Greek Atrocities Against the Latins

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Greek Atrocities Against the Latins

Forum: Theological Expressions
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Reconciliation, Towards Unity: JOINT STATEMENT BY POPE, ORTHODOX PRELATE (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Re:

PAPAL APOLOGY TO GREEK ORTHODOX (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Re:

"Enemy" Churches Praying Together: Pope and Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Re:

Read What Christodoulos Says to John Paul II (Christopher Yip)
Re:

Reflections on the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 and Lesser-Known Byzantine Atrocities (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Date: 2001, Jun 05
From: Matthew Tan Yew Hock MatthewTan

From: Reflections on the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 and Lesser-Known Byzantine Atrocities
http://www.antioch.com.sg/cgi-bin/Agora-Pub/get/expressions/125/1/1/1/5.html
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Bishop Ware also honorably writes about the Orthodox share of the blame in these massacres:
Each . . . must look back at the past with sorrow and repentance. Both sides must in honesty acknowledge that they could and should have done more to prevent the schism. Both sides were guilty of mistakes on the human level. Orthodox, for example, must blame themselves for the pride and contempt with which during the Byzantine period they regarded the west; they must blame themselves for incidents such as the riot of 1182, when many Latin residents at Constantinople were massacred by the Byzantine populace.
{Ware, ibid., p. 70}
Catholic historian Warren Carroll recalls two other lamentable Byzantine incidents:
In 1171, on the orders or at least with the tacit approval of the Byzantine government, thousands of Venetians in the Eastern empire had been killed, mutilated, or arrested and held for years in prison.
{Carroll, ibid., p. 150}
[In 1188] Frederick Barbarossa . . . requested permission of the Eastern Emperor, Isaac II Angelus, for passage of his army through Byzantine dominions on the way to the Holy Land, and for the right to purchase food for his troops within them. Isaac said he agreed . . . but in fact Isaac was resolved to oppose the passage of the crusaders, and made contact with Saladin [the Muslim commander] to concert plans "to delay and destroy the German army." About this "Byzantine treachery" there is no doubt; even the many modern Western historians sympathetic to Byzantium and hostile to the Crusades have to admit it [e.g., Emperor Isaac, in 1187, had written Saladin to congratulate him for his great achievement of re-taking Jerusalem from the Latin crusaders] . . .
[Frederick's envoys, imprisoned for a time] returned to Frederick . . . with infuriating (and accurate) reports of the Byzantine alliance with Saladin, plans to destroy the crusading army as it crossed the Dardanelles, and the violent anti-Western attitude of Patriarch Dositheus of Constantinople, who had offered unconditional absolution to any Greek killing a Westerner. Frederick passed on this information to his son Henry, . . . to ask the Pope's approval for a crusade against the Eastern Empire because of its treachery and dealings with the enemy. No Papal approval was given and Frederick soon thought better of the idea . . . Though a war against Christians was indubitably a perversion of the crusading ideal, Emperor Isaac's acts against the crusaders had clearly been acts of war . . .
Everything that the Fourth Crusade later did to Christendom's discredit, Frederick Barbarossa refused to do, though he was directly provoked as the leaders of the Fourth Crusade never were. The extent of Byzantine provocation of the Third Crusade is obvious from the sequence of events. It would be a long time before anyone in the West would trust them again.
{Carroll, ibid., pp. 130, 132-133}
In conclusion, it is altogether to be expected that certain adherents (real or supposed) of both parties in any massive, long-running dispute such as that between Eastern and Western Christianity, will be guilty of serious sin. It has been established that the indefensible sacking of Constantinople was not without previous precipitating events on the part of the Byzantines, scarcely any less evil or immoral. Thus, the "sin" or "corruption" argument (as with Catholicism and Protestantism) cuts both ways (as is always the case). As such, it ought to be discarded, and ecumenical discussions profitably confined to matters of theology, liturgy, ecclesiology and moral theology.