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Ecclesiastical relations with the Nicene and Latin empires
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Page 4
Interest in the ecclesiastical relations in the Empire of Nicaea lies in the attempts by conferences and correspondence to find ways and means of closer intercourse between the two churches. In the very Empire of Nicaea there were men such as the metropolitan of Ephesus, Nicholas Mesarites, who were inclined to establish intercourse and agreement with the Roman church; but the Greek population never wished to accept the union. John III Vatatzes seemed to be particularly favorably disposed towards the recognition of the union, but he was influenced only by political speculations. First, he was alarmed by the election of the brave John of Brienne, formerly king of Jerusalem, first as regent and then as joint emperor with Baldwin II of Constantinople, at that time a minor. John of Brienne backed by the pope could carry out an aggressive policy against the Empire of Nicaea. Therefore, Vatatzes endeavored to divert the pope from his interest in the Latin Empire.
In 1232 five Franciscan monks (Minorites) arrived in Nicaea from Turkish captivity and opened negotiations with Patriarch Germanus II on the union of the churches. John Vatatzes and Germanus II treated them well, and the Minorites brought to Pope Gregory IX a patriarchal letter, in which the patriarch offered to the pope for consideration the subject of the union. Gregory IX acquiesced willingly in this proposal and in 1234 sent to Nicaea several delegates. The council was held first at Nicaea, and then transferred to Nymphaeum. In the disputation Nicephorus Blemmydes took a leading part. The course of the discussions at the Council of 1234 is very well known, because there is a detailed official report. But the negotiations met with failure, and the papal delegates were forced to withdraw, loaded with the curses of the Greeks gathered there, who shouted: You are heretics. As we have found you heretics and excommunicated, so we leave you now as heretics and excommunicated! In their turn the Catholic delegates cried to the Greeks: You are also heretics!
At the Council of Lyons, in 1245, Gregory's successor, Pope Innocent IV, announced that he was afflicted about the schism of Romania, that is to say, of the Greek Church which, in our own days only a few years ago, had arrogantly and foolishly seceded and averted itself from the bosom of its mother as if from its stepmother. Two states, Luchaire wrote, two religions, and two races, always deeply separated from each other, were maintaining towards each other the same attitude of enmity and distrust. John Vatatzes' alliance with Frederick II Hohenstaufen strained still farther the relations between Nicaea and the papacy, although towards the end of Frederick's reign negotiations between Nicaea and Rome were reopened and an exchange of embassies took place.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/ecclesiastical-relations-nicene-latin.asp?pg=4
