All the Greek bishops present at the council signed the union, except for Mark of Ephesus and Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, who had died by that time.
It is very important for us all to remember that the majority is not necessarily on the side of the Truth - more often it is the other way around...
The union was also signed by the Russian Metropolitan Greek Isidore (who had long ago agreed to it), for which he was deposed by the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II the Dark (the union never came into force either in Byzantium or in the Russian state).
(Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich II (Dark) rejects the union with the Catholic Church, accepted by Metropolitan Isidore at the Council of Florence. 1440. Engraving by B. A. Chorikov)
Upon returning to Constantinople, many Greek bishops who had agreed to the union in Florence refused it, claiming that they had been forced into an agreement with the Latins. The Greek clergy and people, having learned about the union, became irritated; Uniates were considered heretics. All defenders of Orthodoxy grouped around Mark of Ephesus. The Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem held a council in Jerusalem in 1443 at which they pronounced excommunication on all adherents of the union. The repeated condemnation of the Florentine Union by the Eastern Patriarchs occurred in 1450 at a council in Constantinople, at the same council the Uniate Patriarch of Constantinople Gregory Mamma was deposed and the Orthodox Athanasius was elevated to the patriarchal throne.
When Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453, people stopped remembering the Union of Florence.
However, before that, one interesting event happened - it was the day of May 28, 1453 - the last day before the fall of the great city of Constantinople and the last day of the Byzantine Empire... The event was unique in its own way.
This is how historian Stephen Runciman describes the events of that day ( Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Chapter 9. The last days of Byzantium, M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2008; I highly recommend everyone to read this book)
***
On Monday, when it became known that the fateful hour was approaching, both soldiers and townspeople forgot their feuds. While work was going on on the walls to repair the damage, a huge procession moved through the city. In contrast to the silence of the Turkish camp, in Constantinople church bells rang, wooden bells sounded, icons and sacred relics were taken from churches and solemnly carried through the streets and along the walls, stopping in front of the most destroyed and vulnerable places to consecrate them. Participants in the procession accompanying the shrines, in which Greeks and Italians, Orthodox and Catholics united, sang hymns and repeated in chorus “ Kyrie Eleison».
The emperor himself left the palace to join the procession, and when it ended, he invited noble people and military leaders - Greeks and Italians - to join him. His speech to them has come down to us in the recordings of two of those present - the secretary of the emperor Frantzis and the archbishop of Mytilene. Each of them recorded the speech in his own way, giving it a rhetorical form that, in all likelihood, it did not possess. However, both recordings coincide enough to convey to us the main essence of this speech. Konstantin told those gathered that the decisive assault should begin in the very near future. He reminded his subjects that everyone must be ready to die for their faith, homeland, family and sovereign; now his people must prepare to die for all this taken together. He spoke of the glorious past and noble traditions of the great city, of the treachery of the wicked Sultan, who provoked this war in order to destroy the true faith and install his false prophet in the place of Christ. He asked them not to forget that they were descendants of the heroes of Ancient Greece and Rome and should be worthy of their ancestors. He himself, the emperor added, was ready to die for his faith, his city and his people. He then addressed the Italians, thanking them for the great services they had rendered to the city, and expressing confidence that they would not fail in the coming battle. He asked everyone - both Greeks and Italians - not to be afraid of the numbers of the enemy and his barbaric tricks, designed to cause panic among the besieged with the help of noise and fire. May their spirit be high, may they be brave and steadfast in battle. With God's help they will win.
All those present rose from their seats and assured the emperor that they were ready to sacrifice their lives and homes for him. The Emperor slowly walked around the entire hall, asking everyone to forgive him if he had ever offended him. Everyone followed his example, hugging each other, as those who are preparing for death do.
The day was drawing to a close. Crowds of people flocked to St. Sophia. Over the past five months, not a single strict zealot of Orthodoxy has crossed its threshold, not wanting to listen to the holy liturgy desecrated by the Latins and apostates. However, that evening all previous grievances disappeared. Almost everyone who was in the city, with the exception of the soldiers who remained on the walls, gathered for this service - a prayer for intercession. The priests, who considered union with Rome a mortal sin, offered prayers at the altar along with their fellow unionists. The cardinal stood next to bishops who had never before recognized him; all the people came here for confession and holy communion, without distinguishing who was serving - an Orthodox or a Catholic priest. Along with the Greeks, there were Italians and Catalans. Mosaics with their gilding, depicting Christ and saints, Byzantine emperors and empresses, flickered in the light of a thousand lamps and candles; under them, for the last time, the figures of priests in festive attire solemnly moved to the majestic chords of the liturgy. This was the moment when the unification of the Eastern and Western Christian Churches truly took place in Constantinople.
