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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.
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.
