On May 29th, 1453, A Christian Empire Fell

Constantine the Great, 274 - 337 AD, Founder of New Rome, Now Istanbul, Turkey
On May 29th a Christian Empire Fell

Most people do not recognize May 29th as a special day in history. Everyone in Eastern Orthodoxy (Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian Orthodox) mourns the day. May 29, 1453 is when the last remnant of an 1100-year-old empire fell with the loss of Constantinople, the greatest and richest city of the world at one time.

During this Memorial Day weekend we should remember what it meant to those Christians who fought against 10-1 odds as the Ottoman Muslim attacked them without cause. The Ottoman Empire had grown at the expense of the Byzantine Christian Empire, but the Byzantines kept them at bay for centuries. During that time, Europe was reasonably safe from invasion, although Italy suffered many naval attacks.

The last emperor of Constantinople had the same name as the first emperor – Constantine. He died fighting on the city walls, his ranks given away by his purple buskins, which only the emperor wore. He gave a speech to his people the day before the city fell, the day before he died:

He spoke first to his Greek subjects, telling them that there were four great causes for which a man should be ready to die: his faith, his country, his family and his sovereign. They must now be prepared to give their lives for all four. He for his part would willingly sacrifice his own for his faith, his city and his people. They were a great and noble people, the descendents of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome, and he had no doubt that they would prove themselves worthy of their forefathers in the defense of their city, in which the infidel Sultan wished to seat his false prophet on the throne of Jesus Christ. Turning to the Italians, he thanked them for all that they had done and assured them of his love and trust in the dangers that lay ahead. They and the Greeks were now one people, united in God; with his help they would be victorious. Finally he walked slowly round the room, speaking to each man in turn and begging forgiveness if he ever caused him any offense. Source:The American Spectator

I find it very troubling that people gnash their teeth over the fact that soldiers sacrifice their lives fighting for America. People have forgotten what Jefferson wrote: “The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots. It is its natural manure.” The nobility of fighting for our country is being forgotten.

When students talk about our loss of lives in Iraq, I ask them how many lives are lost to traffic accidents in Arizona. The figure is about 1,000 per year, the same as our losses in Iraq and other places. I do not have the exact figures, but I know we lose soldiers in similar numbers annually from training and traffic accidents.

I often teach in Yuma, where we have a Marine air station for Harriers, a city that features an air show every day. Helicopters practice their maneuvers over the city. One road is marked because of parachuting soldiers landing there. The Yuma Proving Grounds are using for training in desert warfare. Yuma is hotter than Phoenix.

Many of my students in Yuma are Marines, but some have come from other service branches. Some are just back from Iraq. Some are headed there next. I often think of them when the statistics are announced over TV. I am sorry they have to do their jobs with such wavering and manipulative support from the politicians. Nevertheless, they show us time and again that they are the bravest, best-equipped, and most compassionate military force in history. They stand between us and slavery.

When Constantinople was conquered by Islam, the attractive women, girls, and boys were rounded up for Muslim harems. The strongest boys were put in the elite fighting group, the Janissaries, made up of captured Christians. The rest were slaughtered or sold into slavery.

The year 1453 is significant. The Ottoman Empire began to march against Europe. They were partially successful. The biggest efforts came against Vienna. In 1683 a certain victory for the Ottoman Empire was turned into a rout by a decisive attack. Coffee beans were captured as booty; the coffee house was born in Vienna.

Europe remained free because highly trained soldiers were able to defeat a Muslim army glorying in its past victories.

Our military people, past and present, living and dead, deserve our respect and gratitude.

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. Douglas MacArthur

Why Athens Still Matters Today

The Ruins of the Parthenon, Built 432 BC, and Alexander the Great, 356 - 332 BC, Who Conquered the Known World for Greek Culture

Why Athens Still Matters Today

Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.

December 02, 2005

In a brief period of time, about 100 years, a remarkable city, Athens, generated the finest examples of our Western culture, which remain our models of excellence today:
1. Philosophy – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
2. History – Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon
3. Drama – Sophocles, Euripides
4. Comedy – Aristophanes
5. Architecture – The Parthenon
6. Sculpture – Phidias, Praxiteles
7. Politics – Democracy
8. Literature and poetry – Building on Homer (800 BC)
Athens went into a period of decline, mostly because of the 27-year war with Sparta, the Peloponnesian War. Persia was also a constant threat, having made repeated attempts to conquer Greece (Barr, 1961).
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)

Suddenly, a great Macedonian general was murdered, perhaps by his ex-wife, the mother of Alexander. The son did not automatically become the leader of Macedonia, but he quickly assumed power, swept down across Greece, and consolidated power. Then Alexander proposed an attack on Persia, to revenge losses from previous wars. He went on a 10 year conquest of the civilized world, reaching India, but turning back when his veterans refused to conquer one more land.
Alexander the Great took Greek culture with him (Fox, 2003). Tutored by Aristotle as a youth, he spread Hellenistic culture across the lands he conquered. Although his death meant the division of his empire, Hellenistic learning and achievements lasted in all those lands, especially in the city in Egypt he modestly named after himself, Alexandria.

