TIMELINE

300-311 AD - Genocide
Emperor Diocletian dramatically expands the torture and murder of the Orthodox, who have been persecuted for 250 years. This ends when emperor Galerius, then senior emperor of the Tetrarchy (government of 3 persons), issues an edict of toleration.

312-313 AD - Rome Ends Persecution
Emperor St. Constantine, son of Orthodox mother St. Helen, converts and ends state persecution and legalizes Christianity and returns confiscated lands and properties.

325 AD - The Creed
First Ecumenical Council (Council of the Whole Church) agrees upon a standardized version of the Creed, the confession of the Faith received from the Holy Apostles and required for Succession and salvation.

330 AD - Roman Empire's New City
The capital of the Roman empire is moved from the City of Rome to the more defensible (against Germanic raids) city of Constantinople (Byzantium). This will remain the capital of the Roman Empire until 1456. This is the second time the capital has been moved (In other words the capital of the Roman Empire is considered portable. It is simply the seat of the emperor). This is sometimes called The Second Rome.

381 AD - Procession of the Holy Spirit
Council of Constantinople expands on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone in the Creed. 

399-422 AD - The Heresy
St. Augustine writes De Trinitate, in which his speculations and attempts to fit Orthodox theology into the framework of neoplatonism, produce the prototypical seed of the filioque.

431 AD - Creed Unchangeable
Council of Ephensus declares the Creed to be unchangeable.

476 AD - City of Rome lost
This is the modern dating (Gibbon's) for the fall of "Rome" to Germanic barbarians, by which is meant not the Roman Empire (still seated in Byzantium) but the City of Rome. The Roman Empire would continue unabated for 1000 years. Until recent years, Western historians effectively blanked out the next five centuries under the term "dark ages" - perhaps intentionally but at least with distinct bias disregarding the ongoing high civilizations of the Byzantine and Arab empires, each of which were actually experiencing a Golden Age at this time. The Byzantines, for example  went on to create the great systems of modern law, miracles of architecture, and countless fixtures of modern life, engaging in global scholarship and affairs (e.g. the Disputation with Pyrrhus), and the accomplishments of the Arab worls at the time were indeed the salvation of the West after indeed much of the West was ultimately reduced to desperate illiteracy and chaos. Indeed, the rediscovery by the West of Aristotle, via Arabic translations (from the Byzantine Greek) encountered in the Crusades, reintroduced thinking in the West whcih had never been lost to the Byzantines. Contemporary historians observe that there was truly no such thing as the "dark ages".

589 - Correcting Error and Falling Into It
A synod (local not ecumenical council of bishops) in Spain modifies the Creed in their usage, inserting the filioque. This was called the Synod of Toledo, and was an attempt to fight Arianism, but made the error of making positive statements about God. From Spain the addition spread to the Franks (present day France) and was embraced by Charlemagne, who saw in this a theological leverage to use against the Roman empire in Byzantium, to pursue his own imperial designs as a "Roman Emperor".

800 AD - False Rome - False Empire
The Roman Patriarch (pope) has fled from assassins in the City of Rome to the central European states united under Charlemagne. The Pope, essentially has nowhere to go, and he crowns Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, effectively creating a competitor empire to the Roman Empire still centered in Byzantium. Charlemagne's empire takes the latin title of Holy Roman Empire, but its citizens are not Romans but Franks (barbarians). In historical study, it is often observed that this invented world was neither Holy nor Roman nor perhaps even an empire, but more akin to a Vegas version of it.

Crowning of false emperor

809 AD - Rome condemns the filioque.
A local council of Charlemagne's Frankish bishops in Aachen upholds the filioque. Charlemagne is essentially agitating against the Roman Empire in Byzantium. Pope Leo III intervenes, forbidding the use of the filioque, and engraving the Creed of the whole Church on silver plates, placing them on the wall of St. Peter's in Rome. He added, moreover, "These words I, Leo, have set down for love and as a safeguard of the orthodox faith (Haec Leo posui amore et cautela fidei orthodoxa)."

880 AD - Patriarch St. Photius the Great
The Photian Schism - St. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople and immense scholar and author of the Bibilotheca (an annotated bibliography of all extant scholarly literature) repudiates the Western invention of the filioque, which is being pushed by monks attached to Charlemagne's empire. He proclaims it, essentially, the sum of all blasphemy, and writes the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. Patriarch (pope) Nicholas of Rome interferes in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, attempting to overturn the election of St. Photius. This is a tacit attempt to assert a supremacy of the Roman Patriarch over all other Patriarchs, which have been equals until now.

879 AD - Rome condemns filioque again.
A general council at Constantinople accepted by all the patriarchs, including Pope John VIII (Patriarch) of Rome, condemns the filioque and reaffirms the historical equality of all Patriarchates and the Papal  primacy as one of honor not of authority.

