Constantinople in April, 1182: The Massacre of the Latins

I received this book as premium for a charitable contribution I made. It's from Catholic Answers and in both the subtitle and the book description, there's a defiant tone:

What if there’s a better Christian religion than Catholicism? One that has true apostolic doctrines, a more beautiful and ancient liturgy, and freedom from all that “pope” baggage—and valid sacraments, too.

That’s what apologists for Eastern Orthodoxy are selling. In a time of uncertainty and confusion for many Catholics, Orthodox challenges to the Church’s history, teaching, worship, and authority structure have been drawing Catholics away in hope of greener pastures in the East.

But those thinking of jumping off the barque of Peter toward the siren song of Eastern Orthodoxy—and for Protestants who’d like Catholicism’s historical pedigree without all the mess—need to think twice. In Answering Orthodoxy, Michael Lofton (Reason & Theology Podcast) shows why, with a thorough and critical refutation of Orthodox attacks against the Church.

Formerly Eastern Orthodox himself, Lofton has the knowledge and experience to uncover the flaws in the most common anti-Catholic arguments from Orthodoxy’s top advocates. From intricate doctrinal debates to the historical flubs and foibles of the popes, right on down to the basic understandings (and misunderstandings) of the sacraments Catholics and Orthodox share but don’t always agree on, Answering Orthodoxy shows where Orthodox attacks go wrong. In so doing, he not only strengthens Catholic conviction in the truth of the Faith, but also shows the Orthodox that there’s not as much distance between them and the Church as they might think, and unity with Rome might be closer than ever.

Whether you’re frustrated with today’s Church and find yourself attracted to Orthodoxy’s antiquity, beauty, and religious rigor, or you’re just looking to learn the best Catholic responses to Orthodox arguments, Answering Orthodoxy will equip and edify you.

I admit I've only begun to read the book, but in the Introduction, "The History of the Catholic and Orthodox Divide" the author Michael Lofton mentioned an event I had never heard of: "The Massacre of the Latins" in Constantinople. He offers one sentence:

"In the later twelfth century, Constantinople massacred its Latin Catholic inhabitants for political reasons."

He should have said more: 

Mobs in Constantinople, unimpeded by Andronikos I Komnenos, who was leading a coup to overthrow the regent, Empress Maria of Antioch and her son, Emperor Alexios II Komnenos, attacked the Latin quarter. Nearly all the 60,000 Latin-rite Catholics, mostly from Pisa and Genoa, were massacred. The reasons were not just political, but economic, since the Italians were so dominant in the maritime trade and financial sectors, with the encouragement of the former Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Maria's husband and Alexios' father.

The usual rape and pillaging occurred, with Latin-rite Catholic churches destroyed, etc. This website offers some detail from Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations from Cambridge University Press:

Donald M. Nicol wrote in Byzantium and Venice that “the people needed no encouragement. With an enthusiasm fired by years of resentment they set about the massacre of all the foreigners that they could find. They directed their fury mainly against the merchant quarters along the Golden Horn. Many had sensed what was coming with the arrival of Andronikos Komnenos and made their escape by sea. Of those who remained, the Pisans and Genoese were the main victims. The slaughter was appalling. The Byzantine clergy shamelessly encouraged the mob to seek out Latin monks and priests. The pope’s legate to Constantinople, the Cardinal John, was decapitated and his severed head was dragged through the streets tied to the tail of a dog. At the end some 4000 westerners who had survived the massacre were rounded up and sold as slaves to the Turks. Those who had escaped by ship took their revenge by burning and looting the Byzantine monasteries on the coasts and islands of the Aegean Sea.”

After Andronikos I Komnenos imprisoned the regent, Maria of Antioch, he forced her son, Alexios II Komnenos to condemn her to death and then to recognize Andronikos as the new emperor, after which he was executed. She was reportedly strangled to death and buried secretly.

Maria of Antioch was one of the offspring of Raymond of Poitiers and Constance of Antioch, daughter of Bohemund II of Antioch and Alice of Jerusalem/Antioch (one of the daughters of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem)! These names are so redolent of twelfth century history, as the First and Second Crusades brought the noble families of Europe in positions of power in the East.

Reading this little bit of history, all inspired by one sentence in the Introduction of a book, reminded me of course, of Pope Saint John Paul II's apology to the Orthodox Church of Greece on May 4, 2001 for the Rape of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade :

Certainly, we are burdened by past and present controversies and by enduring misunderstandings. But in a spirit of mutual charity these can and must be overcome, for that is what the Lord asks of us. Clearly there is a need for a liberating process of purification of memory. For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us the forgiveness we beg of him.

