Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

The Union of Florence

Page 5

Like the Union of Lyon, the Union of Florence was not accepted in the East, and on his return to Constantinople John very soon realized that his enterprise had miscarried. A numerous Orthodox party gathered around Mark of Ephesus, who had refused to sign the decree of union; many of those who had signed withdrew their signatures. At Moscow, Isidore ordered the decree of union to be solemnly read in the Cathedral of the Assumption (Uspenski Cathedral), but he found no support. The Grand Prince called him no longer the shepherd and teacher of his flock but a ravening wolf, and he was placed under arrest in a monastery, from which he escaped to Rome. The eastern patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem also declared against the union, and at the Council of Jerusalem, in 1443, the Council of Florence was called impure (μιαρά). The Catholic church, however, still recognizes the validity of the decree of the Council of Florence, and as late as the nineteenth century Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical concerning the union of the churches appealed to the Orthodox to return to the decree of union. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, like his brother John VIII, believed that the salvation of the perishing Empire lay in union with the western church  

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