"The seat of the Roman Empire is Constantinople, so you are the legitimate emperor of the Romans, and the Emperor of the Romans is also the emperor of the whole earth."
Thus, the Greek philosopher and historian George Trapisontius addressed Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, more than two decades after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, stressing the great paradox between the city over which sovereignty was transferred from the Byzantines to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century, the Western Roman Empire with its capital in Rome and its religious reference "the Vatican".
The history of the separation between Rome and Constantinople dates back more than a thousand years, when the Christian Empire split at the end of the fourth century AD to the East and West, and while the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) lived until the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 AD; The western part disintegrated rapidly since the early fifth century AD, and it collapsed as a result of migration and the conquest of the Germanic tribes.
The beginning of the 13th century AD witnessed the establishment of the Fourth Crusade, with the aim of extracting Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims during the time of the Crusades, but the point of the Crusader fighters turned to the Byzantine capital (Constantinople), and the Crusader soldiers looted the city, killing many of its residents, which aggravated the "Great Schism Between the Eastern Orthodox Church (with its capital Constantinople) and the Roman Catholic Church based in the Vatican.
The "Fourth Crusade" against Constantinople (then Orthodox) contributed to the weakening of the prosperous Byzantine capital, and later suffered from severe isolation, economic bankruptcy, and its population decreased to less than 40 thousand people only, and parts of the ancient city became empty of its thrones, which facilitated its opening at the hands of The Ottomans at the end.
Vatican pain
In his weekly sermon last Sunday, the Pope of the Vatican Francis commented on Turkey's decision to convert the Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque saying, "The seas take me with my thoughts to faraway places. I think of Hagia Sophia, I am very sad."
The Pope's statement called to mind a series of Vatican stances towards Istanbul; In 2001, Pope John Paul II expressed his grief over the events of the Fourth Crusade called by the Catholic papacy, and said, "It is tragic that the attackers turned against their brothers in faith," as he put it.
In 2004, while "Patriarch of Constantinople" Bartholomew I visited the Vatican, Pope John Paul II expressed his apology for the massacres of the Fourth Crusade against the followers of the Orthodox Church.
In his famous book "The History of the Crusades" (1954), a prominent medieval historian Stephen Ronsman wrote, "There was no crime against humanity greater than the Fourth Crusade."
Pope Vatican called Innocent III to the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), which was announced as a campaign to extract Jerusalem from Muslims, and to strike the Ayyubid Sultanate in Egypt, but the economic hardships and political events that passed by it diverted it to Constantinople, in which the Crusaders wreaked havoc.
On the way to the campaign to the east, and due to the great war spending, the Crusaders besieged and plundered the city of Zadar (currently in Croatia) even though it is Catholic, which angered the Pope who called for the campaign, but he did not object in the same way to the conquest of Constantinople in the hope of financial and military spoils from Byzantium Supports walking to Jerusalem, according to historical sources.
The Crusade plundered the Byzantine capital, but did not receive military support, and many soldiers preferred to enjoy the wealth of the looted city, and did not complete the road to Jerusalem, and the campaign failed in its primary mission, but the victim this time was the Byzantine Empire, which was divided into 3 regions: Trabzon and Epirus , Nicaea, which restored Constantinople again in 1261.
At its height, Constantinople was home to about half a million people, it was protected by 13 miles of strong triple walls, and it was a prosperous center that controlled trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea before the Crusader aggression. To take over the city by force, the Crusaders first needed to cross the Bosphorus Strait with about 200 ships, transported horses, and soldiers lined up along the shore, north of the Galata suburb.
According to historical sources, the Byzantine army fled, followed by the Crusaders who attacked the Galata Tower, opened the huge chain that prevented access to the Golden Horn, entered the Venetian fleet, and the defenses of Constantinople did not stand long for a superior Crusader army in number and strength.
Aya Sofia
For 3 days after the Crusaders entered Constantinople, many Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art pieces were stolen, destroyed, and many residents' property looted. Despite the Pope's threat of denial, the Crusaders destroyed and looted the churches and monasteries of the city, and shared the spoils of the Crusader fighters and the other Crusader knights.
In his chronicling of the event, the Byzantine historian Spruce Frionis, an American historian of Greek descent, wrote, "Latin soldiers destroyed the greatest city in Europe in an indescribable way, and for 3 days they were killed, raped, robbed and destroyed on a scale unimagined by the ancient saboteurs and goths."
In his book "Byzantium and Europe," Veronese considered that the soldiers were surprised by the tremendous fortunes they did not expect, and although the Venetians appreciated the art and saved many art pieces, the French and others ruined many art pieces, including "Hagia Sophia", where the Crusaders expressed their hatred of the Greeks. Through "desecration of the greatest church in the Christian world, they broke the silver icons of Christianity and holy books in Hagia Sophia, and they sat on the throne of the patriarch as a prostitute, while drinking wine in the holy utensils of the Church."
"The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks - if they seized the city - would not be as cruel as the Latin Christians," added Phryonis, and the defeat of the Byzantines in front of the Crusader advance, according to the American historian of Greek descent, accelerated political decline. "Thus, the Fourth Crusade and the Crusader movement in general ultimately resulted in the victory of Islam, a result that was completely the opposite of its original goals" as he put it.
When Pope Innocent III knew what had happened, he was deeply disturbed, and he denounced the brutality of the Crusader fighters who "used their swords for their own ends instead of supporting the goals of Jesus Christ and the war of the Gentiles."
Despite the Pope's condemnation of what happened, historians consider that he accepted the new situation, approved the seizure of the treasures of Constantinople in favor of its rival, Rome, and recognized Western Catholic bishops on the Orthodox regions located in the Byzantine lands.