120 DESTEUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE conditions or see the city captured. Questions of dogma, the addition of the Filioque clause, the use of unleavened bread, the condition of souls in purgatory, were to them matters of secondary importance when the very existence of their country was at stake. Even papal supremacy appeared to John and many laymen worth accepting in return for the despatch of soldiers who would resist the Turkish invasion. We have seen that many attempts at Union had been made by all the emperors since the recapture of the city, but that they had all failed, that the traditional conser- vatism of the Orthodox Church, its stubborn resistance to the slightest change of dogma or ritual, all intensified by the traditions of the Latin occupation, had been more powerful than the energy and influence of popes and emperors combined. 1 The great The last and greatest attempt to brine* about a Union attempt at ° . Reunion, was now about to be made, and deserves fuller notice than has been given to any which preceded it. In 1429, in the fourth year of his reign, John sent to request the pope to despatch a messenger to Constantinople to treat of Union. Eugenius gladly complied and sent a friar to arrange conditions with the emperor and patriarch. It was agreed that the canonical method of arriving at a binding conclusion on matters of dogma should be adopted. The matters in dispute were to be submitted to a Council of the Church at which John and the patriarch were to be present. Meantime Eugenius employed his influence during the next three or four years to induce the Venetians and Genoese to unite against the common enemy, to give aid to the knights in their defence of Khodes, and to prevent any 1 ' The Greek Church has had a fossilised aversion to change ; boasting that it follows the doctrines and practices of the Apostolic Church, it believes that it has no need of reform.' Eighteen Centuries of the Orthodox Greek Church, by Eev. A. H. Hore, p. 553 (Jas. Parker & Co. : London, 1899). The expression ' fossilised aversion ' is perhaps too strong, though I should be prepared to admit that the Eastern non posswmisvf&s at least as obstinate as the Western. The Orthodox Church in countries where it is free, as in Greece and Kussia, shows signs of growth, and therefore hardly deserves the adjective
- fossilised.' Since 1453 in Turkey it has been comatose.
