Chapter 167 Ecumenical Council

The Hungarian civil war ended, and Peter withdrew his troops back to Skopje. He continued to govern and assimilate the Serbian region.

He also received news that the Principality of Gjirokastra sold its land to the Grand Duke for 30,000 ducats, and the monarch of Epirus was also negotiating. If successful, Wallachia would border Morea.

The Knights and the Order also withdrew from Hungary, and they began to attack the Ottoman region. Soon they captured the southern fortress of Serres, and the Dragon Knights moved their base here and prepared to attack Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki is also called Salonika, Thessalonica, Salonica, Thessalonica, etc. It is the economic and cultural center of the Greek region and the main transportation hub in Southeast Europe. Its commercial port is very important to Greece and the hinterland of Southeast Europe, and is now occupied by the Ottomans. The goal of the Knights is this seaport city that was once second only to Constantinople.

Back to the Ottomans, Bayezid quickly annexed many emirates. After the annexation of the Kadi Emirate, Bayezid basically unified Anatolia. A large amount of land and population belonged to the Ottomans, but it also bordered the new country.

Bayezid treated the surrendered emir well. He needed to gather an army of 100,000 people within five years so that he could take revenge on Wallachia.

At the same time, Bayezid also sent special envoys to Europe to reaffirm his friendly relations with them, which made them feel that the Sultan was afraid of them, so they relaxed their attitude towards the Ottomans and went about their own business.

The Great Schism of the Catholic Church continued. The chaos, corruption, and plundering of people's wealth greatly reduced the prestige of the church in the minds of Europeans, and the power and prestige of the Pope also plummeted.

Taking this opportunity, Peter asked Dean Cyril to appeal to Patriarch Carol and the Patriarch of Constantinople in his name to convene an ecumenical council to re-establish the authority of the Orthodox Church.

The Ecumenical Council is a world bishops' conference with universal representative significance in Christianity, which consults and votes on important church affairs and doctrinal disputes. After the Great Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054, the Orthodox Church only recognized the seven meetings held together before, and did not recognize the ecumenical councils held by the Catholic Church alone. In terms of the frequency of meetings, the Orthodox Church has only held two meetings in three hundred years, and the most recent one was more than forty years ago. Peter felt that if he wanted to re-establish the authority of the Orthodox Church, it was not enough to have only the declaration issued by Wallachia, and a great council was necessary.

Patriarch Carol naturally supported it. He wrote to Anthony IV, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, proposing to hold an ecumenical council. Anthony also had the ambition to revive the Orthodox Church and agreed. In order to express his gratitude to Wallachia, he proposed to hold it in Bucuriesti, the capital of Wallachia.

After obtaining permission, Patriarch Carol began to get busy. Although busy, it was also very simple. The scope of the Orthodox Church is smaller than that of the Catholic Church. In addition to Wallachia, Greece, and Constantinople, there are also Orthodox bishops in Moscow, Transylvania, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, and the number is expected to be no more than 160. Much smaller than the Catholic Ecumenical Council.

After Constantine the Great established Constantinople as the capital, he began to work on improving the religious status of Constantinople. In 325 AD, the resolution of the Council of Nicaea ranked the Roman Church first among the major dioceses, followed by the Church of Alexandria and the Church of Antioch. Later, with the construction and development of Constantinople, this situation changed. The Church of Constantinople developed rapidly due to its special political status and had a tendency to surpass the Roman Church. In 381 AD, the Second Ecumenical Council of Christianity determined that its status was below the Roman Church and above other churches.

However, the Church of Constantinople was not satisfied with being below the Roman Church and ranking second in the Christian world, especially after the ancient capital Rome had lost its original status as a political and cultural center. In 451 AD, the Fourth Ecumenical Council decided to expand the religious jurisdiction of the Diocese of Constantinople and explicitly recognized that the Church of Constantinople enjoyed the same religious privileges as the Roman Church. Originally, the Church of Constantinople would further improve its status, but this was severely protested by the Roman Church. At that time, Pope Leo I of Rome said that the primacy of the Pope of Rome came from the inheritance of St. Peter. Therefore, the Western Roman Church refused to recognize the primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Faced with the rising power of the Crescent, the Eastern and Western churches also had a short "honeymoon period". Especially after the 14th century, the Eastern Roman monarchs repeatedly asked for assistance from Western allies and promised to promote the unification of the Eastern and Western churches. However, the incident of the Crusaders looting Constantinople in 1204 made the Orthodox believers and the lower-level priests no longer trust the Western allies, and even hated them. The upper clergy of the church were unwilling to accommodate each other on doctrines and rules, and the unification was not followed up. And the Orthodox Church is becoming more and more weak.

Now Peter intends to re-boost the status of the Constantinople Church, so as to re-condense the power of Eastern Europe, because the Orthodox Church not only has to face the Crescent in the East, but also has to face the heresy in the West. So the religious characteristics have to be changed.

First of all, the characteristics of armed pilgrimage must be improved, and the martial virtues are too low. Then it is necessary to strengthen the construction of churches and religious orders and improve missionary capabilities.

Peter also became a missionary and started writing books about the situation of the Catholic Church. The effect of his previous work in Bohemia was good, and he planned to continue his efforts.

Peter did not say anything about the Trinity or the use of leavened bread, but directly said the church's money-making methods and the illiteracy and extravagant life of the bishops. 80% of the bishops in Italy have illegitimate children and a large number of lovers. The Archbishop of Cologne is illiterate and only donated 300,000 gold coins to the Roman Church to obtain this position.

Although there are some deviations, the specific situation is like this. The corruption of Catholicism has reached a height that cannot be solved by a single reform. Taking advantage of the unstable status of Catholicism, inserting the Orthodox Church into southern Italy and Hungary is one of Peter's expansion policies.

Culturally, Peter strongly supports local culture. At the same time, he absorbs Greek and Roman culture and gives birth to a people-oriented school. Constanta is their center of activity, which is spread through painting, poetry, literature and other forms. Exhibitions are held near the university every month to promote it.

Peter is also very supportive of these arts, but he still keeps an eye on them to avoid crossing the line. The power of the petty bourgeoisie is too great, but the people in the East are more likely to surrender, so there should be no problem. It is the rulers and churches in the West who have some headaches, and they may even lose their lives.