Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van MillingenVan Millingen, Alexander
Philosophy
Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van Millingen
Van Millingen, Alexander
Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Istanbul (Turkey) -- History
The second scene, to which we refer, took place on the 15th July 1054.
On the morning of that day, as Divine worship in the cathedral was about
to commence, three papal legates, Cardinal Humbert, Cardinal Frederic,
and the Archbishop of Amalfi, made their way through the crowd of
worshippers to the steps of the altar. Having denounced the Patriarch
Michael Keroularius for insubordination to the Holy See, the legates
placed upon the altar a bull of excommunication against him and his
adherents. They left the church, shaking its dust off their feet, and
exclaiming, “Videat Deus et judicet.” In due time the patriarch hurled
back a counter-anathema; and, thenceforth, the Christian world was
divided in two bitterly hostile camps. It was the wave precipitated
against the shore by waves that had tossed the ocean’s expanse, for
league upon league. It was the consummation of a long process of
disruption between the West and the East, the course of which is marked
by such events as the foundation of Constantinople, the jealousy between
Old Rome and New Rome, the invasion of the Teutons, the establishment of
the Holy Roman Empire, race antipathies, and wrangles over the phrase
Filioque, the use of images, the celibacy of the clergy, and the
employment of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Behind all this
discord, we may be able to detect men groping for the truth, and
resisting absolutism in Church and State. But it has left Christendom
weakened both as a political and a religious power to this day.
On the 29th or 30th of May 1453, Sultan Mehemet the Conqueror alighted
from his horse at the gate of S. Sophia. It was most probably at the
“Beautiful Gate,” at the southern end of the noble inner narthex of the
church, the entrance through which the Emperors of Constantinople
usually proceeded to the cathedral. According to one account, the Sultan
stooped down at the threshold, took some earth, and scattered it on his
head in token of humiliation before God. Entering, he saw a Moslem
breaking the marble pavement. He struck at the vandal with a scimitar?
for daring to injure a building that belonged of right to the sovereign.
Then, in what to the Eastern world was the Holy of Holies of
Christendom, an imaum ascended the pulpit and cried aloud, “There is no
God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet.” And so it has been ever since.
The Church of S. Saviour Pantepoptes, the All-Seeing (Eski Imaret
Djamissi), the Church of S. Saviour Pantocrator, the All-Powerful
(Zeirek Kilissé Djamissi), and the interior of S. Saviour-in-the-Chora
(Kahriyeh Djamissi), recall the period of the Comneni and the Angeli
(1081-1204).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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