œcumenical council. The Latin Patriarch of Constantinople was given the second place after the Pope—the first recognition on the part of the Roman Church of the old claim of Constantinople to that place, now made in favour of a man whom the patriarch of the old line of course abhorred. The greatest theologians in the Church were summoned. St. Thomas Aquinas died on the way (March 7, 1274);[1] St. Bonaventure was the soul of all the discussions till he too died (July 15, 1274) during the council. Meanwhile, at Constantinople Michael VIII had been doing everything he could to bring about the union. A Franciscan, John Parastron, himself a born Greek, had been travelling backwards and forwards, arguing and persuading, but the Patriarch Joseph I (1268–1274) would have nothing to say to any peace with the Latins. So they shut him up in a monastery and told him that if the union succeeded he would have to stay there, but if it did not he might come back and be Patriarch again. Meanwhile John Bekkos (John XI, 1274–1282) was set up in his stead. This Bekkos had been an enemy of the Latins, but he now became or professed to be as eager for reunion as the Emperor himself. They sent to Lyons as ambassadors Germanos, an ex-Patriarch of Constantinople (he had been Germanos III, 1267),[2] Theophanes, Metropolitan of Nicæa, George Akropolites the Imperial Chancellor, and two other lay statesmen. These persons arrived, having been plainly told to concede anything and to make sure of the union whatever happened; so there were practically no discussions and there was no difficulty at all. In the name of their Emperor, the Patriarch, and the Orthodox Church they admitted the Roman Primacy, the Filioque, and everything. The Orthodox were to restore the Pope's name to their diptychs, to keep all their own rites, customs, and laws, and were not to add the Filioque to their Creed over there, although they were
- ↑ Among his numberless works he had already written a "Treatise against the Greeks" (1252).
- ↑ Especially since the schism under both Emperors and Sultans Patriarchs are incessantly being deposed, restored, and then deposed again. The line of Patriarchs of Constantinople is by far the most tangled confusion of that of any see in Christendom.
