Tit for tat eh?

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Tit for tat eh?

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

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)
Re:

Greek Atrocities Against the Latins (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Date: 2001, Jun 05
From: Christopher Yip CKHY

Focusing on the atrocities per se misses the point of the controversy between the East and the West regarding the sacking of Constantinople. Anti-Protestant Mr Tan's reaction by enumerating the atrocities committed by the Protestants and the Orthodoxs is not only childish, it completely misses the point that Christodoulos is making.
Pope Innocent III's regret was not the subjugation of the Eastern church to Rome's jurisdiction because this was all along his idea. Philip Schaff tells us about Innocent III's ambition:
http:\\www.ccel.org\C C E L\S\SCHAFF\HISTORY\5_CH07.HTM
"It would be difficult to find in history a more notable diversion of a scheme from its original purpose than the Fourth Crusade. Inaugurated to strike a blow at the power which held the Holy Land, it destroyed the Christian city of Zara and overthrew the Greek empire of Constantinople. Its goals were determined by the blind doge, Henry Dandolo of Venice. As the First Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, so the Fourth Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople.
Innocent III., on ascending the papal throne, threw himself with all the energy of his nature into the effort of reviving the crusading spirit. He issued letter after letter433 to the sovereigns of England, France, Hungary, and Sicily.434 He also wrote to the Byzantine emperor, urging him to resist the Saracens and subject the Greek church to its mother, Rome.435"
The Catholic Encyclopaedia says:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08013a.htm
"... Constantinople was taken by them in 1204. Isaac Angelus was restored to his throne but soon replaced by a usurper. The crusaders took Constantinople a second time on 12 April, 1204, and after a horrible pillage, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was proclaimed emperor and the Greek Church was united with the Latin. The reunion, as well as the Latin empire in the East, did not last longer than two generations. When Pope Innocent learned that the Venetians had diverted the crusaders from their purpose of conquering the Holy Land he expressed his great dissatisfaction first at their conquest of Zara, and when they proceeded towards Constantinople he solemnly protested and finally excommunicated the Venetians who had caused the digression of the crusaders from their original purpose. Since, however, he could not undo what had been accomplished he did his utmost to destroy the Greek schism and latinize the Eastern Empire."
It's more than just the killings that Christodoulos was lamenting. Innocent III's ambition is to assert his papal jurisdiction even over the Greek Church. The Encyclopaedia says earlier of his track record of subjugating the entire Christian world under Roman papacy. The Crusade was only one of his tools:
"When he had thus re-established the papal authority in Rome, he availed himself of every opportunity to put in practice his grand concept of the papacy. Italy was tired of being ruled by a host of German adventurers, and the pope experienced little difficulty in extending his political power over the peninsula. First he sent two cardinal legates to Markwuld to demand the restoration of the Romagna and the March of Ancona to the Church. Upon his evasive answer he was excommunicated by the legates and driven away by the papal troops. In like manner the Duchy of Spoleto and the Districts of ASSISI and SORA were wrested from the German knight, Conrad von Uerslingen. The league which had been formed among the cities of TUSCANY was ratified by the pope after it acknowledged him as suzerain.
The death of the Emperor Henry VI left his four-year old child, Frederick II, King of SICILY. The emperor's widow Constance, who ruled over Sicily for her little son, was unable to cope singly against the Norman barons of the Sicilian Kingdom, who resented the German rule and refused to acknowledge the child-king. She appealed to Innocent III to save the Sicilian throne for her child. The pope made use of this opportunity to reassert papal suzerainty over Sicily, and acknowledged Frederick II as king only after Constance had surrendered certain privileges contained in the so-called Four Chapters, which William I had previously extorted from Adrian IV...