Some memories are especially painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople, which was for so long the bastion of Christianity in the East. It is tragic that the assailants, who had set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their own brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret. How can we fail to see here the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the human heart? To God alone belongs judgement, and therefore we entrust the heavy burden of the past to his endless mercy, imploring him to heal the wounds which still cause suffering to the spirit of the Greek people. Together we must work for this healing if the Europe now emerging is to be true to its identity, which is inseparable from the Christian humanism shared by East and West.

Before that, in 1995, Pope John Paul II had issued two important documents, Ut Unim Sint (That All May be One) and Orientale Lumen (Light of the East), in which he discussed, among more general principles and issues, in particular ecumenical efforts reaching out to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, including not just doctrinal issues, but those controversies and misunderstandings of the past in paragraphs 50 through 61 of Ut Unim Sint. He dedicated Orientale Lumen to more detailed discussion of his regard for the riches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

I'll let you know more about the book, Answering Orthodoxy, when I've finished it!

Image Source (Public Domain): Empress Maria of Antioch, from a manuscript now in the Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana.

Tuesday, November 17: Saints and Sinners

Quite a remarkable day: Queen Mary I and Reginald Cardinal Pole died today in 1558, ending the restoration of Catholicism in England for 292 years--until the Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850.

The composer Hugh Aston might have died on the same day--or near it--because he stopped receiving a pension on that date:

English composer. Hugh Aston, with seven large-scale works to his credit, is the most important of the less famous composers represented in the Forrest-Heyther and Peterhouse partbooks. He graduated Bachelor of Music at Oxford in 1510. It was fitting therefore that the choirmaster's post at Cardinal College, Oxford which Taverner was persuaded to take was first offered to him. Aston may have been in London and associated with the royal court from 1510 to 1525. Aston was master of the choristers at St Mary Newarke College, Leicester in 1525, and remained there until the College was dissolved in 1548. Drew a pension in Newarke granted in 1544 until Nov. 17, 1558. He was not the eponymous Archdeacon of York (d. 1522) or Canon of St. Stephen's, Westminster (d. 1523). . . .

Much of Aston's music is in fact very vigorous and forceful, sometimes rather in the manner of Taverner, but with a fondness for tiny florid touches which sometimes produce rather rough unessential dissonances. Some of the imitative writing for full choir in the Mass Videte manus meas (cantus firmus an antiphon from Vespers of Easter Tuesday) is similar in its energetic quality to parts of Taverner's Gloria tibi Trinitas, especially at 'rex coelestis' or 'descendit de coelis'; but in general there is a far more mechanical handling of less interesting shapes.

The best of Aston is probably to be found in the antiphons Gaude virgo mater Christi and Ave Maria divae matris Annae. The melodic style here occasionally points ahead quite strikingly to that of later composers in the new boldness of outline of some important melodic phrases; in particular one notes in several places a new kind of melodic expansion in which an important interval is enlarged when imitated to help create a sense of growth and climax.

Stile Antico included his Gaude virgo mater Christi on their Music for Compline CD and the Blue Heron ensemble included that Marian antiphon and two others, including Ave Maria divae matris Annae on their first CD of Music from the Peterhouse Part Books. I own those two CDs and have ordered this CD set which includes one of his Masses (featuring Thomas Cardinal Wolsey on the cover!).

And there are at least three saint's feast days to be celebrated: Saint Hugh of Lincoln, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, and Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, depending on Rite and location. I plan to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite tonight, at which the latter will be remembered:

Gregory, bishop of Neocæsarea in Pontus, was illustrious for his holiness and learning, but still more for his miracles, which were so startling and so numerous that he was called the Thaumaturgus; and, according to St. Basil, he was considered comparable to Moses, the Prophets, and the Apostles. By his prayer he removed a mountain, which was an obstacle to the building of a church. He also dried up a lake which was a cause of dissension between brothers. The river Lycus, which was inundating and devastating the fields, he restrained by fixing in the bank his stick which immediately grew into a green tree, and served as a limit which the river henceforth never overpassed.

He frequently expelled the devils from idols and from men’s bodies, and worked many other miracles, by means of which he led multitudes to the faith of Christ. He also foretold future events by the spirit of prophecy. When he was dying, he asked how many infidels remained in the city of Neocæsarea; and on being informed that there were only seventeen, he gave thanks to God, and said: When I was made bishop, there were but seventeen believers. He wrote several works, by which, as well as by his miracles, he adorned the Church of God.

