We tend to think of today as an age of apostasy where priests and bishops will compromise the faith at the drop of a hat. To a large extent many bishops are like that but was it always like that? It’s been like this largely for the last 700 years. Religion started to decline around 1300 and it has never been the same since. I’ll give two prime examples. One from the Catholic Church and one from the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Let’s start with the Orthodox Church first. In the 1440’s there was a reunion council at Florence between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. All but one Orthodox bishop signed the union document that the council had produced. The Orthodox bishop Mark of Ephesus refused to sign since he deemed the filioque to be a heretical doctrine. The doctrine aside, he’s the only one on the Eastern Orthodox side that actually looks good since he stuck to his principles.
Now, as a Catholic, why do I say this? Isn’t Mark an enemy of the Catholic Church? Yes, but at least he’s consistent. He’s better than those bishops who signed it, only to repudiate it later on. Metropolitan Bessarion and Isidore of Kiev signed the union and they actually believed it. Every other bishop was essentially doing a favor for the emperor whose empire more or less ended at the walls of Constantinople. The Turks were on the doorstep and he was doing anything he could to save his city. A politician was leaning on them so they were willing to deny their faith. Pretty sad isn’t it?
In return for these signatures, the Pope delivered a crusade to halt the Turkish advance. This is known as the Crusade of Varna which thoroughly failed. In 1453 Constantinople falls to the Turks, so those bishops who hadn’t already repudiated the union did so since there was no reason to hold onto it any longer. The union was formally repudiated in a synod in Constantinople in 1484.
About a hundred years later, a similar thing happened in the Catholic world. In the early 1530’s King Henry VIII was pressuring the bishops of England to proclaim him as head of the Church so he could get an easy annulment to marry Anne Boleyn whom he’d execute a couple years later.
Well, only St. John Fisher opposed. Unlike Mark of Ephesus, Fisher was executed. Many of the bishops didn’t want to do this. They knew that Henry wasn’t immortal and believed that the next monarch would repair the breach and all would be well. They were simply waiting out the clock.
I will concede that these two cases aren’t completely analogous. None of the Greek bishops faced death. Also, the Greek cause was much more noble; preserving an ancient Christian empire is more virtuous than sanctifying adultery. Still though, faith is faith. It shouldn’t be compromised on because of political pressure.
So back in the 15th and 16th century the vast majority of bishops were busy satisfying politicians instead of being shepherds of their flocks. Not much has changed; we only think it has because we don’t know history. May God help us.
Well said!
Thanks Veronica!