Clashes between popes and emperors continued for decades, so the crusading movement, organized at the initiative of the pope, initially did not find much response in the German lands. The emperor and the nobles of his empire were completely occupied with internal strife. Endless unrest in their own country did not allow them to participate in armed “pilgrimages” to the Holy Land. The French king behaved completely differently. He willingly responded to the papal call, but could not make a particularly significant contribution to the crusading enterprise due to the limitations of the forces and means at his disposal. The territory of the then possessions of the French kings was limited only to Central and North-Eastern France. Burgundy and Lorraine were part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, and the entire West of today's France was the domain of the English kings from the Angevin Plantagenet dynasty. The various states founded by the Normans in Northern France, England, Ireland, Southern Italy and Sicily responded with the greatest enthusiasm to the calls of Papal Rome. After the preparatory Council in Placentia (Piacenza), where envoys of Basileus Alexios I Komnenos also arrived from Constantinople with a request for military assistance against the “Saracens” (the Islamized Seljuk Turks mentioned above and the Turkic nomadic tribe of pagan Pechenegs), who represented by the time described a mortal threat to the very existence of the Second Rome on the Bosporus, Pope Urban II uttered the winged words at the Council of Clermont on November 27, 1095: “God wants it this way!” - to this day remaining the motto of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Volunteers who wished to go on an armed pilgrimage began, at the initiative of Pope Urban, expressed at the Council of Clermont, to sew crosses made of colored fabric onto their clothes. For the first time in the history of the Middle Ages, a large group of lay people began to wear a uniform identification mark on their clothes. This innovation has survived to this day in both the military and civilian spheres. The sign of the cross became the first sign of belonging to a single army and an expression of the determination of the participants in the crusade to die on the way to the Holy City of Jerusalem or to bring the cause of its liberation from the power of the infidels to a victorious end. Since then, the cross has been considered a distinctive sign of the Christian militia, the army (militia), which in the described era in the West meant primarily knighthood in connection with its then decisive role in military affairs. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, some crusaders even tattooed or burned the sign of the cross on their foreheads, chests and right arms. In this they imitated the first Christians, who often put on themselves a cross, the name or monogram of Christ, an image of a fish, an anchor (a symbol of salvation and hope) and a lamb (the Lamb of God). Christian tattoos were often made in places where conversion to another faith was possible, for example, in areas of Christian Europe captured by the Turks. And even now, Ethiopians and Copts (Egyptian Christians), surrounded by Muslims, tattoo themselves with a cross on their wrists. Crusaders setting out to liberate the Holy Land got cross tattoos on their foreheads (and especially often on the crook of their arms) because such tattoos guaranteed them a Christian burial after death in battle (after all, often only by these marks could the body be identified). The use of the cross as a military insignia served as an expression of a completely new idea for that time of merging the Heavenly Host with the earthly host. From here it was already a stone's throw to the cross of the order's knights-monks, who, with the sign of the cross on their clothes, shields and banners, indicating the main, religious meaning of their service, defended Christian shrines from the infidels with a sword. The pope's appeal turned out to be unusually successful. Those wishing to participate in a crusade (this expression itself appeared later, contemporaries spoke of “journeys” or “pilgrimages” to the Holy Land - although the expression “crusade” itself means, in principle, nothing more than a “procession of the cross,” that is, something completely common in church life, not only among Western, but also among Eastern Christians; during the campaigns of the Kiev prince Vladimir Monomakh against the Polovtsy-Kipchaks, the Russian Orthodox army was also preceded by clergy in vestments with crosses and church banners, and about the Galician prince Yaroslav Osmomysl in “ The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, keeping in mind his participation in the crusades of Western “pilgrims”, it is said that he “shoots the Saltans beyond the lands” with his “golden arrows”!) turned out to be so many that serious problems arose with transporting such huge masses of crusaders. Their vanguard, which actually did not have a single command over it, was destroyed by the Saracens in Asia Minor. The main army of pilgrims, the core of which was the detachments of the Duke of Lower Lorraine (Brabant) Godfrey of Bouillon, a descendant of Charlemagne, and his brother Baldwin of Boulogne, having crossed the Danube, gathered in the winter of 1096/97. near Constantinople, where the leaders of the crusaders had to take a fief oath to the Orthodox Emperor of Byzantium as their overlord, that is, the supreme secular ruler. By the way, a few years earlier, the noble Western pilgrim to the Holy Land, Count Robert of Flanders, Holland and Zeeland, took a similar feudal oath to Basileus Alexios I Komnenos, who, after his return from Jerusalem, left 500 heavily armed knights from his retinue ("Celts") to help the Orthodox autocrat of Constantinople. according to Byzantine terminology), which were of considerable help in the struggle of Emperor Alexei with the enemies of the Cross and the Holy Faith of Christ. By the way, the fact that all these noble “Latins” took the fief oath to Basileus Alexei suggests that the mutual anathematization of each other by the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 (later called the great schism) was not at all perceived by contemporaries either in the East or in