The Greek Schism [pp. 758-774]

770 T/~e Creek &iiigrn.
pie. He ~so endeavored to enforce Church to take part in the proceedthe decree of union by severe penal- ings. Meanwhile, informal conferenties against the recusants, and a synod ces were held on the questions of
was celebrated by the patriarch, in purgatory, and the beatitude of the
which the union was accepted. But saints before the final day of judgment.
the clergy and the people obstinately It was easily shown that the differences
opposed any communion with the La- between the two churches were meretins; the same feeling prevailed in ly verbal, and did not affect the dogthe emperor's household; and at last ma. The first solemn session was
he abandoned what he appears to held on October 8th, whid~ was folhave considered a hopeless task. He lowed by fifteen others in regular orwas excommunicated in 1281, by der. In December, the council was
Pope Martin IV., for favoring heresy transferred to Florence, on account
and schism. He, however, protested of the appearance of the plague at
his sincerity, and on his death was re- Ferrara. Nine sessions were held at
fused Christian burial by his son and Florence, at the end of which the act
successor, Andronicus, for the part he of union was solemnly adopted and
had taken in the union of the church- promulgated.
es. The schism was thus reopened, There is scarcely any thing more
and the work of the Council of Lyons interesting in the history of general
produced no further fruit. councils than the records of the discus But when the Turks had reduced sions so long and so ably carried on
the domain of the empfre almost to in this synod. It is a common supthe walls of Constantinople, il~e wily position that the Latins resorted to
and faithless Greeks again turned bribery and threats, the Greeks to
their eyes westward, and offered re- chicanery and bad faith, and thus an
union in the hope of obtaining succor. understanding was arrived at. NoIt were foreign to our purpose to thing could be further from the truth,
trace the history of the controversy as the acts of the synod prove. Point
between Pope Eugenius IV. and the after point was discussed with markCouncil of Bale. Suffice it to say, ed ability on both sides, and with pethat, to facilitate il~e coming of fl~e culiar skill and pertinacity on the part
Greeks, who wished to meet in a city of the Greeks. At last, all, with
near the Adriatic, he transferred the the exception of Mark, Archbishop of
council to Ferrara. On February 7th, Ephesus, yielded either to unanswera1438, the eastern fleet arrived at Ve- ble arguments or to clear explananice, bearing the Emperor John Pa- tions, and then, all difficulties being
i~ologus, Joseph, Patriarch of Con- removed, the union was agreed to.
stantinople, the proctors of the other It is, of course, impossible in the brief
eastern patriarchs, the Metropolitan of space of an article to relate these disRussia, and a great number of metro- cussions in detail. ~Ve shall briefly
politans, bishops, abbots, and other dig- refer to the principal point in dispute.
nitaries of the Greek Church. They This was the addition of ftiioq~ic in
were received with extraordinary the creed. The Latins insisted on
pomp and splendor. Thence they separating from the beginning the
went to Ferrara, where they arrived two distinct points of dogma and disin the beginning of Mard~. The cipline. They asked the Greeks, first,
council opened on April 9th. A de- if they believed that the Holy Ghost
lay of four months was agreed on, to proceeded from the Father and the
enable the bishops of the ~Vestem Son, as from one principle of s~fra