Constantinople fell into the palms of its Turkish conquerors in 1453

Constantinople was subsequently removed from being a wealthy and splendid metropolis when it fell into the palms of its Turkish conquerors in 1453, and the shortage of the monuments of its former wealth and grandeur should not be ascribed wholly to the motion of its new masters. The ravages of time, and the vandalism of the Latin Crusaders, had left little for different impolite palms to destroy.

In his coping with the spiritual rights of the Christian neighborhood the Ottoman lord of Con-stantinople proved conciliatory. Whereas appropriating S. Sophia and a number of other different church buildings for Moslem use, he allowed the Greeks to retain a ample variety of their former locations of worship.

Chief prelate of the Nice Orthodox Church

He, furthermore, ordered the free election of a brand new patriarch, who ought to get pleasure from, so far as attainable below altered circumstances, the privileges which the chief prelate of the Nice Orthodox Church had previously possessed. Upon the election of Gennadius to the vacant submit, the Sultan obtained him graciously on the palace, and introduced him with a precious pastoral cross, saying “ Be patriarch and be at peace. Rely on my friendship as long as thou desirest it, and thou shalt get pleasure from all of the privileges of thy redecessors.” The Church of the Holy Apostles, solely second in reputation to S. Sophia, was assigned to the patriarch as a cathedral, and he was not solely allowed free entry to the Seraglio, however was even visited by the Sultan on the patriarchate. The lack of S. Sophia was, certainly, a horrible humiliation, one from which the Greek Church has by no means recovered; a humiliation which all Christendom feels to this hour. However the preservation of the material is probably on account of the truth that it handed into the palms of the conquerors. It’s troublesome to see how the Greek neighborhood may have maintained that wonderful pile, even “shorn of its beams, after 1458. On the time of the deadly siege, the inhabitants of town counted at most 100 thousand souls. When town fell, upwards of fifty thousand of its inhabitants had been bought into captivity. Nor did the following efforts of the Sultan to draw Christians to town meet with nice success. Therefore in depth parts of town had been deserted by the Christian inhabitants, on account of paucity of numbers, and the dread impressed by Turkish neighbours. Even the Patriarch Gennadius quickly begged to be transferred from the Church of the Holy Apostles to the Church of S. Mary Pammacaristos, in a district the place Greeks had been extra quite a few.