the West as the final “schism” of the once united Christian church into Eastern and Western. True, the Byzantines, brought up in the traditions of “Caesarepapism” (that is, the subordination of spiritual power to secular power), sometimes seemed strange to the morals and behavior of the Western clergy, especially those Latin clergy who participated in the Crusades, as if serving as a prototype of the future militant knights-monks established in the Holy Land after its liberation from the Muslim yoke of military-spiritual orders (which will be discussed on further pages of our story). As Princess Anna Komnenos wrote in her “Alexiad”: “Our idea of clergy is completely different from that of the Latins. We (Orthodox Christians - V.A.) are guided by the canons, laws and gospel dogma: “do not touch, do not shout, do not touch, for you are a clergyman.” But the Latin barbarian performs a church service, holding a shield in his left hand and shaking a spear in his right, he communes the body and blood of the Lord, looking at the murder, and he himself becomes a “man of blood,” as in the Psalm of David. Such are these barbarians, equally devoted to God and war.” Nevertheless, the attitude of the Byzantines towards the Western “Latin schismatics”, who were hired in huge numbers to serve in the Byzantine army and even formed the backbone of the Life Guards of the Constantinople basileus, called Eteria (Druzhina), as the selected guard of “friends” (“Eters” or "hetayrs") of Alexander the Great, remained rather sympathetic - until the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204. Crusader enthusiasm drove Christian pilgrims with the sign of the cross on their right shoulders further and further forward. Even the difficulties of the journey could not stop their victorious march. In addition, the basileus ordered to supply them with everything they needed and gave them his own army to help. Almost simultaneously, the Norman crusaders (via Bari in Southern Italy) and the southern French soldiers of the Cross, led by the papal legate (via Dalmatia), rushed to the Holy Land. All three armies united at Antioch in Syria. And then it turned out that they had neither a single command nor even a desire to act together. Although almost all the leaders of the Christian army were in family or vassal-seigneurial relationships, the “voice of blood” and vassal loyalty played an even smaller role “overseas” (French: outre-mer) than at home. The difficulties began with the fact that Baldwin, the brother of the Duke of Lower Lorraine, and his people, having arbitrarily separated from the rest of the army, at their own peril and risk, took possession of the county of Edessa (ancient Osroene, called Armenian Urfa), which remained in the hands of Western Christians for more than 50 years. Following Baldwin, similar activity was shown by the leader of the South Italian Normans, Bohemond of Tarentum, who, after a long siege and bloody battles, conquered (for himself!) the city of Antioch (June 3, 1098) and founded the Principality of Antioch. These victories of the crusaders were facilitated by the active support of the population of the territories they conquered, who consisted mainly of Christians. The new masters gave their overseas possessions the familiar Western European form. The “Frankish” knights of Baldwin and Bohemond received new lands as fiefs and settled throughout the Near East, without thinking about continuing the campaign against Jerusalem. As a result of such “bloodletting,” the remainder of Godfrey’s army, which intended to continue the campaign against Jerusalem, turned out to be so insignificant that doubts arose about the possibility of recapturing Jerusalem from the Muslims without the arrival of new reinforcements from Europe. Fortunately for the crusaders, a small Italian flotilla, consisting of only 4 ships, arrived in the port of Jaffa (Yafo, Joppe or Joppa, now part of Tel Aviv), which had just been captured by the army of Christ, pursued by a detachment of the Egyptian navy right up to the harbor . The Genoese who were on the ships managed not only to safely go ashore themselves, but also to pull their ships and cargo ashore. These ships saved from the Egyptians were very useful to the crusaders. Now they had at their disposal enough wood and other materials to build siege engines, and the sailors turned out to be very experienced craftsmen in this matter. With great difficulty, overcoming countless dangers, the crusaders delivered everything to their camp at the walls of the Holy City. In accordance with the religious nature of the crusading enterprise, the attack was preceded by thorough liturgical preparation. There was no doubt that if the crusaders were destined to take the city, they would be able to do this only because of religious inspiration and the boundless hope of the army of Christ for the victory of a just cause. Therefore, on July 8, 1099, all the soldiers of the Cross, barefoot, but in full armor, ascended the Mount of Olives in procession, and then Mount Zion. The fact that Muslims watching the procession from the walls, in front of the pilgrims, desecrated crosses, further inflamed the religious feelings and fighting spirit of the crusaders. However, until the morning of July 15, the attackers could not boast of any particular successes. An unexpected vision helped them. Many saw a certain knight on the top of the Mount of Olives, showing the besiegers where to direct the decisive attack. The detachment of Duke Godfrey, following the instructions of an unknown knight (later they said that it was the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George himself!), managed to bring a siege tower to the indicated place, climb the fortress wall and drive away the defenders of the city from this place. According to another legend, Godfrey of Bouillon, during the siege of Jerusalem, looked into the heavens and saw a flying swan. The snow-white bird flew around Gottfried's head four times, after which it headed towards Jerusalem and landed on one of the towers of the city wall. It was through this tower that Duke Godfrey, storming the city, entered Jerusalem with his crusader army. The Crusaders burst into the city, pushing back the Muslims retreating in ever greater disorder, mercilessly killing