, at Koum-Kapou (Stamboul) and Kadi-Keui, conducted by the Assumptionists, and a mission at Pera, conducted by the Fathers of the Holy Trinity. The former have also missions for the Greeks at Caesarea in Cappadocia and at Peramos in the Peninsula of Cyzicus; the latter at Malgara and Daoudili in Thrace. The Catholic Bulgarians have at Galata their archbishop and one priest. The Catholic Georgians are few and are subject to the Apostolic delegate; most of them belong to the Latin or the Armenian Rite.

The Catholics of the Latin Rite, as already stated, are ruled by an Apostolic vicar. Though a titular archbishop he enjoys ordinary jurisdiction and since 1868 is Apostolic delegate for the Catholics of Eastern Rites. He resides at Pancaldi and has there his pro-cathedral. His authority is not acknowledged by the Sublime Porte and he is obliged to use the French embassy in his relations with the Turkish Government. The limits of his vicariate are: in Europe the Vicariate of Sofia, the Archdioceses of Uscub and Durazzo, and the Apostolic Delegation of Athens; in Asia, the Diocese of Tiraspol, the Apostolic Delegations of Mesopotamia and Aleppo, and the Archbishopric of Smyrna. The Latin Catholics subject to him must number (1908) between 30,000 and 35,000, about 22,000 of whom are at Constantinople. Other principal centers are, in Europe: Salonica, Gallipoli, Cavalla, Monastir, Roelosto, Dede-Aghatch, and Adrianople, with about 6000 souls; in Asia: Brusa, Ismid, Adampol, Zongoul-Dagh, Dardanelles, Eski-Shehir, Angora, Trebizond, Samsoun, and Erzeroum with about 3000 souls. Most Latin Catholics are of foreign nationalities and come from Greece, Italy, France, Austria, etc.

Almost all the religious works of the Apostolic vicariate are conducted by religious orders or congregations. The secular clergy counts only about ten members; they possess the two parishes of Pancaldi (pro-cathedral) and the Dardanelles. There are four-teen parishes (five principal) in Constantinople and its suburbs. Outside the capital, the vicariate comprises 7 other parishes and 23 missionary stations. There are several seminaries, but none for the vicariate itself: a Greek preparatory seminary at Koum-Kapou (Stamboul), a Bulgarian preparatory seminary at Kara-Aghatch (Adrianople), a Greek-Bulgarian theological seminary at Kadi-Keui, conducted by the Assumptionists, with respectively 30, 35, and 10 pupils; the Eastern Seminary, preparatory and theological, founded at Pera in 1889 by French Capuchins for Latin and Eastern Rite pupils of every Eastern diocese, with 45 to 50 pupils; the preparatory Seraphic Seminary conducted since 1894 at San Stefano by Austrian Capuchins, 30 pupils; a Bulgarian preparatory and theological seminary at Zeitenlik (Salonica), conducted by the Lazarists, 58 pupils. Eighty elementary or middle schools are conducted by the aforesaid religious congregations. There are 74 primary and boarding schools, for boys or girls, with 11,400 pupils (7030 girls and 4370 boys), 6 (properly so called) colleges for boys with 1410 pupils and a commercial institute. Moreover, 600 male and female orphans are trained in 6 orphanages. A professional school has just been founded. More than half of these schools are situated in Constantinople or its suburbs. Many of the pupils are not Catholics, and many are Mussulmans or Jews. There is at Feri-Keui a large and beautiful cemetery.

