First Council of Constantinople

“ He openly professed that the Holy Spirit is a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person distinct from the Father and the Son. This doctrine was embraced by many in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople, assembled by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its authority this young and immature sect. ”

“ In respect of influence over the course of human affairs, its only rivals are Athens, Rome and Jerusalem. Yet even the gifts of these rivals to the cause of civilization often bear the image and superscription of Constantinople upon them. Roman law, Greek literature, the theology of the Christian church, for example, are intimately associated with the history of the city beside the Bosporus.
The city was founded by Constantine the Great, through the enlargement of the old town of Byzantium, in A.D. 328, and was inaugurated as a new seat of government on the 11th of May, A.D. 330. ”

“ In 842, a great council at Constantinople was convoked by the empress Theodora. The worship of images was solemnly established. The Greeks have still a feast in honor of this council, called the orthodoxia. Theodora did not preside. In 861, a great council at Constantinople, consisting of three hundred and eighteen bishops, was convoked by the emperor Michael. St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, is deposed, and Photius elected.
In 866, another great council was held at Constantinople, in which Pope Nicholas III. is deposed for contumacy, and excommunicated. ”

“ Roman ambition would not allow outlying communities to formulate new doctrines or to revise old ones. In everything the adherents of the Eastern and Western Churches found points of disagreement. It needed but a small pretext to bring about a schism, small at this period of time but great and momentous to those who struggled through the controversy. A pretext was not long wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman, captain of the guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. ”

“ It would have been the greatest possible mistake for Constantine the Great to have chosen either Sardica, Thessalonica, the territory of Ilium or Chalcedon, between which places he hesitated some time, to be the new Rome of the East, for however richly nature may have endowed them all, to elect any one would have seemed but the satisfying of a princely caprice; as Constantinople on the straits of the Bosporus was then and always will be the one natural city commanding the whole of the Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, and the numerous seas and rivers uniting at this spot. ”

“ Yet, since the growth of Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many opulent senators of Rome and of the eastern provinces were probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate spot which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. ”

“ Alexius’s resources were insufficient, and he had to beg the crusaders to wait at Constantinople for a year in order that he might have time. They waited; but the closer contact of a prolonged stay only brought into fuller play the essential antipathy of the Greek and the Latin. Continual friction developed at last into the open fire of war; and in March 1204 the crusaders resolved to storm Constantinople, and to divide among themselves the Eastern empire. In April Constantinople was captured; in May Baldwin of Flanders became the first Latin emperor of Constantinople. ”

“ If the churches still maintained their relics and their jewels, the commercial prosperity, which all through these years of imperial corruption and weakness it had struggled to maintain, now began to slip from its grasp. It was clear that property was no more safe than life; and as the Italian cities began to secure the commerce of the Levant, the merchants of Constantinople fell behind in the race for wealth, and saw the trade that had been theirs taken by the Venetians, the Pisans and the Genoese, who now settled at their very gates.
Alexius Comnenus was at first not sole Emperor. ”

“ In Constantinople an immense body of idle inhabitants had been collected, a mass that had long formed a burden on the state, and acquired a right to a portion of its resources. A numerous nobility, and a permanent imperial household, conceived that they formed a portion of the Roman government from the prominent part which they acted in the ceremonial that connected the emperor with the people. ”

“ But the prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the emperor was desirous of ascribing his resolution not so much to the uncertain counsels of human policy as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct posterity that, in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the everlasting foundations of Constantinople ”

“ The fall of Constantinople marked the definite establishment on European soil of a power alien and hostile to all that was characteristic of European civilization. It was a power, moreover, which could live only by expanding; and for over two hundred years to come the dread of Ottoman aggression was a dominant factor in the politics of eastern Europe. The tide of Turkish advance could have been arrested by a union of Europe; but the appeals of Pope Nicholas V. fell unheeded upon a sceptical age, intent only on its dynastic and particularist ambitions. ”

“ Emperor Constantine was a good man, and efficient, but it seems he was not strong enough to bring his people to the pitch of self-sacrifice necessary to those who have to sustain a siege. The citizens of Constantinople were as keen about religious controversy as ever, and the times provided food for violent discussions, for the ruler of the Empire realized the dangers that beset him and tried to make diplomacy a substitute for efficient military preparations. ”

“ Constantine immediately abandoned all thought of continuing the campaign, and employed his whole army in alleviating the calamity to the survivors, and in securing Christian burial and funeral honours to the dead. A truce was concluded with the enemy, and the Roman army beheld [213] the emperor as eager to employ their services in the cause of humanity and religion, as he had ever been to lead them to the field of glory and conquest. His conduct on this occasion gained him as much popularity with the people of Constantinople as with the troops. ”

“ Both the Emperor and the Cardinal deceived themselves in supposing that the dangers to which the Greek nation and the Christian Church were exposed would induce the orthodox to yield something of their ecclesiastical forms and phrases. It was evident that foreign aid could alone save Constantinople, and it was absurd to imagine that the Latins would fight for those who treated them as heretics and who would not fight for themselves. ”