The Roman Republic and Empire
When the Alexandrian empire was receding, another one was growing. Rome threw off its monarchy in 510 BC and established a republic until 44 BC. Roman citizens voted for their leaders and began an expansion westward toward England and eastward toward India. They dominated northern Africa and controlled the Mediterranean Sea.
The mark of education in Rome was Greek culture. The Romans modeled their gods after the Greeks, changing the names only slightly. Zeus Pater (Zeus the Father) became Jupiter. Aphrodite the love goddess became Venus. Hermes the messenger became Mercury. Roman literature, drama, comedy, and philosophy looked to Athens for models to emulate. Roman architecture and sculpture reflected their admiration for the greatest Greek accomplishments.
Rome did not die with the Sack of Rome in 410, but Western Europe became fragmented when officials left their posts and tracts of land were taken over by hungrier and more ferocious Germanic tribes. The Church of Rome and the Bishop of Rome grew in importance across Europe, providing literate priests and scholars who filled the vacuum left by the decline of Rome.

Medieval Europe
The Medieval period of Europe (410 to 1453 AD) was dominated by the Latin language and by the Church of Rome. Although Christianity was born in Judaism, the religion was spread and defended through the medium of classical studies. The theologians were philosophers who knew Aristotle and other writers in Latin. Augustine (around the time of the Sack of Rome) was brilliant in Latin and in Greek. Thomas Aquinas, 12th century, wrote exclusively in Latin.

Byzantine Empire (330 AD to 1453 AD)
When the Roman Empire of Western Europe was declining, the Eastern Empire established in Byzantium grew in power. Constantine established his New Rome in Byzantium, which became Constantinople in his honor. The Byzantine Empire was not only incredibly wealthy but also largely Christian. Constantine became a baptized Christian on his deathbed and pointed his domain in the direction of Christianity. For eleven centuries Constantinople was the center of Christianity. A long period of decline began with the Fourth Crusade when the Latin Christians (Church of Rome) sacked Constantinople and ruled the city for 50 years. The Eastern Empire was also whittled away by the growing power of the Ottoman (Turkish) Moslem Empire (Norwich, 1997).

Renaissance and Reformation
The Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, horrified the West, who did little to help the struggling city. However, the final days led to Greek scholars and Greek treasures emigrating to Italy, helping to spark the Renaissance. Classical scholarship, art, literature, sculpture, architecture, took on a new life and spread across Europe. The concept of freedom began to percolate through the Medieval world of kings and popes.

Athens remained the model for culture. European education revolved around classical scholarship. An educated gentleman (and some notable ladies) were well versed in Latin and in Greek, although Greek was not in the curriculum for everyone. The Reformation grew out of the Renaissance, starting with the scholarship of Erasmus, who published a Greek New Testament. Martin Luther hatched the egg that Erasmus laid, as some wits said, when he posted his 95 Theses (in Latin) in 1517 and wrote in German for the first printing press, cobbled from an old wine press, by Gutenberg.

The Renaissance and Reformation surged ahead with the printing press, sending religious literature in the modern languages of Europe (and in Latin) across the civilized world. The theologians of the Reformation were necessarily Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scholars. They argued their viewpoints through the language of philosophy, especially Aristotle.
Protestant ministers were expected to learn Greek. Books were relatively inexpensive compared to the manuscripts of the past.