the Hagarians, striking right and left, all the way to the Temple of Solomon (or rather, to the Al-Aqsa Mosque located on the site of the temple), where they committed such a massacre that they literally walked ankle-deep in blood (some chroniclers claimed that it was not ankle-deep, but “knee-deep”, while others said that “the blood shed in the mosque reached the very horse’s bit”). Undoubtedly, this is an exaggeration common to medieval chroniclers, like the common expression: “Blood flowed in hot streams,” etc. But even in the city itself, God’s warriors began to behave completely “not like God.” As if maddened by the consciousness of their great victory, the pious conquerors ran through the streets of Jerusalem, indiscriminately killing everyone - men, women and children. They celebrated their victory with a horrific "bloodbath". The crusaders' methods of warfare plunged the Muslims first into amazement and then into horror. Until now, it has not been customary in the East to wage war with such a degree of ruthlessness. With the liberation of Jerusalem, the main goal of the crusade seemed achieved - the return of the greatest shrines of the Christian world. However, the crusaders had to continue to fight the Egyptians, from whom they conquered Palestine. In addition, the lands conquered by the “Franks” (as all Western Christians, or “Latins” were called in the East) needed an established system of governance. Already on July 17, 1099, the princes of the crusaders gathered for a meeting to decide on the state structure of their Middle Eastern power and elect someone from among them as the ruler of the Jerusalem state. Opinions were divided. Some advocated theocracy (feocracy), that is, for a kind of church state headed by a patriarch (who had yet to be elected; the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem had long been in a safe distance from the Holy City - in distant Constantinople). Others preferred to see a secular ruler - the king - at the head of the new state. In the end it was decided to elect both a king and a patriarch. This Solomonic decision, which stimulated internal strife, along with many other factors later played a fatal role in the fate of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The chaplain (confessor) of Duke Robert of Normandy, Arnulf, was elected as the new Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, independent from Constantinople, and the Duke of Lower Lorraine, a descendant of Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, was elected king of Jerusalem. However, Godfrey, one of the few sincere idealists among the leaders of the 1st Crusade, decisively refused the honor offered to him. Only after much persuasion did he agree to become the head of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and even then without accepting the royal title, for he, in his own words, “did not want to wear a golden crown where Christ himself wore a crown of thorns.” Gottfried was content with the title of Advocate (defender or guardian) of the Holy Sepulchre. According to legend, it was he who was the first to decorate his white cloak below the left shoulder with the image of a blood-red Jerusalem crutch cross with four small red crosses along the edges, in memory of the Savior's suffering on the cross (four smaller crosses symbolize the stigmata-wounds on the hands and feet of the crucified Christ, remaining from the nails, and the large central cross is a wound from the spear of the Roman centurion Longinus, who pierced the rib of the Crucified One to ensure his death). In any case, the knights of the Order of St. The Holy Sepulcher, having chosen this cross in the color of the atoning blood of the Savior as its emblem, to this day it is called the cross of Godfrey of Bouillon. Godfrey did not rule for long and died on July 18, 1100, having accomplished, in his own conviction, the greatest work of his life and glorifying his entire family forever. In less than a year of his reign, however, he managed to lay the foundations of the state system of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and annex to his possessions, in addition to Jerusalem, the Palestinian cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramla, Lydda, Nablus, Tiberias and Nazareth. The main ports of the country - Akkon (Akka, Acre, Akron, Ekron, Saint-Jean d'Acre, Ptolemais), Caesarea and Ascalon remained in the hands of Muslims, although they expressed their willingness to pay regular tribute to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Since then, the name of Godfrey of Bouillon has been revered in the Christian world among the names of the “nine fearless” or “nine men of glory” (along with the names of three ancient heroes - the Trojan prince Hector, Alexander the Great and Gaius Julius Caesar, three glorious biblical warriors - the prophet Jesus Joshua, the psalmist king David and Judah Maccabee, and two exemplary warriors of Christ - King Arthur Pendragon and Emperor Charlemagne). 3.
In the fall of 1942, the Pope considered that the time had come to fulfill the request of the Virgin Mary made at Fatima. On October thirty-first, he dedicated the whole world and, in a special way, the peoples of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. Soon after this, a turning point occurred in the war: the blockade of Leningrad was broken, the Red Army launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad, and Anglo-American forces in North Africa.... Source:
http://piusxii.ru/biblios/rus_art5.html Nonsense for the herd... Below the cut is a different point of view on it:
After ascending the papal throne, Eugenio Pacelli indeed remained primarily a diplomat. Issues of world politics have always been at the center of his attention. At the same time, Pius XII saw his main political task in the unification and mobilization of the capitalist powers for an anti-communist “crusade”. All his activities were subordinated to this idea, both during the Second World War and after it. However, being a sober politician, Pius XII avoided openly and clearly formulating his credo. He preferred to achieve his goals through maneuvering and maneuvering, masking them with pompous rhetoric about devotion to universal peace, the principles of justice and international law and order.