He is also honored today in the Orthodox Church: Troparion and Kontakion here.

Queen Mary I, rest in peace.

Reginald Pole, rest in peace.

Hugh Aston, rest in peace.

St. Hugh of Lincoln, pray for us.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, pray for us.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary: from East to West

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman and Eastern Catholic Church, called the Feast of the Nativity of the
Theotokos (the God-bearer) in the East, including in the Orthodox Churches. In fact, this birthday feast originated in the East in the 6th century and did not come to the Western Church until sometime in the 7th century, not becoming more common in the 8th.

The date for her birth was chosen because it is at the beginning of the Liturgical Year in the East (the Liturgical Year in the West begins with the First Sunday of Advent).  In this case, "East" means both Eastern-Rite (or Byzantine) Catholic AND Orthodox.

Since her birth is celebrated on September 8, her Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8--nine months before her birth. In the Eastern-Rite Catholic Church the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God is celebrated on December 8, and has been for centuries. As the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh explains:

Already at the beginning of the liturgical year, on September 8th, we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, since Mary’s birth signalled “the beginning of our salvation” (cf. Stich era of Utia). In connection with Mary’s birth, since the eighth century, we celebrate the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God, recently referred to as the Immaculate Conception (cf. Byzantine Leaflet Series, n. 36).

Saint Augustine of Hippo rejoiced on the Feast of the Nativity the Blessed Virgin Mary according to this blog:

On today’s feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Augustine writes in the old Divine Office: “Dearly beloved brethren, the day for which we have longed, the Feast-day of the Blessed and venerable and Ever-Virgin Mary, that day is come. Let our land laugh and sing with merriment, bathed in the glory of this great Virgin’s rising. She is the flower of the fields on which the priceless lily of the valleys hath blossomed. This is she whose delivery changed the nature that we draw from our first parents, and cleansed away their offense.” . . .

Father David Nix explains why Saint Augustine says that Mary's birth "changed the nature that we draw from our first parents":

The birthday of Mary is in some way the birthday of a new humanity since Jesus got His humanity from her and since we are adopted into his family through baptism. The waters of St. Anne breaking were in some since a prefigurement of the waters of our baptism, our new family. These graces of new life do not originate in Mary, but they flow through her, as Christ came through her once. When we are baptized, we are divinized by God Himself transforming us into tabernacles of the Blessed Trinity. But we also enter a new humanity that Jesus took from Mary, even though He—God— created her most perfect soul, celebrated on the Immaculate Conception (8th of December.) But 9 months later, we have the full flowering of this conception on her birthday, on the 8th of September, today.

Saint Andrew of Crete (8th century) offers a similar meditation here.

More about the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos from the Orthodox Church in America website here.

Image Source (Public Domain): 12-century German Nativity of Mary with her father, Joachim wearing a Jewish hat

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today at Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, we will celebrate the Thirteen Sunday after Pentecost and commemorate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Orthodox Christians will celebrate "The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary". According to the Orthodox Church in America website:

The Most Holy Virgin Mary was born at a time when people had reached such a degree of moral decay that it seemed altogether impossible to restore them. People often said that God must come into the world to restore faith and not permit the ruin of mankind.

The Son of God chose to take on human nature for the salvation of mankind, and chose as His Mother the All-Pure Virgin Mary, who alone was worthy to give birth to the Source of purity and holiness.

The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary is celebrated by the Church as a day of universal joy. Within the context of the Old and the New Testaments, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was born on this radiant day, having been chosen before the ages by Divine Providence to bring about the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. She is revealed as the Mother of the Savior of the World, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as this University of Dayton post notes, came from the Eastern Church to the West:

The earliest document commemorating this feast comes from the sixth century. It is generally believed that this feast originated in Jerusalem since there is evidence, in the fifth century, of a church dedicated to St. Anne, located north of the Temple in the neighborhood of the Pool of Bethesda. Sofronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, affirmed in the year 603 that this was the location of Mary's birth. After the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary increased significantly. This, combined with the influence of the Apocrypha, may have been a factor in the increase of popular devotion of the people toward Mary

It is generally believed that the date of September 8 was chosen to celebrate the Nativity of Mary since the civil year began in Constantinople on September 1. Scholars believe that this date was chosen since it was symbolic that the "beginning" of the work of salvation should be commemorated near to the beginning of the new year. The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was later fixed at December 8, nine months prior. This feast day was introduced in Rome from the Eastern Church in the seventh century . The Syro-Sicilian Pope St. Sergius I, who reigned from 687-701, prescribed a litany and procession be part of the liturgical celebration of this feast day. Paschasius Radbertus (d.860) wrote that this feast of Mary's Nativity was being preached throughout the universal church and it became a holy day of obligation for the west by the year 1007.