CATHOLIC ORDERS AND CONGREGATIONS.—Orders of Men.—Augustinians of the Assumption, 13 residences, 51 priests (including 6 of Greek and 6 of Slav Rite), and 28 students or lay brothers, 3 seminaries, 6 parishes, 7 schools. French Capuchins, 2 residences, 59 monks (25 students and 10 lay brothers). 1 semi-nary, 1 scholasticate, and the church of St. Louis, parish of the French embassy. Austrian Capuchins, 1 residence, with 1 parish, 1 seminary and 1 novitiate, 10 monks. Italian Capuchins, 3 residences, 8 priests, and 4 lay brothers. Conventuals, 6 residences, 5 parishes, 21 priests, and 10 lay brothers. Franciscans, 4 residences, 2 parishes, with 10 priests and 6 lay brothers. Dominicans, 3 residences, 1 parish, 9 priests, and 3 lay brothers. Georgian Benedictines of the Immaculate Conception, 3 residences, 2 parishes 1 school, with 13 religious (2 priests of Georgian Rite). Jesuits, 6 residences, 42 religious, about 20 priests, 9 schools. Austrian Lazarists, 1 residence, 1 college, 12 religious. French Lazarists, 7 residences, 71 religious (56 priests), 2 colleges, 1 seminary, several schools, 1 parish. Greek Fathers of the Holy Trinity of Pera, 3 residences, 6 priests, 3 schools. Polish Resurrectionists, 3 residences, about 30 religious (12 priests, several of the Slav Rite), 1 college. Brothers of the Christian Schools, 150 brothers, 10 residences, 1 college, 1 commercial and 10 elementary schools. Brothers of Ploermel, 10 brothers, aiding the Assumptionists in their schools. Marist Brothers, 8 residences, 4 schools, 46 brothers, aid other religious in 4 more schools. Italian Salesians of Dom Bosco, 1 technical school.

Orders of Women.—Carmelites, 6 nuns. Dominican Sisters of Mondovi, 2 schools, 14 nuns. Sisters of Charity, 17 establishments, 210 nuns; they conduct among others three Turkish hospitals, the Persian, French, Italian, and Austrian hospitals, 2 asylums, 7 orphanages, 13 schools. Franciscan Sisters of Calais, 1 residence, 10 sisters for care of sick people at home. Franciscan Sisters of Gemona (Italy), 4 residences, 30 sisters, 5 schools. Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Ivrea (Italy), 3 residences, 35 sisters, 1 hospital, 2 schools. Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes, 1 residence, 14 sisters, for the adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament and care of sick people. Oblates of the Assumption, 8 residences, 94 sisters, 7 schools, 1 hospital, 1 novitiate for native girls. Oblates of the Assumption of Nimes, 15 sisters, 3 schools. Little Sisters of the Poor, 1 asylum, 16 sisters. Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, 2 residences, 30 sisters, 2 schools. Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons, 3 residences, 39 sisters, 3 schools, 1 hospital. Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, 120 sisters, 2 residences, 2 boarding, and 2 elementary schools. Georgian Servants of Our Lady, 2 residences, 2 schools, 15 sisters. Bulgarian Eucharistine Sisters, 5 residences with schools, 30 sisters. Resurrectionist Sisters, 5 sisters, 1 school. Missionary Sisters of the Most Holy Heart of Mary, 8 sisters, 1 hospital. Most of these residences have dispensaries, with a physician, where remedies are supplied gratuitously to the poor. To the works of these congregations must be added pious works conducted by lay persons: St. Vincent de Paul Conferences (6 at Constantinople); the Sympnia, an association which conducts a school for Catholic Hellenes, with 90 pupils, various associations and brotherhoods, etc.

Constantinople, COUNCILS OF.—A. GENERAL COUNCILS.—Four general councils of the Church were held in this city.

I. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (Second General Council) was called in May, 381, by Emperor Theodosius, to provide for a Catholic succession in the patriarchal See of Constantinople, to confirm the Nicene Faith, to reconcile the Semi-Arians with the Church, and to put an end to the Macedonian heresy. Originally it was only a council of the Orient; the arguments of Baronius (ad an. 381, nos. 19, 20) to prove that it was called by Pope Damasus are invalid (Hefele-Leclercq, Hist. des Conciles, Paris, 1908, II, 4). It was attended by 150 Catholic and 36 heretical (Semi-Arian, Macedonian) bishops, and was presided over by Meletius of Antioch; after his death, by the successive Patriarchs of Constantinople, St. Gregory Nazianzen and Nectarius. Its first measure was to confirm St. Gregory Nazianzen as Bishop of Constantinople. The Acts of the council have almost entirely disappeared, and its proceedings are known chiefly through the accounts of the ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. There is good reason to believe that it drew up a formal treatise (tomos) on the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, also against Apollinarianism; this important document has been lost, with the exception of the first canon of the council and its famous creed (Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum). The latter is traditionally held to be an enlargement of the Nicene Creed, with emphasis on the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. It seems, however, to be of earlier origin, and was probably composed (369-73) by St. Cyril of Jerusalem as an expression of the faith of that Church (Bois), though its adoption by this council gave it special authority, both as a baptismal creed and as a theological formula. Recently Harnack (Realencyklopadie fur prot. Theol. and Kirche, 3rd ed., XI, 12-28) has maintained, on apparently inconclusive grounds, that not till after the Council of Chalcedon (451) was this creed (a Jerusalem formula with Nicene additions) attributed to the Fathers of this council. At Chalcedon, indeed, it was twice recited and appears twice in the Acts of that council; it was also read and accepted at the Sixth General Council, held at Constantinople in 680 (see below). The very ancient Latin version of its text (Mansi, Coll. Conc., III, 567) is by Dionysius Exiguus.

The Greeks recognize seven canons, but the oldest Latin versions have only four; the other three are very probably (Hefele) later additions. The first canon is an important dogmatic condemnation of all shades of Arianism, also of Macedonianism and Apollinarianism. The second canon renews the Nicene legislation imposing upon the bishops the observance of diocesan and patriarchal limits. The fourth canon declares invalid the consecration of Maximus, the Cynic philosopher and rival of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, as Bishop of Constantinople. The famous third canon declares that because Constantinople is New Rorne the bishop of that city should have a pre-eminence of honor after the Bishop of Old Rome. Baronius wrongly maintained the non-authenticity of this canon, while some medieval Greeks maintained (an equally erroneous thesis) that it declared the bishop of the royal city in all things the equal of the pope. The purely human reason of Rome‘s ancient authority, suggested by this canon, was never admitted by the Apostolic See, which always based its claim to supremacy on the succession of St. Peter. Nor did Rome easily acknowledge this unjustifiable reordering of rank among the ancient patriarchates of the East. It was rejected by the papal legates at Chalcedon. St. Leo the Great (Ep. cvi in P.L., LIV, 1003, 1005) declared that this canon had never been submitted to the Apostolic See and that it was a violation of the Nicene order. At the Eighth General Council in 869 the Roman legates (Mansi, XVI, 174) acknowledged Constantinople as second in patriarchal rank. In 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council (op. cit., XXII, 991), this was formally admitted for the new Latin patriarch, and in 1439, at the Council of Florence, for the Greek patriarch (Hefele-Leclercq, Hist. des Conciles, II, 25-27). The Roman correctores of Gratian (1582), at dist. xxii, c. 3, insert the words: “canon hic ex its est quos apostolica Romana sedes a principio et longo post tempore non recipit.”

At the close of the council Emperor Theodosius is-sued an imperial decree (July 30) declaring that the churches should be restored to those bishops who confessed the equal Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and who held communion with Nectarius of Constantinople and other important Oriental prelates whom he named. The ecumenical character of this council seems to date, among the Greeks, from the Council of Chalcedon (451). According to Photius (Mansi, III, 596) Pope Damasus approved it, but if any part of the council were approved by this pope it could have been only the aforesaid creed. In the latter half of the fifth century the successors of Leo the Great are silent as to this council. Its mention in the so-called “Decretum Gelasii”, towards the end of the fifth century, is not original but a later insertion in that text (Hefele). Gregory the Great, following the example of Vigilius and Pelagius II, recognized it as one of the four general councils, but only in its dogmatic utterances (P.G., LXXVII, 468, 893). (

II. THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (Fifth General Council) was held at Constantinople (May 5—June 2, 553), having been called by Emperor Justinian. It was attended mostly by Oriental bishops; only six Western (African) bishops were present.

