The Eagle of Eastern Europe

Chapter 167 Ecumenical Council

The Hungarian Civil War ended and Peter withdrew his troops back to Skopje. He continued the governance and assimilation of Serbian areas.

He also received news that the Principality of Gjirokastra sold its land to the Grand Duke for 30,000 ducats. The monarch of Epirus is also negotiating. If successful, Wallachia will border Morea. .

Knights and religious orders also withdrew from Hungary, and they began to attack Ottoman areas. The southern fortress of Serre was quickly captured, and the Dragon Knights moved their base here and prepared to attack Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki is also called Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Thessalonica, etc. It is the economic and cultural center of Greece and the main transportation hub in Southeast Europe. Its commercial port was important for both Greece and the hinterland of southeastern Europe, and is now occupied by the Ottomans. The Knights' goal was this seaport city that was once second only to Constantinople.

Speaking of the Ottomans, Bayezid quickly annexed many emirate states. After the Qadi Emir State was annexed, Bayezid basically unified Anatolia. A large amount of land and population were used by the Ottomans, but they also bordered the new country.

Bayezid gave preferential treatment to the surrendered emir. He needed to assemble an army of 100,000 men within five years in order to take revenge on Wallachia.

At the same time, Bayezid also sent special envoys to Europe to reiterate his friendly relations with them. This made them all feel that the Sultan was afraid of them, so he relaxed towards Osman and went about his own affairs.

The Great Schism of the Catholic Church is still going on, and the resulting chaos, corruption, looting of people's wealth and other evil deeds have greatly reduced the prestige of the church in the minds of Europeans, and the power and prestige of the Pope have also plummeted.

Taking this opportunity, Peter asked Abbot Cyril to call on the Patriarch Carol and the Patriarch of Constantinople to convene an ecumenical council in his name to re-establish the authority of the Orthodox Church.

The Ecumenical Council is a world-wide meeting of bishops with universal representative significance in Christianity, which consults and votes on important ecclesiastical and doctrinal disputes. After the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054, the Orthodox Church only recognized the seven previous councils held together, and did not recognize the ecumenical councils held by the Catholic Church alone. In terms of frequency of convenings, the Orthodox Church has only convened twice in three hundred years, the most recent one. It has been more than forty years ago. Peter felt that in order to re-establish the authority of the Orthodox Church, a declaration issued by Wallachia was not enough, and an ecumenical council was necessary.

Patriarch Carol naturally supported it. He wrote to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Antony IV, proposing to convene an ecumenical council. Antony also had the ambition to revive the Orthodox Church and expressed his agreement, and in order to pay tribute to Vara Guia expressed her gratitude and proposed to hold it in Bukur Yesti, the capital of Wallachia.

After receiving permission, Patriarch Carroll got busy. Although busy, it is also very simple. The scope of Orthodox Christianity is smaller than that of Catholicism. In addition to Wallachia, Greece, and Constantinople, there are also Moscow, Transylvania, Antioch, Jerusalem, and The number of Orthodox bishops in the Alexandria region is expected to be no more than 160. Much smaller than the Catholic Ecumenical Council.

After Emperor Constantine made Constantinople his capital, he began to improve the religious status of the city. In AD 325, according to the resolution of the Council of Nicaea, the Church of Rome ranked first among several large dioceses, followed by the Church of Alexandria and the Church of Antioch. Later, with the establishment and development of Constantinople, this situation changed. Due to its special political status, the Church of Constantinople developed rapidly and greatly surpassed the Church of Rome. In 381 AD, the Second Ecumenical Council determined that its status was below the Roman Church and above other churches.

However, the Church of Constantinople was not satisfied with being inferior to the Church of Rome and ranking second in the Christian world, especially after the ancient capital Rome had lost its original status as the political and cultural center. In 451 AD, the Fourth Ecumenical Council decided to expand the religious jurisdiction of the Diocese of Constantinople and explicitly recognized that the Church of Constantinople enjoyed the same religious privileges as the Church of Rome. Originally, the Church of Constantinople would further enhance its status, but this was severely protested by the Church of Rome. Pope Leo I at the time claimed that the primacy of the Roman Pontiff came from the inheritance of St. Peter. Therefore, the Western Roman Church refused to recognize the primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Facing the rising power of the Crescent Church, the Eastern and Western churches also had a brief "honeymoon period." Especially after the 14th century, the Eastern Roman monarchs requested assistance from Western allies several times and promised to promote the unification of the Eastern and Western churches. However, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204, which made Orthodox believers and low-level clergy no longer trust Western allies. , even hated it, and the upper-level clergy of the church were unwilling to accommodate each other on doctrines and rules, so the unification issue was not followed up. And the Orthodox Church is in decline.

Now Peter plans to re-energize the status of the Church of Constantinople so as to reunite the power of Eastern Europe, because the Orthodox Church not only has to face the crescent in the East, but also the heresy in the West. Therefore, the religious characteristics still need to be modified.

First of all, the characteristics of armed pilgrimage must be improved. The martial virtue is too low. Then there is the need to strengthen the construction of churches and religious orders and improve missionary capabilities.

Peter also became a missionary and began writing a book about the situation in the Catholic Church. The results in Bohemia were good before, and I plan to continue to work hard next.

Peter did not say whether the Trinity still used leavened bread, but directly talked about the church's money-making methods and the bishop's illiterate and extravagant life. Eighty percent of the bishops in Italy have illegitimate children and numerous lovers. The Archbishop of Cologne is illiterate and only obtained this position by donating 300,000 gold coins to the Roman Church.

Although there are some deviations, this is the specific situation. The corruption of the Catholic Church has reached a level that cannot be solved by just one reform. Taking advantage of the unstable status of Catholicism, inserting Orthodox Christianity into southern Italy and Hungary was one of Peter's expansion policies.

Culturally, Peter is a strong supporter of native culture. At the same time, it absorbed Greek and Roman culture and gave birth to a people-oriented school. Constanta was the center of their activities, spread through paintings, poetry, literature and other forms. Exhibitions are also held every month near the university to promote it.

Peter was also very supportive of these arts, but he kept an eye on them so as not to cross a line. The power of the little bourgeoisie is too great, but the people in the east are more likely to submit, so there should be no problem. However, the rulers and churches in the west will have a headache, and may be dead.

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