In the first year of his pontificate, Pius XII really sought to prevent the outbreak of war in Europe, to achieve peace between the capitalist powers in order to direct aggression against the USSR. Hitler chose war. On September 1, 1939, German troops attacked Poland. The Second World War has begun. Dad greeted her with silence.
In 1941, Hitler, Mussolini and their allies launched a war against the Soviet Union. Occupied Europe was covered in concentration camps, in which over 10 million people died, among whom were many Catholic believers, as well as anti-fascist priests. Pius XII remained silent.
The Pope and the Catholic hierarchy did not condemn fascism even after the Allies were victorious. Moreover, thousands of fascist war criminals escaped punishment thanks to the patronage of the Vatican, which supplied them with fictitious documents and transported them to Spain, Portugal and Latin American countries.
This position of the Vatican can apparently be explained by the fact that the fascists fought against communism and thereby, from the point of view of Pius XII, did a godly deed. Pius XII chose to be with fascism over communism.
After the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition, Pius XII did everything possible to push the Western coalition partners against the Soviet Union, which corresponded to the aspirations of the most reactionary forces of the capitalist world. The Pope made great efforts to destroy the anti-fascist unity that had formed during the war, to exclude from it the communists who played a leading role in the fight against Hitlerism. In people's democracies, Pius XII, through the local church hierarchy, pushed Catholics to fight against fundamental social changes. He began to openly call for a new “crusade” against communism. While organizing a broad anti-communist campaign, the Vatican simultaneously secretly financed right-wing political parties that opposed the unity of anti-fascist forces.
During the Cold War, the Vatican was “home” for US intelligence services. At the end of 1949, the US State Department transferred 500 thousand dollars to the Vatican for anti-communist propaganda. This was in direct connection with the decree of the Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition) of July 13, 1949, which excommunicated believers for accepting communist teachings and its propaganda, for membership in the Communist Party, collaboration with it, for reading and distributing its press. The decree served as a declaration of war by the church against communism and communists and was greeted with great satisfaction by the US government. Until his death, Pius XII adhered to an openly hostile course towards communism and socialist countries.
Pius XII welcomed the creation of the Atlantic Pact and the US military presence in Western Europe.
The last period of Pius XII's pontificate coincided with the collapse of the colonial system, the formation of new independent states in Asia and Africa, and the rise of the national liberation movement in Latin America. In this regard, the pope recognized the need to “nativeize” the Catholic Church in Asia and Africa, that is, to create a cadre of clergy of local origin. In many of the new states of Africa, the missionary church hierarchy was transformed into a national one, with the result that a number of Africans were elevated to episcopal dignity for the first time.
In April 1957, Pius XII published the encyclical "Fidei donum" ("Gift of Faith"), in which he outlined his point of view on national liberation processes in Africa. Contrary to historical truth, the pope in this encyclical declared that the “number one enemy” of the African peoples was not colonialism, but “atheistic materialism.”
In his numerous speeches, Pius XII repeatedly touched upon the problem of the relationship between science and religion. He outlined the attitude of the church to modern science in the encyclical “Humani generis” (“The Human Race”), published in 1950. In response to the demand of many believers and clergy that the church take into account the achievements of science, the pope wrote: “This is commendable, but only in in the case when we are talking about facts that have actually been proven; when we are talking about hypotheses, even to some extent scientifically substantiated, but which ... directly or indirectly contradict church doctrines, they cannot be accepted in any way." So, if science is right and religion is wrong, then so much the worse for science, it should be rejected. This was the logic of Pius XII, who presented himself as a great champion of science. The encyclical "Humani Generis", thus, is not an attempt to reconcile religion with science, but another attack of the church against science, another church manifesto in defense of traditional religious worldview concepts.
Pope Francis performed his first canonization
On May 12, in St. Peter's Square, he canonized 800 martyrs from Otranto and two Latin American nuns. According to Vatican Radio, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, among other things, noted:
« Today the Church offers for our veneration a number of martyrs who were called together to the highest witness of the Gospel in 1480. About eight hundred survivors of the siege and capture of Otranto were beheaded near this city. They did not want to renounce their faith and died confessing the Risen Christ. Where did they find the strength to remain faithful? It is in faith, which allows us to see beyond the human gaze, beyond the boundaries of earthly life, that allows us to contemplate “open heavens” - as St. Stephen - and the living Christ at the right hand of the Father».
In our world, it sometimes happens that the attribution of a particular person or group of people begins to acquire political implications. It is possible that something similar could happen to the Otranto martyrs. Let us remember that they died from the soldiers of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. This sultan, known by his nickname the Conqueror, is an iconic hero of Turkish history and politics. It is with him that the great victories of the Ottoman Empire are associated, including the capture of Constantinople. In 1480, the troops of Mehmed II landed with an army in Italy, just in the Otranto region. After the siege, Ottoman soldiers took the city. 800 men of working age were invited to convert to Islam. They refused, for which they were beheaded, the legend says.