The president was Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople. This assembly was in reality only the last phase of the long and violent conflict inaugurated by the edict of Justinian in 543 against Origenism (P.G., LXXXVI, 945-90). The emperor was persuaded that Nestorianism continued to draw its strength from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 457), and Ibas of Edessa (d. 457), also from the personal esteem in which the first two of these ecclesiastical writers were yet held by many. The events which led to this council will be narrated more fully in the articles Pope Vigilius and in Three Chapters; only a brief account will be given here. From January 25, 547, Pope Vigilius was forcibly detamed in the royal city; he had originally refused to participate in the condemnation of the Three Chapters (i.e. brief statements of anathema upon Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings, upon Theodoret of Cyrus and his writings against St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Council of Ephesus, and upon the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to Maris, Bishop of Hardaschir in Persia). Later (by his “Judicatum”, 11 April, 548) Vigilius had condemned the Three Chapters (the doctrine in question being really censurable), but he expressly maintained the authority of the Council of Chalcedon (451) wherein Theodoret and Ibas—but after the condemnation of Nestorius—had been restored to their places; in the West much discontent was called forth by this step which seemed a weakening before the civil power in purely ecclesiastical matters and an injustice to men long dead and judged by God; it was ‘all the more objectionable as the Western mind had no accurate knowledge of the theological situation among the Greeks of that day. In consequence of this Vigilius had persuaded Justinian to return the aforesaid papal document and to proclaim a truce on all sides until a general council could be called to decide these controversies. Both the emperor and the Greek bishops violated this promise of neutrality; the former, in particular, publishing (551) his famous edict, Homologia tes pisteos, condemning anew the Three Chapters, and refusing to withdraw the same.

For his dignified protest Vigilius thereupon suffered various personal indignities at the hands of the civil authority and nearly lost his life; he retired finally to Chalcedon, in the very church of St. Euphemia where the great council had been held, whence he informed the Christian world of the state of affairs. Soon the Oriental bishops sought reconciliation with him, induced him to return to the city, and withdrew all that had hitherto been done against the Three Chapters; the new patriarch, Eutychius, successor to Mennas, whose weakness and subserviency were the immediate cause of all this violence and confusion, presented (January 6, 553) his profession of faith to Vigilius and, in union with other Oriental bishops, urged the calling of a general council under the presidency of the pope. Vigilius was willing, but proposed that it should be held either in Italy or in Sicily, in order to secure the attendance of Western bishops. To this Justinian would not agree, but proposed, instead, a kind of commission made up of delegates from each of the great patriarchates; Vigilius suggested that an equal number be chosen from the East and the West; but this was not acceptable to the emperor, who thereupon opened the council by his own authority on the date and in the manner mentioned above. Vigilius refused to participate, not only on account of the overwhelming proportion of Oriental bishops, but also from fear of violence; moreover, none of his predecessors had ever taken part personally in an Oriental council. To this decision he was faithful, though he expressed his willingness to give an independent judgment on the matters at issue. Eight sessions were held, the result of which was the final condemnation of the Three Chapters by the 165 bishops present at the last session (June 2, 553), in fourteen anathematisms similar to the thirteen previously issued by Justinian.

In the meantime Vigilius had sent to the emperor (May 14) a document known as the first “Constituturn” (Mansi, IX, 61-106), signed by himself and sixteen, mostly Western, bishops, in which sixty heretical propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia were condemned, and, in five anathematisms, his Christological teachings repudiated; it was forbidden, however, to condemn his person, or to proceed further in condemnation of the writings or the person of Theodoret, or of the letter of Ibas. It seemed indeed, under the circumstances, no easy task to denounce fittingly the certain errors of the great Antiochene theologian and his followers and yet uphold the reputation and authority of the Council of Chalcedon, which had been content with obtaining the essentials of submission from all sympathizers with Nestorius, but for that very reason had never been forgiven by the Monophysite opponents of Nestorius and his heresy, who were now in league with the numerous enemies of Origen, and until the death (548) of Theodora had enjoyed the support of that influential empress.

