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Capture of Constantinople by the Turks.
In 1053, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularus, caused the final schism between the Greek and Roman Churches. He defended the principle of the supremacy of Constantinople, saying that the residence of the emperors having been transferred from Rome to Constantinople, only the patriarchs of Bysance could claim the supreme spiritual power. He also taught, contrary to Rome, that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father and not from the Father and the Son. From the time of the great councils (Lyon 1275 and Florence 1439), the projects of union between the Latin Church and the Greek Church aborted, because the Greek speakers had declared outright: “Rather the Turks than the Pope.” Now, 400 years after separating from the Pope, the Greek Church fell under the yoke of the Turks and, singularly, on the feast of the Holy Spirit, for it was on Pentecost Monday that the Turks entered the city of Constantine through the breach. Immediately after the capture of Bysance, Sultan Mohammed II had the church of the Cerular Patriarch destroyed to build a mosque in its place. The Greeks had to give up all their stone basilicas to the victors and were forced to build their churches in wood.
This is the terrible punishment that the Greek Church incurred by denying the dogma concerning the Holy Spirit.