It is possible that this is exactly what happened. Although for Mehmed II, who was a dervish, such cruel behavior was extremely uncharacteristic. However, in modern times, in the 1990s, the Archdiocese of Otranto initiated research into this history to consider the possibility of canonizing the townspeople. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI launches the process of canonization of 800 martyrs of Otranto with the formulation as killed " out of hatred for faith" So Pope Francis only completed the work begun by his predecessors. Regarding the solemn announcement in the Vatican of the decision on new saints, the Turkish press has so far limited itself to only brief informational remarks. The only thing that the leading Turkish newspapers Milliyet and Zaman did was to add to the reprints of the news the formula that 800 residents of Otranto were “allegedly” executed for refusing to convert to Islam, thereby challenging the main postulate of the Vatican about the suffering of martyrs “out of hatred of the faith.”
The canonization was the second significant Vatican action affecting Turkey in two weeks in May. Earlier this month, news agencies reported the re-release of the Pope's book Franziska « In heaven and on earth", in which he, in particular, condemned the Armenian Genocide. As the current pope noted, being then a cardinal Bergoglio, in the twentieth century, the Turks razed cities and villages to the ground because they presented themselves as a god. Considering that in the first two months of his pontificate, Francis, for the first time in the history of the schism between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, invited the Patriarch of Constantinople to Rome for his enthronement, accepted the latter’s invitation to visit Istanbul and Jerusalem, and also held a number of meetings in the Vatican with representatives of North African and Middle Eastern Churches, this suggests itself next conclusion. It is possible that in the matter of reformatting the Greater Middle East (to use this American term), a new, additional religious factor is planned to be introduced. If until now only the confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis within the framework of a single Islam has been taken into account, then perhaps now the factor of Catholicism can be added to them.
This has already happened in this region at the dawn of the second millennium. Nativity of Christ, when, as a result of the crusades blessed by Rome, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was formed in Palestine. It existed for a relatively short time, from 1099 to 1291, but left behind a number of clues. In particular, political technologies for the development and spread of militant Catholic orders were worked out here. The orders were not subordinate to either the Pope or the king. They were largely independent and were not required to carry out military service, but in fact participated in all the main battles. After the fall of the kingdom, the orders transferred their activities to Europe, where the same Templars began to represent a very impressive force, for which they were destroyed by the French monarch Philip the Beautiful, and in 1312 the pope Clement V dissolved their order. By the way, the current head of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis, comes from, perhaps, the most .
The current Vatican can find itself again in the Middle East only with the active support of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which is also called the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This is not an exaggeration. If in Istanbul itself the heirs of Byzantine Constantinople are locked in the Phanar quarter, then outside of Turkey the influence of the Ecumenical Patriarch extends to the USA and Europe, Greece and Jerusalem. Until now, the governor of Phanar, the patriarch Bartholomew in political games was significantly limited by the need to adapt to official Ankara. The accession of Pope Francis to the Roman throne seemed to provide room for maneuver. And in the first days of Francis’ procession, Patriarch Bartholomew made a number of careless remarks, when he even suggested a quick healing of the old schism between Catholics and Orthodox with the prospect of creating a new super-Church ( those. ecumenism, betrayal of Orthodoxy and entering into an alliance with Rome, which sacked Constantinople during the “fourth crusade” in 1204 and the subsequent donation of the Constantinople hierarchs themselves, who accepted the (“Florentine”) in 1439 union with Catholicism , which led to the final decline of morals in Byzantium and the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 - approx. edit ). Then the capabilities of the ruler of Constantinople could be supported by the power of the Vatican, which would have an unpredictable impact on the geopolitical situation in the Middle East region.
As one can judge, the Turkish authorities have calculated this option. The answer came instantly. Turkish police placed Bartholomew under tight guard after the appearance of " information about a planned assassination attempt on him». As reported On May 10, Reuters, Turkish prosecutors received an anonymous letter outlining a murder plan (while the press secretary Dositheus Anagnostopoulos said that the Patriarch did not receive any direct threats, but learned about the alleged conspiracy from the Turkish media, which was later confirmed by the Turkish police - approx. edit .). The assassination attempt was planned for May 29, which would mark the 500th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. In turn, the Patriarch of Constantinople commented on the fact of uncovering a conspiracy against himself as follows: “ I'm not worried because I am protected first of all by God, and secondly by the Turkish authorities and the Turkish government" This reaction is understandable. Indeed, under the pretext of the need to protect Bartholomew from attackers, Ankara could well have made him banned from leaving the Phanar quarter for a long time. In any case, at the moment the Patriarch of Constantinople will not have much time for Pope Francis.