The decisions of the council were executed with a violence in keeping with its conduct, though the ardently hoped-for reconciliation of the Monophysites did not follow. Vigilius, together with other opponents of the imperial will, as registered by the subservient court-prelates, seems to have been banished (Hefele, II, 905), together with the faithful bishops and ecclesiastics of his suite, either to Upper Egypt or to an island in the Propontis. Already in the seventh session of the council Justinian caused the name of Vigilius to be stricken from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, it was said, to communion with the Apostolic See. Soon the Roman clergy and people, now freed by Narses from the Gothic yoke, requested the emperor to permit the return of the pope, which Justinian agreed to on condition that Vigilius would recognize the late council. This Vigilius finally agreed to do, and in two documents (a letter to Eutychius of Constantinople, December 8, 553, and a second “Constitutum” of February 23, 554, probably addressed to the Western episcopate) condemned, at last, the Three Chapters (Mansi, IX, 414-20, 457-88; cf. Hefele, II, 905-11), independently, however, and without mention of the council. His opposition had never been based on doctrinal grounds but on the decency and opportuneness of the measures proposed, the wrongful imperial violence, and a delicate fear of injury to the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, especially in the West. Here, indeed, despite the additional recognition of it by Pelagius I (555-60), the Fifth General Council only gradually acquired in public opinion an ecumenical character. In Northern Italy the ecclesiastical provinces of Milan and Aquileia broke off communion with the Apostolic See; the former yielding only towards the end of the sixth century, whereas the latter (Aquileia-Grado) protracted its resistance to about 700 (Hefele, op. cit., II, 911-27). (For an equitable appreciation of the conduct of Vigilius see, besides the article Vigilius. the judgment of Bois, in Dict. de theol. cath., II, 1238-39.) The pope was always correct as to the doctrine involved, and yielded, for the sake of peace, only when he was satisfied that there was no fear for the authority of Chalcedon, which he at first, with the entire West, deemed in peril from the machinations of the Monophysites.

The original Greek Acts of the council are lost, but there is extant a very old Latin version, probably contemporary and made for the use of Vigilius, certainly quoted by his successor Pelagius I. The Baluze edition is reprinted in Mansi, “Coll. Conc.”, IX, 163 sqq. In the next General Council of Constantinople (680) it was found that the original Acts of the Fifth Council had been tampered with (Hefele, op. cit., II, 855-58) in favor of Monothelism; nor is it certain that in their present shape we have them in their original completeness (ibid., pp. 859-60). This has. a bearing on the much disputed question concerning the condemnation of Origenism at this council. Hefele, moved by the antiquity and persistency of the reports of Origen’s condemnation, maintains (p. 861) with Cardinal Noris, that in it Origen was con demned, but only en passant, and that his name in the eleventh anathema is not an interpolation.

III. THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

(Sixth General Council) was summoned in 678 by Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, with a view of restoring between East and West the religious harmony that had been troubled by the Monothelistic controversies, and particularly by the violence of his predecessor Constans II, whose imperial edict, known as the “Ty-pus” (648-49) was a practical suppression of the orthodox truth. Owing to the desire of Pope Agatho to obtain the adhesion of his Western brethren, the papal legates did not arrive at Constantinople until late in 680. The council, attended in the beginning by 100 bishops, later by 174, was opened November 7, 680, in a domed hall (trullus) of the imperial palace and was presided over by the (three) papal legates who brought to the council a long dogmatic letter of Pope Agatho and another of similar import from a Roman synod held in the spring of 680. They were read in the second session. Both letters, the pope’s in particular, insist on the faith of the Apostolic See as the living and stainless tradition of the Apostles of Christ, assured by the promises of Christ, witnessed by all the popes in their capacity of successors to the Petrine privilege of confirming the brethren, and therefore finally authoritative for the Universal Church.