The ministers and military leaders, after the conference with the emperor ended, rode through the entire city to join the worshipers in the cathedral. After confession and communion, each returned to his post, determined to win or die. When Giustiniani and his Greek and Italian comrades, having passed through the inner wall, took their places on the outer wall and at the barriers, the order was given to close the gates of the inner wall behind them, thus cutting off all routes of retreat.
Late in the evening, the emperor, on his Arabian horse, also arrived at the great temple to confess to God. Then he returned through the dark streets to his palace in Blachernae, summoned his household and, just as before with the ministers, asked everyone for forgiveness for the grief he had ever caused, and said goodbye to them. It was almost midnight when he again jumped on his horse and rode, accompanied by his faithful Frandzis, along all the land walls to make sure that everything was in order and all the gates of the inner wall were locked. On the way back to Blachernae, the emperor dismounted at the Caligarian Gate and climbed, together with Frandzis, to the tower, which was located on the most protruding part of the Blachernae wall; from it they could peer into the darkness in both directions: to the left - towards Mesotikhion and to the right - down to the Golden Horn. From below they could hear the noise of the enemy camp dragging their guns across the filled ditch; According to the sentry, the Turks began this immediately after sunset. In the distance they could see the flickering lights of Turkish ships moving through the Golden Horn towards the city. Francis remained there with his master for about an hour. Then Konstantin let him go and they never met again. The hour of battle was approaching.
***
Establishment of those who hope in Thee, establish, O Lord, the church which Thou hast acquired with Thy venerable blood.
The time period from 1425 to 1453 refers to the reign of Vasily II. It was during these times that an event occurred that we call the “feudal war.”
Vasily II continued to “gather” Russian lands around Moscow. The Principality of Vladimir was annexed in 1426. Mozhaisk was annexed in 1454. This led to a strengthening of the role of Moscow.
It is also worth mentioning that Rus' did not accept the Union of Florence of 1439 and that Byzantium fell in 1453. The consequence of these events was that the Russian Orthodox Church became independent.
But, of course, it was the feudal war that had a particularly important role. It was after this war that Vasily II finally secured the throne. The reason for it was the struggle for the throne and the fact that the transfer of power was not organized properly.
In the feudal war, on the one hand, Vasily himself fought for power, and on the other, his uncle, Yuri Dmitrievich, and his sons, Vasily Kosy and Dmitry Shemyaka, fought for power. The latter even managed to gain a foothold in power for a short time, but he was still driven out.
There was a war for the throne for more than 20 years. During this time, the country was greatly weakened, and the situation of the common people worsened. The need to unite the Russian lands became more pronounced.
The consequence of the war was the establishment of a direct order of transfer of the throne: from father to eldest son.
In the end, it is worth saying that Vasily II greatly contributed to the strengthening of the Moscow principality. This was manifested in the victory in the feudal war, and in the annexation of new territories, and the establishment of the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Updated: 2017-02-10
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On July 5, 1439 in Florence at the XVII Ecumenical Council, Pope Eugenius IV, Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos and 33 Orthodox hierarchs signed the so-called Union of Florence. This act proclaimed the unification of the Orthodox and Catholic churches under the primacy of Rome.
The next day, July 6, the pope celebrated mass with unusual solemnity in the main Florence Cathedral. In front of a huge crowd of people, the pope blessed the emperor, bishops, and dignitaries. Tears of joy sparkled in his eyes when, by his order, the charter of the Union of Florence - a union of the Catholic and Orthodox churches - was read loudly from the pulpit. Although in reality things were not so happy at all.
Byzantium was then living out its last days - almost all of its possessions had already fallen into the hands of the Turks. Only the capital itself with a small region remained in the power of the emperor. The time of Byzantium was ending, and only one hope supported the emperor - hope for Western Europe. By signing the union, John hoped, with the support of the pope, to return to the time of the Crusades. With the help of a united army of European Catholic countries, he hoped to defeat the Turks and restore the former greatness of his empire.