England – Protestant or Catholic
England was the battleground for religion. Henry VIII was ordered to marry his late brother’s widow. His lack of a male heir convinced him that his incestuous marriage was cursed. The divorce from Catharine of Aragon and marriage to Ann Bolyn led to his break with Rome. Catherine gave birth to Mary (known as Bloody Mary for persecuting Protestants). Ann gave birth to Elizabeth, who favored the Protestant leanings of her country and her father. Elizabeth’s fabled reign, immediate after Bloody Mary’s, was especially tolerant of religion. Scholarship flourished. England was relatively free, prosperous, and stable. Shakespeare wrote his sonnets and plays, all of them imbued with classical learning.
Queen Elizabeth was finally forced to have her cousin Mary Queen of Scots executed for high treason. However, Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England and Scotland, the first of the Stuart kings. One author said of the Stuarts, “They left an indelible bad impression on England (Trevelyan, 1996.).” James I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II all plotted to make England Roman Catholic again. This led to two important developments:
1. Parliament gained influence and the throne lost power, giving English citizens more rights and freedom.
2. Protestants tired of the strains of religious tension (such as the Catholic plot to blow up Parliament) and headed for America.
America – Haven for Religious Freedom
The founding of America by educated English citizens during this period made the earliest citizens completely opposed to the rule of the Church by any monarch. They also arrived with a sense of Parliament having powers over and above that of any king. The American Revolution focused on the rights of man established by the Creator. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Founders were well aware of the decline of Rome because Edward Gibbons published his sensational Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776. They looked to the Roman Republic and the earlier Athenian democracy as the ideals of government. When they established their tiny little schools in America - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, William and Mary College – they taught their students Latin, Greek, and the elements of a classical education.

Greek Revival – 1900s
Greek learning underwent a revival at the turn of the century, 1900, when Greek fraternities and sororities were started to promote Greek learning, not toga parties. Greek and Roman scholarship were considered the foundation of a sound education. Until a few decades ago, all high school students who wanted to apply for college were told, “You must have two years of Latin or the good schools will not want you.”
Our present culture may not care much for classical scholarship, but Athens and Rome still weigh heavily in our history, literature, and art. When people visit Washington DC, they see Greek and Roman temples, homage to our classical past.

References
Barr, S. (1961). The will of Zeus: A history of Greece. New York: Delta.
Fox, R. L. (2003). Alexander the great. London: The Folio Society.
Norwich, J. J. (1997). A short history of Byzantium. New York: Vintage .
Trevelyan, G. M. (1996). England under the Stuarts. London: The Folio Society.

Byzantium: The Forgotten Christian Empire

Hagia Sophia, The Church of Holy Wisdom, An Engineering Marvel of the Byzantine Empire, Completed in 537 AD!
Byzantium – The Forgotten Eastern Roman Empire

Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.

The Western Roman Empire began to decline rapidly after Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 AD. The sack was not so terrible as everyone imagines. The shock to the civilized world came from Roman citizens no longer willing or able to defend the capital of Eternal Rome. Western Christianity had its bishop in Rome, so Christians were tempted to think God had abandoned His own headquarters. Augustine of Hippo wrote his classic City of God to argue that the true City of God is invisible, eternal, and built on the foundations of Christ, not man.

Roman civil officials began to abandon their posts and the Western Empire began to disintegrate into the countries we know as Europe in the coming centuries. In contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire grew in power and importance as the trading center of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This forgotten empire was already in existence before Constantine refashioned his New Rome about 300 AD.

Constantine was a military and political genius. He began his rise in England, with a famous general as a father. He fought his way to Rome to become one of the rulers and then consolidated his power until he alone ruled the entire empire, from England to the outskirts of India. However, he did not like the City of Rome and spent little time there. He made his new city in Byzantium and the building project became Constantinople. He rebuilt it almost overnight, importing Roman nobility with generous bribes of land and fortune. The City of Rome was largely pagan, but Constantine made his new city Christian.

Constantine was baptized as a Christian before his death. He considered himself Equal to the Apostles. His self-fashioned title became a job description of most emperors who followed him (except Julian the Apostate, who tried to reverse trends back to paganism). The Byzantine emperors were highly educated and the Eastern Empire followed their example in literacy and religious devotion. Although the Bishop of Rome tried to emphasize its power over all churches, the Archbishop of Constantinople led Eastern Orthodoxy. There were periods of cooperation but also extended times of mutual excommunication and warfare.

Constantinople was ideally situated for trade between Asia and Europe, with land routes in both directions and access to the Mediterranean Sea. The city also had abundant fresh water, fish, and natural defenses. The city became incredibly wealthy from trade. When Islam grew after the death of Mohammed in 632 AD, Constantinople served as a buffer between Islamic expansion and Europe. Although Byzantium worked with the Ottoman (Moslem) Empire, renting its warriors when needed, the city also tempted the Islamic leaders to capture it, for its wealth and religious symbolism.

Islam whittled away at Byzantium for centuries until Constantinople became a dispirited island in the midst of Moslem forts and armies. Finally the city fell on May 29, 1453, a day of doom still remembered throughout Eastern Orthodoxy. For the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, and other Eastern rites, Constantinople was their religious capital and treasure-house of religious icons, including the True Cross.

