Constantinople
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Constantinople’
A succession of religious leaders came to Kiev, hoping to win the wild barbarian Prince to their cause.
The Christianity that spread across England in the 7th century spread to Kiev in the 10th, but there it had to compete not just with paganism but with Islam, Judaism, and other flavours of Christianity — and also with Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev (r. 980-1015), who liked his religion spicy.
By the early eighth century, sacred art was thriving in newly-Christian England, but in the East seeds of doubt and confusion had been sown.
Although we associate icons with Eastern Christianity, many churches in Britain prior to the Reformation, and especially in the Anglo-Saxon era before the Conquest of 1066, were wall-to-wall, floor-to-roof, a patchwork of frescoes of saints, Biblical scenes, flowers and animals. Indeed, it was in the East that doubts about sacred art first arose.
It started as an honest mistake, became a diplomatic standoff, and brought down an Empire.
In 680, English bishops gathered at Hatfield sent Pope Agatho a signed copy the Creed in which they declared their belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father ‘and the Son’. They would have been horrified to learn that this little phrase was not in the original. Unfortunately, some at Rome had invested so much of their credibility in it that they were prepared to go to any lengths to save face — even if it meant bringing down the Empire.
The British liberated the Ionian islands from Napoleon, then gave them fifty happy years and the game of cricket.
The Treaty of Paris in 1815 sought to settle the affairs of Napoleon Bonaparte, defeated at Waterloo and banished to the island of St Helena. Among the issues were the Ionian Islands (which include Zakynthos, Lefkada and Corfu) off the west coast of Greece.
The saintly Bishop helped the captain of a merchant ship to cut through the red tape, and save his town from starvation.
St Nicholas (d. 343) was Bishop of Myra, a town in the Roman Province of Lycia, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). According to his 9th-century biographer, Michael, one miracle in particular gained him a reputation in the Imperial capital itself.
A Turkish official was itching to know the secret behind a Russian slave girl’s personal charm.
In 1453, Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, fell to the Ottomon Turks. The new rulers thereafter grudgingly tolerated the conquered people’s religion, but forbade any Muslim to join them under pain of death. That was still true under Sultan Mehmed IV, who ruled from 1648 to 1687 (a contemporary of King Charles II).