Rome also pursued its interest. With the help of the new union, the pope hoped to strengthen the authority of the Vatican, which at that time was greatly shaken due to the schism in the Western Church. In Europe, the seeds of heresy were already in full swing, sown by the British John Wycliffe, who called for the demolition of the entire papal system and the secularization of church lands. Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague had already been burned at the stake, and their followers were just waging the Hussite wars, declaring Catholic Rome their main enemy. Already on the European horizon, the impending Reformation was clearly looming, which would soon plunge the continent into the abyss of schism and religious wars. And Pope Eugene hoped to stop all this with the help of the unification of Christian churches.
Under pressure from the emperor, the union was signed by all the Greek bishops present at the council, except Mark of Ephesus and Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, who had died by that time. Upon returning to Constantinople, most of the Orthodox hierarchs who had agreed to the union in Florence abandoned it, claiming that they had been forced into an agreement with the Latins. The Greek clergy and people were irritated when they learned about the union. Uniates were considered heretics. All defenders of Orthodoxy grouped around Mark of Ephesus. The Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem held a council in Jerusalem in 1443, at which they pronounced excommunication on all adherents of the union.
The Russian Church deserves a separate discussion, which in the first half of the 15th century was also shaken by unrest and turmoil. They began under Dmitry Donskoy and Metropolitan Alexei. The Lithuanian prince Olgerd could not tolerate his Orthodox subjects submitting to the Moscow metropolitan, while Lithuania was in constant enmity with Moscow. As a result, he managed to ensure that for southwestern Rus', then subject to Lithuania, the Patriarch of Constantinople appointed Metropolitan Cyprian, separate from Moscow. So the Orthodox Russian Church was divided into two metropolises: Kyiv and Moscow. They united and then separated again. Metropolitans were sent from Byzantium and were usually of Greek origin. The last Greek metropolitan of Moscow was Isidore.
Actually, Isidore became the last precisely because he signed the act in Florence. The Russian clergy and Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark refused to recognize the Union of Florence, as a result of which Isidore was deposed. Along with his deposition, the very practice of appointing Greeks to the Russian metropolitan throne fell into oblivion. In Byzantium itself, in 1450, the Eastern patriarchs re-condemned the Union of Florence at a council in Constantinople. At the same time, the Patriarch of Constantinople Gregory Mamma, who was a Uniate, was deposed, and the Orthodox Athanasius was elevated to the patriarchal throne.
Thus, the entire Orthodox Church eventually refused to recognize the supremacy of the Vatican, and the Russian Church from that moment followed a completely independent path. The fall of Byzantium put an end to this whole story. After Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453, people simply stopped remembering the Union of Florence.
1. At the beginning of April 1439, the troops of Ulu-Muhammad approached Nizhny Novgorod and occupied it almost without resistance.
2. During May 1439, the Tatars reached Moscow, ruining Russian villages along the way, robbing the population, stealing livestock.
3. The vanguard of the Tatar army entered Moscow in Zamoskvorechye on June 2, 1439 and crossed the Moskva River to the Zaryadye region on June 3. Having surrounded the Kremlin, the Tatars tried to take it by storm for two weeks, looking for different approaches. However, this did not produce any results.
4. Having ravaged the settlements, Zaryadye and the pryauz part of the White City, the Tatar army left Moscow on June 13, 1439. On the way back, the Tatars burned Kolomna and left the Moscow principality.
5. This campaign did not complete any peace agreements. It’s just that over the next five years (1439-1444) a virtually peaceful status quo was maintained. Khan was saving up his strength for a new campaign against Moscow.
The second campaign of the Kazan Tatars against Moscow in the 15th century
(1444-1445)
1. Having begun the campaign at the end of September 1444, the Kazan army occupied Nizhny Novgorod by mid-October and, having then occupied the vast surrounding area, remained to winter on Russian territory, waiting for the establishment of a strong sleigh route to Moscow.
2. In January 1445, along the winter route, an advanced detachment of Kazan citizens set out for Moscow and first headed towards Murom, but, having met fierce resistance from the Moscow militia, Khan Ulu-Mukhammed was forced to retreat, and then, due to intensifying frosts, he also left Nizhny Novgorod , returning with the army to Kazan.
3. However, in the spring of 1445 the campaign was resumed. In April, Nizhny Novgorod was captured again, and during May-June, the Kazan army under the command of princes Mahmud and Yakub fought their way to Vladimir.
