to acknowledge the doctrine. On the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul High Mass was sung according to the Latin rite, the Epistle and Gospel were sung in Latin and Greek, after the Latin Creed the same Creed was sung again in Greek by Germanos and the Italo-Greek bishops, and they had to sing "who proceeds from the Father and the Son" three times. And St. Bonaventure preached. In the last sessions the decrees of the council were drawn up and were promulgated by the Pope on November 1st.[1] The first dogmatic decree is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from God the Father and the Son as from one principle in one "Spiratio."[2] The Byzantine delegates then went back with letters from the Pope to the Emperor, the Patriarch, and all bishops of their Church.
As soon as they arrived the Pope's name was restored to the diptychs, and a great Liturgy was celebrated at which the Epistle and Gospel were sung in Greek and Latin— a return for the compliment at Lyons. But the people did not want the union, and an insurrection against it was cruelly put down. John Bekkos then wrote and argued in favour of it, and two bishops and two Dominicans sent by the Pope as Legates were received with great honour. But gradually, as the Emperor saw that no Crusaders came to fight for him, his ardour cooled too. Pope John XXI (1276–1277) made the fatal mistake of requiring them to add the Filioque to their Creed, in spite of the agreement at Lyons. This greatly increased the anti-papal party. Michael VIII then gave up quarrelling with his own people for the sake of a policy that had failed, and the union became the merest shadow of a pretence. Pope Nicholas III (1277–1280) finally excommunicated Michael as a favourer of schism. As soon as Michael died his successor, Andronikos II (1282–1328), broke the last link. He formally repudiated the union, brought the ex-patriarch, Joseph I, out of the monastery where he had
