In the early middle ages, there were five patriarchs in the Christian world. In descending order of precedence: Rome by the Bishop of Rome (who rarely used the title "Patriarch") and those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
The sees of Rome and Constantinople were often at odds with one another, just as the Greek and Latin Churches as a whole were often at odds both politically and in things ecclesiastical. There were complex cultural currents underlying these difficulties. The tensions led in 1054 to a serious rupture between the Greek East and Latin West called the East–West Schism, which while not in many places absolute, still dominates the ecclesiastical landscape.
In 1204, the Fourth Crusade invaded, seized and sacked Constantinople, and established the Latin Empire. Pope Innocent III, who was not involved, initially spoke out against the Crusade, writing in a letter to his legate, "How, indeed, is the Greek church to be brought back into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See when she has been beset with so many afflictions and persecutions that she sees in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs?"[1][2] However the popes accepted the Latin patriarchate established by Catholic clergy that accompanied the Crusade, similar to Latin patriarchates previously established in the Crusader states of the Holy Land. The pope recognised these "Latin" sees at the Fourth Council of the Lateran. Furthermore, those Orthodox bishops left in their place were made to swear an oath of allegiance to the pope.[3]
However, the Latin Empire in Constantinople was eventually defeated and dispossessed by a resurgent Byzantium in 1261. Since that time Latin Patriarch Pantaleonе Giustinian (d. 1286) resided in the West, though continuing to oversee the remaining Latin Catholic dioceses in various parts of Latin Greece.[4] The continuing threat of a Catholic Crusade to restore the Latin Empire, championed by the ambitious Charles I of Anjou, led to the first attempts, on the Byzantine side, to effect a Union of the Churches. After the Union of Lyon (1274), John Bekkos was installed as a Greek Catholic Patriarch of Constantinople in 1275, but that did not affect the position of Pantaleonе Giustinian. His Greek Catholic counterpart was deposed in 1282 by Eastern Orthodox hierarchy, thus ending a short-lived union. in 1286, Latin Patriarch Pantaleonе Giustinian was succeeded by Pietro Correr who was the first holder of that office in a new form of a titular see.
On 8 February 1314, Pope Clement V united the Patriarchate with the episcopal see of Negroponte (Chalcis), hitherto a suffragan of the Latin Archbishopric of Athens, so that the patriarchs could once more have a territorial diocese on Greek soil and exercise a direct role as the head of the Latin clergy in what remained of Latin Greece.[5]
For a time, like many ecclesiastical offices in the West, it had rival contenders who were supporters or protégés of the rival popes.[citation needed] As to the title Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, this was the case at least from 1378 to 1423. Thereafter the office continued as an honorific title, during the later centuries attributed to a leading clergyman in Rome, until it ceased to be assigned after 1948 and in January 1964, along with the titles of the Latin Patriarchate of Alexandria and Antioch, it was no longer mentioned in the Vatican yearbook (rather than being announced as being abolished).[6] This was after Pope Paul VI met with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople (see Pope Paul VI and ecumenism), showing the Latin Church by this point was more interested in reconciliation with the Eastern Church, abolishing the titular title. [7]
^Phillips, J., (2009) Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (Vintage Books; London), p195.
^Pope Innocent III - To Peter, Cardinal Priest of the Title of St. Marcellus, Legate of the Apostolic See. However, on the way to attack Constantinople the crusaders attacked another Christian city, Zara, and received papal absolution for this. de Villehardouin, G., (1908) Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople (J.M. Dent; London), p26.
^Papadakis, A., (1994) The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press; Crestwood, NY), p204.
Wolff, Robert Lee (1948). "The Organization of the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204–1261: Social and Administrative Consequences of the Latin Conquest". Traditio. VI. Cambridge University Press: 33–60. doi:10.1017/S0362152900004359. JSTOR27830170. S2CID151901021.
Wolff, Robert Lee (1954). "Politics in the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204–1261". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 8. Dumbarton Oaks: 225–303. doi:10.2307/1291068. JSTOR1291068.
