The role of Orthodoxy in the fall of Byzantium

The Byzantines were shocked by the betrayal of their supreme value - Orthodoxy. They saw that with the main thing in life - the truths of faith - can play. The meaning of the existence of the Byzantines was lost. This was the last and most important thing that destroyed the country. And although not everyone accepted the union, but the spirit of the people was broken. To the place of the former thirst for life and vigorous determination to act came the terrible public apathy and fatigue. The people have ceased to want to live. "After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the position of the Orthodox in the Middle East deteriorated strongly. They lost their main stronghold. In 1461, the Trebizond Empire was destroyed, and in 1464 the Republic of Genoese in the Crimea fell, within which many Orthodox lived. Cyprus, where the descendants of the Crusaders ruled until 1489, and the Norman kingdom in Greece also became dependent on the sultans. The Greeks migrated to Italy to the West, where they founded the cultural and publishing center in Venice. All Greek liturgical books from now on began to be printed in Venice. Many Greek scholars, led by the famous philosopher Pliffon, moved to Florence and Rome and contributed to the revival of ancient humanistic culture in the West.Thus, we managed to establish that Byzantium, like the Orthodox Church of the East as a whole, arose in the first half of the 15th century in front of a difficult problem: to determine the prospects for its existence and activity in the face of a new reality, the rapidly expanding Turkish Ottoman state, conquering all new lands East. Many times the Byzantine government tried to get military aid from the West, for which it regularly negotiated with the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church, which played the role of "supranational education" in Western Europe. And for the sake of military assistance from the West, the Byzantine emperor achieved the signing of the Florentine Union, which subordinated the Eastern Orthodox Church to the Pope, with the adoption of dogmatism and doctrine distorted by Roman Catholicism.Roman Catholics and Orthodox have repeatedly made attempts to join. But the Ferrara-Florentine cathedral of 1437 was the denominator by the fact that it was on it by the Roman Catholics that the Uniate policy on the accession of the Eastern Rite Churches was worked out. For example, historians say that exactly the ideas expressed at the Ferrara-Florentine cathedral paved the way for the Brest Union, 32 signed by the Kiev Metropolitan Michael Ragoza in 1596. In fact, all the unions between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox did not lead to a union, but led to a split within the Orthodox Church. These were, above all, clerical movements. The union was the work of bishops acting in isolation from the church people, 33 without his free and conciliar consent and advice. A strange situation was created: the Uniate hierarchy was at the head of the Orthodox people. At the same time, these Uniate bishops considered their subordination to Rome to be a Fusion of Churches. "Resistance of the people was viewed as canonical self-will, as an uprising of an unruly flock against legitimate hierarchical power .Of course, on the contrary, the Orthodox saw in this disobedience and in this inevitable anti-hierarchical struggle only the fulfillment of their Christian duty, the duty of loyalty to Christ and the Orthodox Church.Today, many - and not only from the outside, but also from within the Orthodox Church - sharply criticize the Byzantine Empire and the idea of ​​the Christian society that it personified. But is it possible to assume that the Byzantines were completely mistaken? They believed that Christ, who lived on earth as a man, has redeemed each side of human existence, and therefore it is possible to baptize not only individuals, but society and his spirit as a whole. Thus, they aspired to such a dispensation of society that would be completely Christian in the principles of governance and in everyday life. In fact, Byzantium was nothing more than an attempt to deduce all possible consequences from the incarnation of Christ and apply them in practice. Of course, such an attempt was associated with a certain risk: in particular, the Byzantines often identified the earthly kingdom of Byzantium with the Kingdom of God, and the Greeks - or rather, the "Romans", if we take advantage of the self-designation of the Byzantines - with the people of God. Of course, Byzantium often lacked the strength to rise to the heights of its own ideal, and this shortage was sometimes very deplorable and even catastrophic. The stories of Byzantine duplicity, violence, cruelty are too well known to need to be repeated. They are truthful - but they make up only a part of the truth. For behind all the shortcomings of Byzantium there is always a great perspective that inspired the Byzantines: to establish here, on earth, the image of heavenly divine rule.BibliographyAntiquity and Byzantium: Sat. Art. / Institute of World Literature. A.M. Gorky; Ans. Ed. JI.A. Freiberg. Moscow: Nauka, 2005. - 415 p.Averintsev S.S. At the crossroads of cultural traditions. Byzantine Literature: Origins and Creative Principles / S.S. Averintsev // Vopr. Lit. 2003.-No. 2. - P. 150-183.Averintsev S.S. Evolution of philosophical thought. / Culture of Byzantium IV - the first half of the VII. M., 1984. P. 42 - 77.Byzantium. The Mediterranean. The Slavic World / Ed. G.G. Litavrin and others. Moscow: Moscow State University, 2011. - 189 p.Uspensky F.I. History of the Byzantine Empire VI - IX centuries. In 5 vols. T. 5. 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