Thus saith the Lord

On This Day in 1054, the Great Schism in Christianity Began… Encouraged by Emperor Constantine IX, who was willing to sacrifice his own patriarch for the sake of friendship with Rome, papal envoys entered the Hagia Sophia on July 16, 1054, and placed a bull of excommunication on the altar—condemning Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople and his closest supporters. However, relying on the backing of both the clergy and the people, the patriarch managed to sway the weak-willed emperor and impose his own will. With the emperor’s approval, Cerularius convened a synod which, in turn, excommunicated the Roman envoys. The far-reaching consequences of these events became evident only later. At the time, few paid much attention—disputes between the two churches were nothing new, and no one could have guessed that the conflict of 1054 would prove to be a decisive and irreversible break, unlike the many previous disagreements. In the image: Patriarch Michael Cerularius in the Patriarchate, miniature from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes, National Library of Madrid.

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572 years ago today, on May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Known as the Queen of Cities, it had been the heart and cradle of Orthodox Christendom for over a thousand years. The last Roman Emperor was Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos, the son of a Serbian noblewoman named Jelena Dragaš. The city had never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and had long been a shadow of its former self. But when it became the capital of the mighty Ottoman Empire, new life was breathed into it, and it once again reclaimed its place as the most important city in the Mediterranean. Today, Istanbul stands as one of the most historic and culturally rich cities in the world and a must-visit for anyone with a passion for history.