What is it about?
The reaction of the Orthodox Church to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) arguably set a pattern that would persist until the end of Byzantium. While members of the hierarchy were mostly opposed to accepting invitations to attend the council, the Emperor Theodore i Laskaris saw it as an opportunity to open up a dialogue with the papacy in the hope of deriving some political advantage. This episode reveals that negotiations over the Union of Churches divided Byzantine society in a way that had not happened before 1204.
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Why is it important?
It calls attention to an episode in the relations between the papacy and the Orthodox Church, which has been more or less neglected. It gives new meaning to the mission of Cardinal Pelagius to the Orthodox Church. It points to future tensions between the Byzantine emperor and the Orthodox Church over a union of churches with Rome.
Perspectives
It provides a starting point for consideration of the development of relations between the two churches following the crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204.
Prof Michael JJ Angold
University of Edinburgh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Preliminaries of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): From an Orthodox Perspective, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, September 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0022046918000659.
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