Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Empire of Nicaea (1204-1261)

The role of Bulgaria in the Christian East under Tsar John Asen II 

Page 5

In such a nature as Frederick's, political plans and motives were predominant over ecclesiastical. Frederick's hostile attitude toward the papacy extended to all that had the support of the popes. Hence, as to the Latin Empire in the East, in which the papacy saw a means of union between the western and eastern churches, the interests of Frederick and John Vatatzes were the same. Frederick was hostile toward the Latin Empire, because he saw in it one of the elements of papal power and influence; John Vatatzes considered the pope an adversary who, by refusing to recognize the Orthodox patriarchate of Constantinople established at that time at Nicaea, was creating a serious obstacle to Vatatzes' aim of taking possession of Constantinople. Close relations between the two emperors began at the end of the fourth decade of the thirteenth century. Frederick did not hesitate to make an alliance with the Greeks, deadly enemies both of the papacy and of the Latin Empire.

Even earlier Theodore Angelus of Epirus had held friendly correspondence with the western Emperor and had even received from him financial support, for which Pope Gregory IX had excommunicated and anathematized both Frederick and the Despot of Epirus. It is clear that for Frederick's political combinations, the question of religion, either Orthodox or Catholic, had no importance.

But in their hostility towards the papacy, Frederick and John Vatatzes were pursuing different aims. The former wished the popes to renounce their claim to secular power; the latter wished that, by means of some compromises, the West should recognize the eastern church and that thereby the Latin patriarchate at Constantinople should lose its reason to exist. John Vatatzes could then hope that the Latin Empire would quietly disappear. The pope also differed in his attitude toward the two sudden allies. In Frederick he saw a disobedient son of the Church, who encroached upon the prerogatives of the vicars of Christ and the heirs of St. Peter, inalienable from the papal standpoint. John Vatatzes was, in the eyes of the pope, a schismatic, who hindered the fulfillment of the cherished dream of the papacy, that is, the reunion of the churches. The allies came to an agreement. Frederick II promised Vatatzes to free Constantinople from the Latins and return it to the legal emperor; for his part the Emperor of Nicaea pledged himself to become the vassal of the western Emperor and restore the union between the two churches. It is, of course, difficult to say how sincere these promises were.

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