Time will tell what the Vatican will do next in this situation. Let's note one thing. Not long ago, the Pope's former personal secretary John XXIII, archbishop Loris Francesco Capavila drew attention to the great similarities that exist between John XXIII and Francis. In an interview with the Vatican Insider Internet portal, the 98-year-old elder said that both pontiffs are united by their love for the periphery. John XXIII was Bishop of Rome for less than five years, from 1958 to 1963. Before being elected pope, he was a Vatican diplomat and served as papal nuncio (envoy) to Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and France. He is especially famous for initiating the convening of the Second Vatican Council ( who acquitted the Jews of betraying Christ - approx. edit ), as a result of which some communities left the Roman Catholic Church ( It is no less symbolic that there were two popes bearing the name John XXIII. In addition to the one mentioned above, which justified the Jews in their betrayal, in the history of Rome there was another John XXIII - “antipope”(cm. Leo Taxil. "Sacred Den"). Moreover, he was such an odious person that after him, for almost 500 years, not a single pontiff took the name John - approx. edit ). This is something to think about, given the comparison made by Archbishop Francesco Capavila of Loris.
Stanislav Stremidlovsky
In February 1930, Pope Pius XI addressed the clergy and believers with a call for a “crusade” against the USSR. This call served as the beginning of a broad anti-Soviet campaign in many countries, which, according to the organizers of this campaign, was supposed to make it easier for the imperialists to prepare for war against the USSR.
Pius XI borrowed the idea of a “crusade” from the arsenal of the Middle Ages. From the end of the 11th century. until the end of the 13th century. At the call of the popes, a series of military colonization campaigns in the East were organized, which were called “crusades.” According to statements by popes, church preachers and reactionary bourgeois historians, the crusades were allegedly organized with the aim of “liberating the Holy Sepulcher” in Jerusalem, which was then under the rule of the Turks.
In fact, the Crusades were military-predatory campaigns in the East, and it was not the struggle of Christians with Muslims, with the “infidels,” that underlay them.
Various classes of the then society took part in the crusades: large feudal lords (kings, princes, barons, dukes), who sought to conquer new rich lands and increase income, small knights (nobles), who went on crusades with the aim of plundering and seizing lands and serf peasants. Many of them hoped to be freed from debt by participating in the campaigns. The masses of the downtrodden and oppressed peasantry, whose situation was then extremely difficult, also took part in the crusades. By going on campaigns, they expected to free themselves from serfdom, escape from their owners, and find freedom (serfs who went on campaigns were freed from serfdom). The Crusades were supported and subsidized by the trading cities of Italy (Venice, Genoa, etc.), which hoped to conquer trade routes to the East with the help of the crusaders.
The Crusades, which brought enormous wealth to the church, contributed to the rise of religious fanaticism among the population. The popes organized special monetary collections and even introduced taxes on the organization of crusades, and the property of non-returning participants in the campaigns became the property of the church. Thus, the crusades, inspired and organized by the popes, raised the political weight of the papacy and served as a new source of increasing wealth and increasing the influence of the church. The declassed rabble took an active part in the crusades: tramps and criminal elements who were looking for opportunities to plunder.
In 1095, Pope Urban II, at a church council in Clermont, called the Christian world to a crusade in the East.
In 1096 the first crusade began. Unorganized crowds of peasants, bandit knights and the criminal rabble who joined them moved from France, Germany, England, Scandinavia, Italy and Spain to Constantinople. Passing through the Christian states of Europe, they plundered cities and villages, raped, causing universal hatred towards themselves.
The first detachments of the crusaders were defeated by the Turks, but already in the fall of 1096 new detachments moved to the East. When the crusaders reached Constantinople in 1097, the Christian Greeks, whom the crusaders were supposedly going to help against the “infidels” (Turks), saw that they were dealing with rabble, with rude barbarians seeking only personal gain, and began to take measures against the crusaders who were trying to plunder Constantinople. From there the crusaders moved to Asia Minor, causing terrible devastation along the way and carrying out wholesale massacres of the local Muslim population. Only in 1099 did the crusaders reach Jerusalem and took the city on July 15. The army of Christ carried out a massacre in the city, alternating with solemn services. Eyewitnesses report that the crusaders literally walked through pools of blood. They killed men, women, and smashed children's heads on stones. The crusader army plundered everything that could be robbed: houses, churches, shops, public institutions.
Map of the Crusades. The path of the first trip is marked with crosses, the third - with dashes
The Crusaders created four small Christian states on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea (Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa), where they introduced the same orders that existed in Europe: with the domination of feudal lords and the enslavement of peasants (partly the crusaders who came, but mainly Muslims, Arabs and Christian Syrians). The clergy played a major political role in these states. The Crusades brought enormous wealth to the Church. Italian trading cities greatly benefited from the campaigns, receiving a number of trading privileges. Karl Marx notes that the Italian coastal states as a result of the first crusade “…were enriched thanks to the free trade with the East, and the well-paid transportation of pilgrims increased their fleet.”
The conquests of the Crusaders were fragile. With their atrocities and heavy oppression, they aroused the hatred of not only the Muslim population, but also the enmity of Christians, in particular the Greeks. In 1144, the Turks captured the Edessa state of the Crusaders. The Pope (Eugene III) began to call for a new campaign.
