Unfinished Business

When Mohammed II in 1453 wrested Constantinople from the last of the Caesars, Constantine XI Palaeologus, he barely missed capturing the papal ambassador, Cardinal Isidore of Russia, as an extra prize. But Isidore put his distinctive cardinal's hat and robes on a corpse, and in plebeian rags scuttled through a gap in the wall even as Mohammed's followers were mistakenly displaying the severed head of the corpse as Isidore's.

Although his undignified escape embarrassed the Vatican, Isidore had good reason for disappearing. Sent by Pope Nicholas V to show Western support for the Eastern Empire and to consummate the reunion of the Latin and Greek churches that had been uneasily agreed upon at the Council of Florence 14 years earlier, Isidore said Mass in St. Sophia as the Turks were gathering to batter down the walls. But disputatious followers of the monk Gennadius boycotted the church. After the fall of the city, Mohammed rewarded Gennadius by appointing him the first Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek church under Islam. And one of Gennadius' first acts was to repudiate the Council of Florence's attempt to heal the 400-year-old East-West schism.

Last week, 507 years after Cardinal Isidore went through the wall, the Vatican again had an accredited ambassador in Istanbul. It named as apostolic internuncio (equivalent to minister plenipotentiary, and one step below apostolic nuncio or full ambassador) Francesco Lardone, 73, longtime (1924-49) professor of canon law at Catholic University of America in Washington, who last served the Vatican as nuncio to Peru. Last fall the Vatican switched Italian-born Archbishop Lardone to Istanbul as apostolic delegate to Turkey's 200,000 Catholics, mostly Eastern Rite Christians in communion with Rome. Turkey in turn has sent its first ambassador to the Vatican, veteran diplomat Nurettin Vergin.

Archbishop Lardone was finding conditions considerably improved since Cardinal Isidore's hasty departure. Turkey, since Ataturk, is a secular state. And Gennadius' successor, the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, who once made his headquarters in Manhattan as Greek Orthodox primate for North and South America, is a lot more approachable on church reunion than was Gennadius. Both Athenagoras and Lardone became American citizens during their U.S. stay; though the Treaty of Lausanne required Athenagoras to become a Turk again on his election as Patriarch in 1948.

Athenagoras has said he will call an Orthodox synod this fall to consider whether Greek Orthodox churches should accept Pope John's invitation to participate in a new ecumenical council to pick up the unfinished business of the Council of Florence.

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