sent legates to Manuel, with a letter for Basil, Archbishop of Thessalonica, in which he exhorted that bishop to procure the reünion of the churches.[1] Basil answered that there was no division between the Greeks and Latins, since they held the same faith and offered the same sacrifice. "As for the causes of scandal, weak in themselves, that have separated us from each other," he adds, "your Holiness can cause them to cease, by your own extended authority and the help of the Emperor of the West."
This reply was as skilful as it was wise. The Papacy had innovated; it enjoyed a very widespread authority in the West. What was there to prevent its use of that authority to reject its own innovations, or those it had tolerated ? It was in the power of the Church of Rome to bring about a perfect union between the two churches. But the Papacy had no such idea of union; no union could exist in its view except upon the submission of the Eastern Church to its authority. But the Eastern Church, while maintaining the ancient doctrine, was in an attitude of continual protest against this usurped authority, and was not disposed to submit to this unlawful yoke.
The emperors continued their political intrigues while the Church Avas in this situation. They kept on good terms with the Emperor of the West so long as he was friendly with the Papacy; but as soon as new struggles arose, they profited by them to renew their applications to the Popes respecting the imperial crown. Alexander III. being at war with Frederic, Manuel Comnenus sent him (A.D. 1166) an embassy, to make known to the Pope his good intentions of reüniting the Greek and Latin churches, so that Latins and Greeks should thenceforth make but one
- ↑ Adrian iv. Ep. 7.