The second crusade began in 1147, and the third in 1189. Following this, with short breaks, five more campaigns were organized. The last - the eighth - was launched in 1270. By organizing new crusades, the ruling classes of Europe hoped to divert the attention of the peasants from the class struggle that had intensified in European countries. Peasants oppressed by feudal lords and monasteries rebelled against their oppressors. They burned monasteries and feudal castles. To distract the peasants from the struggle against the oppressors, the church began to once again call for a crusade in the East.
The predatory goals of further crusades were often not even covered up by religious motives. During the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), organized by Pope Innocent III, the crusaders, at the instigation of Venetian merchants who sought to defeat their trading rival, the city of Constantinople, took this city (in 1204). Constantinople was then the capital of the Christian (Orthodox) state - Byzantium. In Constantinople, the “soldiers of Christ” carried out robbery and massacre.
This is how the historian describes the actions of the crusaders in this city: “These three days of plunder at the glow of the fire surpass all description. After many years, when everything had returned to normal order, the Greeks could not remember the scenes they had experienced without horror. Detachments of crusaders rushed in all directions to collect booty. Shops, private houses, churches and imperial palaces were thoroughly searched and looted, unarmed residents were beaten... In particular, it should be noted the barbaric attitude of the Latins towards monuments of art, towards Byzantine libraries and shrines. Bursting into churches (Christian ones! - M. Sh.), the crusaders threw themselves on church utensils and decorations, broke open shrines containing the relics of saints, stole church vessels, broke and beat precious monuments, burned manuscripts... Bishops and abbots of monasteries subsequently described in detail for edification posterity, what shrines and how they acquired them in Constantinople. Although they described the history of theft, they called it holy theft...” Pope Innocent III tacitly approved of these crimes. According to Marx, “the pope, having expressed his indignation for the sake of decency, finally gives absolution to this bestiality and vileness of the “pilgrims.”
This is how the crusaders acted, the army called by the Pope to “liberate the Holy Sepulcher”!
Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. 16th century fresco.
No less shameful for the papacy was the children's crusade. In 1212, about 30 thousand children, deceived and blinded by religious fanaticism, moved from France to “liberate Jerusalem” (in 1187 it was re-conquered by the Turks). Soon another 20 thousand children left Germany. Most of them died on the way, many were sold into slavery.
The history of the Crusades shows that in the past the church and the ruling classes covered their selfish goals with religious slogans.
Objectively, the Crusades contributed to strengthening trade ties with the East and familiarizing Europeans with Eastern culture.
The popes organized “crusades” not only against Muslim countries, but also against Christian countries, which, for one reason or another, aroused the wrath of the Roman rulers. So, in the 13th century. they organized bloody campaigns against the rich cities of southern France and destroyed them. The popes organized campaigns of crusading bands against the Slavic peoples in order to conquer them and, at the same time, to spread Catholicism among them.
Crusades
In February 1930, Pope Pius XI addressed the clergy and believers with a call for a “crusade” against the USSR. This call served as the beginning of a broad anti-Soviet campaign in many countries, which, according to the organizers of this campaign, was supposed to make it easier for the imperialists to prepare for war against the USSR.
Pius XI borrowed the idea of a “crusade” from the arsenal of the Middle Ages. From the end of the 11th century. until the end of the 13th century. At the call of the popes, a series of military colonization campaigns in the East were organized, which were called “crusades.” According to statements by popes, church preachers and reactionary bourgeois historians, the crusades were allegedly organized with the aim of “liberating the Holy Sepulcher” in Jerusalem, which was then under the rule of the Turks.
In fact, the Crusades were military-predatory campaigns in the East, and it was not the struggle of Christians with Muslims, with the “infidels,” that underlay them.
Various classes of the then society took part in the crusades: large feudal lords (kings, princes, barons, dukes), who sought to conquer new rich lands and increase income, small knights (nobles), who went on crusades with the aim of plundering and seizing lands and serf peasants. Many of them hoped to be freed from debt by participating in the campaigns. The masses of the downtrodden and oppressed peasantry, whose situation was then extremely difficult, also took part in the crusades. By going on campaigns, they expected to free themselves from serfdom, escape from their owners, and find freedom (serfs who went on campaigns were freed from serfdom). The Crusades were supported and subsidized by the trading cities of Italy (Venice, Genoa, etc.), which hoped to conquer trade routes to the East with the help of the crusaders.
The Crusades, which brought enormous wealth to the church, contributed to the rise of religious fanaticism among the population. The popes organized special monetary collections and even introduced taxes on the organization of crusades, and the property of non-returning participants in the campaigns became the property of the church. Thus, the crusades, inspired and organized by the popes, raised the political weight of the papacy and served as a new source of increasing wealth and increasing the influence of the church. The declassed rabble took an active part in the crusades: tramps and criminal elements who were looking for opportunities to plunder.