“ The few who have courage equal to the task know not how to reconcile reformation with the prejudices of the people. And without this nothing can be effected." [44]
From 1821 the tide turned. The defects of the Turkish government did not avail against the valour of the Sultan's army, and the dimensions of Europe. The tragedies of those days passed far from Constantinople. Missolonghi, Navarino, Athens, Janina, Adrianople, are names that bring each its memory ”

“ Illyricum covered Athens and Corinth, so the Patriarchs of Constantinople, who had become the chiefs of Greek-speaking Christians, greatly desired these lands. The Emperors were always ready to add to their jurisdiction; the more people looked to Constantinople in all affairs for guidance, the closer their interests were knit to the capital, the better, of course, for the central government. At the sixth general council (Constantinople III or Trullanum I in 680) and at the Quinisextum (Trullanum II in 692) the lllyrian bishops are still counted among those of the Roman Patriarchate. ”

“ Nevertheless a metropolis constituted from such elements was scarcely below the level of the times, and was destined to prove a successful rival of the degenerate Rome which Constantine aspired to supplant.
The impressions of life and colour which affect a stranger on entering a new city arise in great part from the costume of its inhabitants. At Constantinople there prevails in this 86 age a decency in dress foreign to Rome during the first centuries of the Empire, and even to Greece in the most classic period. ”

“ From present indications there is little likelihood that the jealousies of the more powerful nations of Europe respecting the matchless capital of the Golden Horn will abate or that the traditional ability of Turkey’s astute rulers to play off the Great Powers one against the other will be less marked in the future than in the past.
If, however, there is to be a transfer of Constantinople to some other power than that of the Ottoman Empire, poetic justice seems to require that the aspirations of Greece should receive first consideration. ”

“ The first was the rapid decline of Constantinople as a commercial centre, which was brought about by the Crusades. When the Genoese and Venetians succeeded in establishing themselves in the seaports of Syria, they began to visit Constantinople far less than before. It paid them much [pg 268] better to conduct their business at Acre or Tyre than on the Bosphorus. The king of Jerusalem, the weakest of feudal sovereigns, could be more easily bullied and defrauded than the powerful ruler of Constantinople. ”

“ II. Foundation of Constantinople.
It was upon this gently sloping promontory, which serves as a connecting link between the Eastern and the Western world, and which nature has intended for the centre of a great monarchy, that Constantine, after determining to remove the seat of empire from the banks of the Tiber, determined to fix the city which bore the name of its founder. The modern European, as well as the Arabic (Constanije) name of the city, preserves the memory of the first emperor of the East. The Turkish Istambul or Stambul, is a corruption of the Greek ἐις τὴν πόλιν. ”

“ Military power and religion had been the strength of the Empire; corruption had eaten away the first, and the luxury and vice of the imperial court had shown that the Christian faith had failed to hold its own. In the hour of their despair the Emperors turned again to Christ, but it was too late to save the Empire which their defiance of His laws had brought to desolation. The Church of Constantinople must pass through the fires of persecution, and recover in its isolation, if it might be, the strength of the first days. ”

“ Later, dressed as a sailor and sitting in the cafés with Kulman, I often heard the same sentiments expressed.
Yet the miserable, exploited populace seemed powerless to impress its wishes on the Government. It was too disunited and too listless for action. A total lack of national consciousness made Constantinople a capital without a country. The population was a haphazard jumble of races, an olla podrida of peoples that nothing, not even hunger and tyranny, could mould into a coherent whole. ”

“ It was in 1858 that this great embassy ended. Three years later Abdul Mejid died; and his brother Abdul Aziz was girt with the sword in the mosque of Eyûb. Under his rule outward reforms progressed gaily, but the reckless extravagance of the Sultan brought the country to financial ruin. Reforms, insurrections, the creation of Roumania, the insurrection of Crete, how did these affect Constantinople? Not at all. Only daily the financial disorder became more apparent. On May 10, 1876, the city witnessed a scene which might have seemed proof that Turkey was regenerated. ”

“ Thus the religious life of Constantine’s great city was not without intense excitement to those who lived within the walls. After the first eight centuries of the Christian era, the interest somewhat abated, the degenerate population seemed to have lost its appetite for controversy. A definite separation from Rome had not been brought about, though it may be supposed that the Roman Pontiff exercised little direct control over the religious destinies of the Eastern Empire. ”

“ In Constantinople effective control over the appointment of an emperor was wanting. The senate or council of an absolute ruler, be he called emperor or sultan, is usually weak in proportion to the strength of the ruler, and if, in the customary order of succession, the heir to the throne is unsuited to the office, the ring of creatures, by whatever name it is called, which his predecessor has gathered round him is pretty sure to support the heir, irrespective of his merit or ability. Others acquiesce for the sake of peace, or are drawn to support a pretender. ”

“ Constantinople, since the Turks conquered it from its last Christian Emperor in 1453, has been the political capital of the Ottoman Empire. But ever since it has been a city at all, it has also been the strategical and economic key to the Black Sea, conditioning the security and dominating the economic development of all peoples bordering on the Black Sea coasts. It is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. ”