The primary theme portrayed in the liturgical celebration of this feast day is that the world had been in the darkness of sin and with the arrival of Mary begins a glimmer of light. That light which appears at Mary's holy birth preannounces the arrival of Christ, the Light of the World. Her birth is the beginning of a better world: "Origo mundi melioris." The antiphon for the Canticle of Zechariah at Morning Prayer expressed these sentiments in the following way: "Your birth, O Virgin Mother of God, proclaims joy to the whole world, for from you arose the glorious Sun of Justice, Christ our God; He freed us from the age-old curse and filled us with holiness; he destroyed death and gave us eternal life."

The Catholic Encyclopedia has more detail about the liturgical development of the feast, including the homilies promoting the feast by the 11th century bishop of Chartres, St. Fulbert. As the photo above shows, Giotto included the birth of Mary in his cycle of the Life of the Blessed Virgin in the Scrovegni chapel.

Quasimodo Sunday and Notre Dame de Paris

In the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, this Sunday, the Sunday that ends the Easter Octave, is called either Low Sunday or Dominica in Albis, referring to the neophytes who had been baptized at the Easter Vigil putting aside their white baptismal garments and becoming part of their congregations. It has also been called Quasimodo Sunday because of this Sunday's Introit, whether Ordinary or Extraordinary Form:

Quasimodo geniti infantes, alleluia: rationabiles, sine dolo lac concupiscite, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Like newborn infants, you must long for the pure, spiritual milk, that in him you may grow to salvation, alleluia.

As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains this traditional nomenclature:

The origin of the name is uncertain, but it is apparently intended to indicate the contrast between it and the great Easter festival immediately preceding, and also, perhaps, to signify that, being the Octave Day of Easter, it was considered part of that feast, though in a lower degree. Its liturgical name is Dominica in albis depositis, derived from the fact that on it the neophytes, who had been baptized on Easter Eve, then for the first time laid aside their white baptismal robes. St. Augustine mentions this custom in a sermon for the day, and it is also alluded to in the Eastertide Vesper hymn, "Ad regias Agni dapes" (or, in its older form, "Ad cœnam Agni providi"), written by an ancient imitator of St. Ambrose. [An English adaptation is "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing"] Low Sunday is also called by some liturgical writers Pascha clausum, signifying the close of the Easter Octave, and "Quasimodo Sunday". . .

In the Ordinary Form it is called Divine Mercy Sunday or the Second Sunday of Easter. 

But to continue with the theme of Quasimodo Sunday: that's how the fictional "Hunchback of Notre Dame" gets his name. Because Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame found the hunchbacked, deformed baby on the Second Sunday of Easter he named him after the introit's first word. As this website explains the word Quasimodo, we can see the sad joke Frollo was playing on the poor baby as he is "almost" "the standard of measure":

The word quasimodo is a compound of two Latin words (split in the Missale Romanum), quasi and modo, meaning “almost” and “the standard of measure.” Thus, the combination means “almost the standard of measure,” which in the new translation is reduced to “like.”

The quotation takes its cue from 1 Peter 2:2, which in the RSV reads, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.” (Incidentally, the Latin in the Vulgate reads, “Sicut modo geniti infantes, rationale sine dolo lac concupiscite, ut in eo crescatis in salutem.”)

In her current state, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is "almost the standard of measure" of herself: she is standing, but she is deformed and damaged by the fire. She cannot be used for her true purpose of the worship of God the Father through the Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Mass, for prayer and devotion, for Baptisms, Confessions, and Weddings, etc. Her parishioners, those who go there every Sunday and throughout the week, have to go to other churches for Mass (although not technically a parish she serves as one for those in the neighborhood). As we continue to celebrate Easter and the new life Jesus brought us through the forgiveness of sins, I am sure that Notre Dame de Paris will someday be like herself again if we remember and protect what she is supposed to be: a church, not a monument, an Altar and a Tabernacle, not a tourist destination.

Christ is Risen! Truly, He Risen! 

Happy Easter to all Orthodox Christians! Alleluia! Alleluia!