4. On July 7, 1445, at the walls of the Spaso-Efimevsky Monastery near Suzdal on the banks of the Nerl River, the general battle of the Kazan army took place under the leadership of Mahmud, the son of the khan. The Russian troops were completely defeated, and Grand Duke Vasily II Vasilyevich himself and his cousin Prince Mikhail Vereisky were captured. They were both taken to the Headquarters of Ulu-Muhammad in Nizhny Novgorod, where they agreed to all the peace terms dictated to them by the Tatars. The latter were so difficult and humiliating that they were not even published, but gave rise to extreme panic in the Moscow state and various rumors that Vasily II had completely given Moscow to the Tatars.
Peace agreement Basil II - Ulu-Muhammad
(Russian-Kazan Peace Treaty of 1445)
Date of agreement: August 25 (?) 1445
Place of agreement Nizhny Novgorod, Headquarters of Ulu-Muhammad
Contracting parties From Russia: Vasily II, Grand Duke of the Moscow Principality;
From the Kazan Khanate: Khan Ulu-Muhammad;
Conditions 1. Ransom from captivity of the Grand Duke and his cousin. Although the size of the ransom sum was not reported, three versions are known:
A. Everything that the Grand Duke can pay (the entire treasury!);
B. “From gold and silver and from all kinds of spoils and from horses and armor - half 30 thousand from everything;
B. 200,000 rubles in silver;
2. Ordinary prisoners did not return. All of them were sold as slaves into slavery in the eastern Muslim markets.
3. Kazan officials were appointed to Russian cities to collect taxes and monitor the receipt of indemnities.
4. To ensure and fully guarantee the payment of the indemnity, the Kazan Khanate received income from a number of Russian cities in the form of feedings. The list of cities was subject to clarification.
5. A special condition of the peace treaty was the allocation by the Russian Grand Duke of a special appanage in the Trans-Oka Meshchera land, which was supposed to serve as a buffer state between the Kazan Khanate and the Moscow Principality and which was taken into possession by the son of Ulu-Muhammad Kasim, who formally became a “Russian appanage prince” , the owner of a special inheritance on Russian soil - the Kasimov kingdom;
6. One of the points of the humiliating agreement was permission for the Tatars to build their own mosques in Russian cities. This point, as soon as it began to be put into practice, aroused fanatical resistance of the Russian population, supported by the clergy.
Note 1. Even more alarming rumors spread among the people regarding the payment of the indemnity: as if Vasily II gave the entire Moscow principality to the Tatars, and left only Tver for himself.
The people refused to recognize such terms of the peace treaty. The boyars were preparing to deprive Vasily II of the throne upon his return from captivity. In this regard, Vasily II, transported to Kurmysh, was kept there until October 1 and was released and sent to Moscow, accompanied by a Tatar military detachment (retinue!) of 500 people. to protect him and control his actions. Kazan administrators were appointed to all cities of Russia.
Note 2. Tribute to the Kasimov princes (khans) is recorded in the following documents:
A. Treaty of Princes Ivan and Fyodor Vasilyevich Ryazansky dated August 19, 1496
B. Agreement between the sons of Ivan III Vasily and Yuri dated June 16, 1504 and the will of Ivan III, drawn up in 1504 (Collected State Charters and Agreements, Part I, Doc. 144, pp. 389-400, M ., 1813).
Moreover, this tribute was preserved even under Ivan IV the Terrible almost after the conquest of Kazan! (The last mention of her dates back to March 12, 1553!)
The implementation of the treaty of August 25, 1445 caused nationwide indignation and riots in individual cities against the government of Vasily II. As a result, three and a half months after his return from captivity and the introduction of a new regime, Vasily II was deposed and blinded, which was seen as a guarantee that he would never be able to return to government activity.
However, the khan sent his army to support Vasily II, led by the princes Kasim and Yakub, who restored the Grand Duke to the throne (from now on he received the nickname Vasily the Dark both for bringing the Tatars to Russian soil and because he became blind) and thereby ensuring the full implementation of the agreement concluded with him.
As a result, the degree of Moscow’s subordination to the Kazan Khanate turned out to be much greater than the previous subordination of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' to the Golden Horde! (And this is more than half a century after the Battle of Kulikovo!?) These are the zigzags Russian history was capable of!