In 1095, Pope Urban II, at a church council in Clermont, called the Christian world to a crusade in the East.
In 1096 the first crusade began. Unorganized crowds of peasants, bandit knights and the criminal rabble who joined them moved from France, Germany, England, Scandinavia, Italy and Spain to Constantinople. Passing through the Christian states of Europe, they plundered cities and villages, raped, causing universal hatred towards themselves.
The first detachments of the crusaders were defeated by the Turks, but already in the fall of 1096 new detachments moved to the East. When the crusaders reached Constantinople in 1097, the Christian Greeks, whom the crusaders were supposedly going to help against the “infidels” (Turks), saw that they were dealing with rabble, with rude barbarians seeking only personal gain, and began to take measures against the crusaders who were trying to plunder Constantinople. From there the crusaders moved to Asia Minor, causing terrible devastation along the way and carrying out wholesale massacres of the local Muslim population. Only in 1099 did the crusaders reach Jerusalem and took the city on July 15. The army of Christ carried out a massacre in the city, alternating with solemn services. Eyewitnesses report that the crusaders literally walked through pools of blood. They killed men, women, and smashed children's heads on stones. The crusader army plundered everything that could be robbed: houses, churches, shops, public institutions.
Map of the Crusades. The path of the first trip is marked with crosses, the third - with dashes
The Crusaders created four small Christian states on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea (Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa), where they introduced the same orders that existed in Europe: with the domination of feudal lords and the enslavement of peasants (partly the crusaders who came, but mainly Muslims, Arabs and Christian Syrians). The clergy played a major political role in these states. The Crusades brought enormous wealth to the Church. Italian trading cities greatly benefited from the campaigns, receiving a number of trading privileges. Karl Marx notes that the Italian coastal states as a result of the first crusade “... enriched themselves thanks to the now free trade with the East, and the well-paid transportation of pilgrims increased their fleet».
The conquests of the Crusaders were fragile. With their atrocities and heavy oppression, they aroused the hatred of not only the Muslim population, but also the enmity of Christians, in particular the Greeks. In 1144, the Turks captured the Edessa state of the Crusaders. The Pope (Eugene III) began to call for a new campaign.
The second crusade began in 1147, and the third in 1189. Following this, with short breaks, five more campaigns were organized. The last - the eighth - was launched in 1270. By organizing new crusades, the ruling classes of Europe hoped to divert the attention of the peasants from the class struggle that had intensified in European countries. Peasants oppressed by feudal lords and monasteries rebelled against their oppressors. They burned monasteries and feudal castles. To distract the peasants from the struggle against the oppressors, the church began to once again call for a crusade in the East.
The predatory goals of further crusades were often not even covered up by religious motives. During the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), organized by Pope Innocent III, the crusaders, at the instigation of Venetian merchants who sought to defeat their trading rival, the city of Constantinople, took this city (in 1204). Constantinople was then the capital of the Christian (Orthodox) state - Byzantium. In Constantinople, the “soldiers of Christ” carried out robbery and massacre.
This is how the historian describes the actions of the crusaders in this city: “These three days of plunder at the glow of the fire surpass all description. After many years, when everything had returned to normal order, the Greeks could not remember the scenes they had experienced without horror. Detachments of crusaders rushed in all directions to collect booty. Shops, private houses, churches and imperial palaces were thoroughly searched and looted, unarmed residents were beaten... In particular, it should be noted the barbaric attitude of the Latins towards monuments of art, towards Byzantine libraries and shrines. Breaking into churches (Christian ones! - M. Sh.), the crusaders attacked church utensils and decorations, broke open shrines containing the relics of saints, stole church vessels, broke and beat precious monuments, burned manuscripts... Bishops and abbots of monasteries subsequently described in detail, for the edification of posterity, what shrines they acquired in Constantinople and how. Although they described the history of theft, they called it holy theft...” Pope Innocent III tacitly approved of these crimes. According to Marx, “the pope, having expressed his indignation for the sake of decency, finally gives absolution to this bestiality and vileness of the “pilgrims.”
This is how the crusaders acted, the army called by the Pope to “liberate the Holy Sepulcher”!
Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. 16th century fresco.
No less shameful for the papacy was the children's crusade. In 1212, about 30 thousand children, deceived and blinded by religious fanaticism, moved from France to “liberate Jerusalem” (in 1187 it was re-conquered by the Turks). Soon another 20 thousand children left Germany. Most of them died on the way, many were sold into slavery.
The history of the Crusades shows that in the past the church and the ruling classes covered their selfish goals with religious slogans.
Objectively, the Crusades contributed to strengthening trade ties with the East and familiarizing Europeans with Eastern culture.
The popes organized “crusades” not only against Muslim countries, but also against Christian countries, which, for one reason or another, aroused the wrath of the Roman rulers. So, in the 13th century. they organized bloody campaigns against the rich cities of southern France and destroyed them. The popes organized campaigns of crusading bands against the Slavic peoples in order to conquer them and, at the same time, to spread Catholicism among them.
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