All Together Now: Holy Week In East and West

All Christians--East and West--are celebrating Holy Week and Easter at the same time this year! There are some differences, of course, as this Antiochian Orthodox website explains, including exactly when Lent ends:

Great Lent and Holy Week are two separate fasts, and two separate celebrations. Great Lent ends on Friday of the fifth week (the day before Lazarus Saturday). Holy Week begins immediately thereafter. Let's explore the meaning of each of the solemn days of Passion Week.

Lazarus Saturday: Lazarus Saturday is the day which begins Holy Week. It commemorates the raising of our Lord's friend Lazarus, who had been in the tomb four days. This act confirmed the universal resurrection from the dead that all of us will experience at our Lord's Second Coming. This miracle led many to faith, but it also led to the chief priest's and Pharisees' decision to kill Jesus (John 11:47-57).

Palm Sunday (The Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem): Our Lord enters Jerusalem and is proclaimed king - but in an earthly sense, as many people of His time were seeking a political Messiah. Our Lord is King, of course, but of a different type - the eternal King prophesied by Zechariah the Prophet. We use palms on this day to show that we too accept Jesus as the true King and Messiah of the Jews, Who we are willing to follow - even to the cross.

Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: The first thing that must be said about these services, and most of the other services of Holy Week, is that they are "sung" in anticipation. Each service is rotated ahead twelve hours. The evening service, therefore, is actually the service of the next morning, while the morning services of Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday are actually the services of the coming evening. . . .

Please read the rest there. Here is the schedule for services at St. George's Orthodox Christian Cathedral this week.

In honor of the occasion, I'm listening to Maximilian Steinberg's Passion Week!

The Only English Pope Dies

It is a commonplace to note, of course, that Italian Cardinals have dominated the Holy See. It's also a commonplace to say that England and the popes were often in conflict. But as the book I have been reading about England and the popes testifies, the relationships between England and the Holy See have also been very strong. During the Anglo-Saxon era, correspondence and travel between England's hierarchy and Rome fostered and signified great devotion to St. Peter--and to his successors.

One of his successors died on September 1, 1159. Pope Adrian IV, alias Nicholas Breakspear, and he was from England--the only pope from England thus far. (Thomas Wolsey had some great ambition to be the second, I believe.)

According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia:

Boso tells us that Adrian was born in England in or near the burg of St. Albans, and that he left his country and his relations in his boyhood to complete his studies, and went to Arles in France. During the vacation he visited the monastery of Sts. Rufus near Avignon, where he took the vows and habit of an Austin canon. After some time he was elected abbot and, going to Rome on important business connected with the monastery, was retained there by Pope Eugenius III, and made a cardinal and Bishop of Albano (1146). Matthew Paris agrees in some measure with this, for he tells us that on Adrian's applying to the abbot of St. Alban's to be received as a monk, the abbot, after examining him, found him deficient and said to him kindly: "Have patience, my son, and stay at school yet a while till you are better fitted for the position you desire." He states further that he was "a native of some hamlet under the abbey, perhaps Langley," and I may add that it is now tolerably certain that he was born at Abbot's Langley in Hertfordshire, about the year 1100; that his father was Robert Brekespear, a man of humble means, though of a decent stock; and that Adrian went abroad as a poor wandering scholar, like John of Salisbury and many others at that time.

Adrian had some dealings with Frederick Barbarossa:

After some negotiations a famous meeting took place at Sutri, about 30 miles north of Rome, on the 9th of June, 1155, between Frederick of Hohenstauffen, then the most powerful ruler in Europe, and the humble canon of Sts. Rufus, now the most powerful spiritual ruler in the world. As the Pope approached, the Emperor advanced to meet him, but did not hold the Pope's stirrup, which was part of the customary ceremony of homage. The Pope said nothing then, but dismounted, and the Emperor led him to a chair and kissed his slipper. Custom required that the Pope should then give the kiss of peace. He refused to do so, and told Frederick that until full homage had been paid he would withhold it. This implied that he would not crown him. Frederick had to submit, and on the 11th of June another meeting was arranged at Nepi, when Frederick advanced on foot and held the Pope's stirrup, and the incident was closed.

Such conflict might be behind Pope Adrian's comment to John of Salisbury: "The office of Pope, he assured me, was a thorny one, beset on all sides with sharp pricks. He wished indeed that he had never left England, his native land, or at least had lived his life quietly in the cloister of Sts. Rufus rather than have entered on such difficult paths, but he dared not refuse, since it was the Lord's bidding" (Polycraticus, Bk. IV, xxviii).

The wikipedia article on Pope Adrian IV provides details about his dealings with Byzantium and Ireland (and is also the source of the illustration above).