Byzantium continued as a Christian empire for eleven centuries, a remarkable achievement. The empire was highly educated and skilled in the arts. They preserved the New Testament in the original Greek and the archives of classical literature. The Moslems often transmitted these masterpieces to Europe, but the main center of learning was Constantinople and other Byzantine cities.

Militarily, the Eastern Empire was not appreciated until it fell. Then the Islamic armies moved on Europe and extended their rule into Europe until 1683, when they were turned back for good at Vienna. The Ottoman Empire peaked after its capture of Constantinople, but the disintegration of their rule was slow, like that of Rome and Byzantium. The Ottoman Empire became the “sick old man” of Europe before World War I and exists today only as Turkey. Constantinople became Istanbul because the victors transformed the Greek for “into the city” as Istanbul.

Some contributions of the Byzantine Empire are:
1. They kept the Islamic armies at bay when Europe was young and weak.
2. They hosted the successful First Crusade, which took Jerusalem back from Islam and established a Christian kingdom there for some years.
3. They were the religious and cultural center of the world for more than a thousand years.
4. They served as a central point for world trade.

No one can do justice to this empire in a few pages, or even in a few volumes. However, we should remember that the last emperor of Byzantium died fighting for his city, his country, his culture. His name was also Constantine.

Christianity

Word and Sacrament, by Norma Boeckler
Christianity

Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.


The Christian Faith is a continuation of Judaism, in worship, in beliefs, and in the Scriptures. Some try to divide the Bible into Law (Old Testament) and Gospel (New Testament). In fact, the Old Testament is filled with Gospel promises and the New Testament contains God’s Law.

From a Christian perspective, the first Gospel promise was Genesis 3:15, when Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise but promised a Savior Who would crush the head of the Serpent, Satan. All the passages in the Old Testament concerning the promised Messiah and all the messages of hope, comfort, and love are considered Gospel passages by the Christian community.

Jesus was born into a Jewish family and observed Jewish customs. He called the disciples from among the Jews and first taught the Jewish people. Therefore, it is not surprising to find so much of Judaism in the Christian Faith.

If I had to explain the Christian faith to someone from another planet, I would say this:

Christianity emphasizes salvation through God’s grace, apart from works of the Law. God gave man the Law, but frail human beings could not keep the Ten Commandments even when they tried their best. God sent His Son, Jesus, born of a Virgin, to live among, to teach us, to serve as an example, and to die for our sins in our place. Jesus rose from the dead to show that He was free of sin and not subject to the power of death. He rose from the dead because God pronounced Him innocent. When we speak of the Atonement, it means that Jesus atoned for our sins, that He suffered and died in our place.

Believing in the atoning death of Christ and His resurrection means receiving the promise of forgiveness and eternal life offered by God. This is called justification by faith, apart from the works of the Law. God forgives our sins, not because we have earned that forgiveness, but because Jesus has earned it for us. Since death is the penalty for sin, we receive eternal life instead of eternal death through this forgiveness earned by the Savior.

Christianity is centered upon the Word of God in the Scriptures. We include the 27 books of the New Testament along with the 39 books of the Old Testament. Preserving the truth of the Scriptures is very important to traditional Christians.

Christianity now has many branches. The chief branches are: the liturgical (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox), the Protestant (Presbyterian, Baptist, Mennonite, Methodist), and the Pentecostal (Assemblies of God, as well as denominational influence through the charismatic movement). The sacraments are very important to the liturgical churches. Each denomination has a different emphasis, but all base their doctrines upon the Scriptures.

The Christian Faith is moving in another direction. The established denominations have become quite liberal. The Third World churches remain quite traditional. It remains to be seen where this will head. Already in Europe the old cathedrals are empty, except for tourists gawking. The Moslem worship centers are packed with faithful followers of Islam. If this trend continues, then Europe will be defined by Islam rather than by Christianity and Judaism.

In America there is a massive aging trend. The denominations are getting quite elderly. Many people confess they only see grey and white hair on Sunday. Worship attendance and giving is largely from the oldest age group. When that is stopped by death, the complexion of American Christianity will change quickly. The demographic trends include large increases in the Hispanic populations. This change may turn the American Roman Catholic Church into a Hispanic denomination.

Discussion Questions

1. Based on your studies, which are the key differences between Judaism and Christianity.
2. What trends do you see developing in Christianity, in America and in Europe?
Optional
3. Who are the only religious leaders known by name in the world? Why do you think this is so?