1009 AD - The Quisling Pope
The Franks succeed in installing a Frankish pope as Patriarch of Rome. The silver plates with the original creed disappear, and the creed with the filioque inserted is promulgated throughout the West.

1014 AD - Rome No Longer Orthodox
The Orthodox Church in Constantinople removes the Roman Patriarch (pope) from the Dyptichs - the prayers venerating and recognizing Orthodox bishops. This is a tacit admission that something has happened - the Roman Bishop is no longer venerated as or recognized as an Orthodox bishop. Whatever they are, religiously speaking, they are not us.

1054 AD - Rome's Date for the Schism
After repeated failed attempts by the Pope to be reinstalled in the Dyptichs in Constantinople, delegates of the Pope enter the Hagia Sophia and toss a bull of excommunication onto the altar during the liturgy - one of the claims was that the Orthodox had deleted the filioque from the Creed.  The West, following the assumption of Western/Papal supremacy, dates the Schism from this point.

1095 AD - Rome Alienates the World
Crusades begin. Throughout the 1100s, crusaders forcibly replace local indigenous bishops with Latin bishops, leading to a break of the Papacy with the other Patriarchates as well (eg. Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria).

1204 AD - Rome Robs Church and Empire
Fourth Crusade - Crusaders sack Constaninople, desecrate the altar with pigs and prostitutes, strip the Holy City of immense cultural wealth in works of high art and vast quantities of holy things of countless Churches, and forcibly (temporarily) install a false quisling emperor and "patriarch". The artworks become the great art treasures of the West at the time and are also extensively copied in Westernized forms; the gold of holy thing is melted down, or else these artifacts appear all over Western Europe in Roman Catholic churches, gilding them with incredible treasures in stolen loot. Reparations to the Orthodox have never been made.

1438 AD - The Pillar of Orthodoxy
St. Mark of Ephesus defends the Orthodox faith against the robber council of Florence, declaring the filioque to be heresy and the Latins to be heretics. He is the only bishop not to sign and, because of his example, the laity rise up against their clergy, and the Church repudiates the attempts to force, entice, persuade, or leverage the Orthodox to recognize a papal supremacy.

1448 AD - Russia Church is 3rd Rome
The Russian church becomes autocephalous. Religious and art treasures are funnelled heavily from the Roman-Byzantine Empire into Russia at this time in anticipation of the coming Turks.

1453 AD - Roman Empire Ends
The fall of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire to the Turks and beginning of the Turkish captivity of the Orthodox. The Papacy offers to call a Crusade to defend Byzantium from the Muslims if the Orthodox will agree that their Patriarchs answer to the Roman Patriarch. The response,  generally, was "better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's tiara."

The Emperor Constantine XI himself fought on the city walls. He held off 160,000 Turks for seven weeks with only 4,000 Byzantine-Roman troops. Constantinople is renamed Istanbul and becomes, ultimately, the cultural and financial center of Turkey. Generations of Greeks and other Mediterranean people even into the 20th century, still refer to themselves as Romans. 

The so-called "Holy Roman Empire" of the Franks comes to be called "The Roman Empire of the German People" and would form the basis for repeated German imperial designs in later centuries.

As a result of the fall of the Empire, a rediscovery of ancient texts in the West ensued, as many Byzantine scholars emigrated, bringing their libraries with them. This was accelerated since Gutenberg's press had just been made (1450).

1510 AD - A 4th Rome There Will Not Be
Monk Philoteus (Filofey) prophesies in a letter to the Grand Prince of Moscow, "Two Romes have fallen. A third stands. There will not be a fourth. No one will replace your Christian Tsardom!" (Tsar/Czar = Caesar or Emperor).

1915 AD - 1918
Beginning in Constantinople, the Turks preside over the genocide against the 1.2 to 1.7 million Armenian Christians. Turkey to this day denies this holocaust. The U.S. president recently 'officially' termed it genocide - though the use of terms has come into question of late, notably the meaning of words like torture. Previous massacres occurred 1894-1896, 1909. In 1939 Adolph Hiter would cite the Armenian genocide as inspirational model for his actions against Jews, Poles, and other groups, observing how even their memory had been virtually wiped away: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

1917 AD - 1990
The fall of Orthodox Russia to the Bolshevik communists, a Western ideology based on the teachings of Prussian philosoher Karl Marx (detailed in fact by Marx in his book "The German Ideology"). The communists begins to commit unparallelled genocide, dwarfing Hitler's holocaust - Stalin himself presiding over the murder of 20 million people.

1999 AD - Present
The fall of the last Orthodox state - Serbia - to a U.S. led international coalition, under NATO. Before, during, and after NATO bombing, destruction of countless ancient Orthodox churches and monasteries and murder of monks, nuns, and priests by US-supported Muslim (CIA designated terrorist organization) KLA, allied to Osama bin laden. Simultaneous US-led support for KLA and "war on terror" against bin Laden and others.

Timeline

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