Conditions in GERMANY were extremely favourable for the application of Innocent's idea concerning the relation between the papacy and the empire... Innocent stated that he had no intention of encroaching upon the rights of the princes, but insisted upon the rights of the Church in this matter. He emphasized especially that the conferring of the imperial crown belonged to the pope alone. In 1201 the pope openly espoused the side of Otto IV. On 3 July, 1201, the papal legate, Cardinal-Bishop Guido of Palestrina, announced to the people, in the cathedral of Cologne, that Otto IV had been approved by the pope as Roman king and threatened with excommunication all those who refused to acknowledge him. Innocent III made clear to the German princes by the Decree "Venerabilem" which he addressed to the Duke of Zähringen in May, 1202, in what relation he considered the empire to stand to the papacy. This decretal, which has become famous, was afterwards embodied in the "Corpus Juris Canonici". It is found in Baluze, "Registrum Innocentii III super negotio Romani Imperii", no. lxii, and is reprinted in P. L., CCXVI, 1065-7...
Innocent also had an opportunity to assert the papal rights in ENGLAND... Innocent summoned those monks of Canterbury who were in Rome to proceed to a new election and recommended to their choice Stephen Langton, an Englishman, whom the pope had called to Rome from the rectorship of the University of Paris, in order to create him cardinal. He was duly elected by the monks and the pope himself consecrated him archbishop at Viterbo on 17 June, 1207. Innocent informed King John of the election of Langton and asked him to accept the new archbishop. The king, however, had set his mind on his favourite, John de Grey, and flatly refused to allow Langton to come to England in the capacity of Archbishop of Canterbury. He, moreover, wreaked his vengeance on the monks of Christ Church by driving them from their monastery and taking possession of their property. Innocent now placed the entire kingdom under interdict which was proclaimed on 24 March, 1208. When this proved of no avail and the king committed acts of cruelty against the clergy, the pope declared him excommunicated in 1209, and formally deposed him in 1212. He entrusted King Philip of France with the execution of the sentence. When Philip threatened to invade England and the feudal lords and the clergy began to forsake King John, the latter made his submission to Pandulph, whom Innocent had sent as legate to England. He promised to acknowledge Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow the exiled bishops and priests to return to England and to make compensation for the losses which the clergy had sustained. He went still further, and on 13 May, 1213, probably of his own initiative, surrendered the English kingdom through Pandulph into the hands of the pope to be returned to him as a fief. The document of the surrender states that henceforth the kings of England were to rule as vassals of the pope and to pay an annual tribute of 1000 marks to the See of Rome...
There was scarcely a country in Europe over which Innocent III did not in some way or other assert the supremacy which he claimed for the papacy. He excommunicated Alfonso IX of Leon, for marrying a near relative, Berengaria, a daughter of Alfonso VIII, contrary to the laws of the Church, and effected their separation in 1204. For similar reasons he annulled, in 1208, the marriage of the crown-prince, Alfonso of Portugal, with Urraca, daughter of Alfonso of Castile. From Pedro II of Aragon he received that kingdom in vassalage and crowned him king at Rome in 1204. He prepared a crusade against the Moors and lived to see their power broken in Spain at the battle of Navas de Tolosa, in 1212. He protected the people of Norway against their tyrannical king, Sverri, and after the king's death arbitrated between the two claimants to the Norwegian throne. He mediated between King Emeric of Hungary and his rebellious brother Andrew, sent royal crown and sceptre to King Johannitius of Bulgaria and had his legate crown him king at Tirnovo, in 1204; he restored ecclesiastical discipline in Poland; arbitrated between the two claimants to the royal crown of Sweden; made partly successful attempts to reunite the Greek with the Latin Church and extended his beneficent influence practically over the whole Christian world."
Notice that the sacking of Constantinople was taken advantage by the "infallible" Pope Innocent III. The sacking was not just some aberration of the crusaders, a fluke of history. It was on Innocent III's agenda to subject Constantinople to Latin ecclesiastical rule. Why? Because Roman bishops think they have the primacy of universal jurisdiction even though the Africans, the Easterns and the Ecumenical Councils have declared otherwise.
Christopher