The greater part of the eighteen sessions was devoted to an examination of the Scriptural and patristic passages bearing on the question of one or two wills, one or two operations, in Christ. George, Patriarch of Constantinople, soon yielded to the evidence of the orthodox teaching concerning the two wills and two operations in Christ, but Macarius of Antioch, “almost the only certain representative of Monothelism since the nine propositions of Cyrus of Alexandria” (Chapman), resisted to the end, and was finally anathematized and deposed for “not consenting to the tenor of the orthodox letters sent by Agatho the most holy pope of Rome“, i.e., that in each of the two natures (human and Divine) of Christ there is a perfect operation and a perfect will, against which the Monothelites had taught that there was but one operation and one will quite in consonance with the Monophysite confusion of the two natures in Christ. In the thirteenth session (March 28, 681) after anathematizing the chief Monothelite heretics mentioned in the aforesaid letter of Pope Agatho, i.e. Sergius of Constantinople, Cyrus of Alexandria, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople, and Theodore of Pharan, the council added: “And in addition to these we decide that Honorius also, who was Pope of Elder Rome, be with them cast out of the Holy Church of God, and be anathematized with them, because we have found by his letter to Sergius that he followed his opinion in all things and confirmed his wicked dogmas.” A similar condemnation of Pope Honorius occurs in the dogmatic decree of the final session (September 16, 681), which was signed by the legates and the emperor. Reference is here made to the famous letter of Honorius to Sergius of Constantinople about 634, around which has arisen (especially before and during the Vatican Council) so large a controversial literature. It had been invoked three times in previous sessions of the council in question by the stubborn Monothelite Macarius of Antioch, and had been publicly read in the twelfth session together with the letter of Sergius to which it replied. On that occasion a second letter of Honorius to Sergius was also read, of which only a fragment has survived. (For the question of this pope’s orthodoxy, see Pope Honorius I; Infallibility; Monothelitism and Monothelites.)

There has been in the past, owing to Gallicanism and the opponents of papal infallibility, much controversy concerning the proper sense of this council’s condemnation of Pope Honorius, the theory (Baronius, Damberger) of a falsification of the Acts being now quite abandoned (Hefele, III, 299-313). Some have maintained, with Pennacchi, that he was indeed condemned as a heretic, but that the Oriental bishops of the council misunderstood the thoroughly orthodox (and dogmatic) letter of Honorius; others, with Hefele, that the council condemned the heretically sounding expressions of the pope (though his doctrine was really orthodox); others finally, with Chapman (see below), that he was condemned “because he did not, as he should have done, declare authoritatively the Petrine tradition of the Roman Church. To that tradition he had made no appeal but had merely approved and enlarged upon the half-hearted compromise of Sergius. . Neither the pope nor the council consider that Honorius had compromised the purity of the Roman tradition, for he had never claimed to represent it. Therefore, just as today we judge the letters of Pope Honorius by the Vatican definition and deny them to be ex cathedra, because they do not define any doctrine and impose it upon the whole Church, so the Christians of the seventh century judged the same letters by the custom of their day, and saw that they did not claim what papal letters were wont to claim, viz., to speak with the mouth of Peter in the name of Roman tradition” (Chapman).

The letter of the council to Pope Leo, asking, after the traditional manner, for confirmation of its Acts, while including again the name of Honorius among the condemned Monothelites, lays a remarkable stress on the magisterial office of the Roman Church, as, in general, the documents of the Sixth General Council favor strongly the inerrancy of the See of Peter. “The Council”, says Dom Chapman, “accepts the letter in which the Pope defined the faith. It deposes those who refused to accept it. It asks [the pope] to confirm its decisions. The Bishops and Emperor declare that they have seen the letter to contain the doctrine of the Fathers. Agatho speaks with the voice of Pe-ter himself; from Rome the law had gone forth as out of Sion; Peter had kept the faith unaltered.” Pope Agatho died during the council and was succeeded by Leo II, who confirmed (683) the decrees against Monothelism, and expressed himself even more harshly than the council towards the memory of Honorius (Hefele, Chapman), though he laid stress chiefly on the neglect of that pope to set forth the traditional teaching of the Apostolic See, whose spotless faith he treasonably tried to overthrow (or, as the Greek may be translated, permitted to be overthrown).

THOMAS J. SHAHAN