Fall of Constantinople 1453

[Orphic_Hymn]

Some abstracts from various sources...



"Konstantinos Paleologos", by Nikos Kazantzakis.


They took the City, they took it, took Salonica
They took St. Sofia, too, the great monastery
Which has three-hundred semandra and sixty
Two bells...
For each bell a priest, for each priest a deacon.
Near the time the Sacred Vessels come out,
and the king of all...

A dove came down from heavens: Stop the
Cherubic, and lower the Sacred Vessels,
Priests, take the Sacramental and you candles
blow out...
For it is the will of God the City should fall to
the Turks...

Our Lady was disturbed and the icons tearful.
Hush, Our Lady and you, icons weep not,
With the passing of years and in time she 'll be
yours again.




from "Fall of Constantinople 1453" by Steven Runciman page 151

"Mehmet was said to have sent himself four hundred Greek children as a gift to each of the leading Moslem potentates of the time, the Sultan of Egypt, the King of Tunis, and the King of Grenada. Many Greek families were never to be reunited.....................

Notara's fourteen year old son was a boy of exceptional beauty. The Sultan at once sent a eunuch to the house of the Megadeux to demand that the boy be sent for his pleasure. Notaras who's two elder sons had been killed fighting, refused to sacrifice the boy to such fate. Police were then sent to bring Notaras, his son and his son-in-law, son of the Grand Domestic Andronicus Catacuzenus into his presence. When Noteras still defied the Sultan, orders were given for him and the two boys to be decapitated on the spot"



from "The Fall of the Byzantine Empire" by George Sphrantzes

"Breaking down the doors with axes, the Turks entered the Church and dragged the fugitives off to slavery. Two by two, the men were tied together with cords, the women with belts, without consideration for age or station. Scenes of indescribable horror ensued. The statues of sainst were shorn of their jewels and smashed. The gold and silver Church vessels were seized, the altar cloths used for caparisons. Topped with a Janissary's cap, the crucifix was paraded in mockery. The conquerors used the altars as tables; when they themselves had finished eating on them, they turned them over to the horses for feed troughs or used them as beds on which to assault boys and girls".


From Makarios Melissenos (Book III, 10 - 12)

"
Shudder thou sun, groan thou earth: the City has fallen. The hour has passed for us to fight. Let us take thought for our own safety.

Thus our enemy took possession of our City on Tuesday, May 29, about two and a half hours after dawn.

...Christ, our Lord, how inscrutable and incomprehensible your wise judgments! Our greatest and holiest Church of Saint Sophia, the earthly heaven, the throne of God’s glory, the vehicle of the cherubim and second firmament, God's creation, such edifice and monument, the joy of all earth, the beautiful and more beautiful than the beautiful, became a place of feasting; its inner sanctum was turned into a dining room, its holy altars support food and wine, and were also employed in the enactment of their perversions with our women, virgins, and children.
Who could have been so insensitive as not to wail, Holy Church?
Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain. There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape...
Christ, our Lord, protect all Christian cities and lands from similar affliction and sorrow!

The sultan...issued orders for the election of a patriarch, according to custom and protocol, as our patriarch had passed away sometime earlier. The high clerics who happened to be present, and the very few members of the church and of the lay population designated the scholar George Scholarios, and elected him patriarch under the name Gennadios.

Our custom and traditional ceremony prescribed that the Christian emperor should present the newly elected patriarch with a golden crook... The emperor presented that crook in the following manner: when the emperor had taken his place on the imperial throne, while the senators remained standing with uncovered heads, the first priest of the palace chanted his benediction and customary prayers; then the grand domestic chanted his part, “Whenever our emperor is present, etc.” and the torch bearer continued with “Glory” and “the King of Heaven,” accompanied by the choir.
At the end of the hymns, the emperor, holding the crook in his right hand, rose and asked the patriarch to approach. The patriarch, flanked by the metropolitans of Caesaria and Herakleia, bowed to the whole assembly thee times and prostrated himself in front of the emperor in his usual manner. Then the emperor slightly raised the crook and pronounced: “The Holy Trinity has granted the empire to me and the patriarchate of New Rome [Constantinople] to you.” With these words the patriarch received his authority from the hands of the emperor, to whom he gave thanks as the choirs sang “May you be our lord for many years” three times. The assembly was then dismissed and the patriarch, under the light of the torches, mounted his well-equipped horse and left."



From Steven Runciman's the Fall of Constantinople 1453


"The fall of Constantinople has left in the hearts of Greeks bitterness for the betrayal of the Europeans "Latins". Greeks were betrayed in 1204 with the sack of their capital, in 1453 when Europeans refused to help the Orthodox-Christians in their struggle for survival, in 1922 when the genocide of christians took place in Anatolia Mikra Asia, in 1955 when the last Greeks were forced to leave their fatherland.
If Vienne had fallen to Ottomans in 16th century, the attitude of Europeans to Turks would be different. If their women were taken in harems, if their children had become jenissars, if they worked as slaves in the fields or were sold in slavebazzars of Anatolia, or their churches were converted to mosques, Europeans would have different policy towards Turkey. Still in the end of 20th century, Turkey has invaded another nation, Cyprus, and caused the death to 20000 humans and the exodus of their homes of 200000 Cypriots. Could anyone imagine France to attack Belgium? Impossible even to think about it. But Turkey, a state that US and England want to be part of Europe, has done. "

[PhiliptheUniterchaeronea]

Orphic, you are a legend, thank you for that post.

One more thing, if Rome had frallen to Libya, or Turkey or some Muslim country, and Vatican city was still under Muslim hands, what do you think the world's Roman Catholics would have done? THis is a question to us all.

[akritas]

A nice article that you can read it as about the fall.

By the evening of the first day of looting there was left nothing else to steal. The Sultan, with his top commanders and his guard of Janissaries, came into the city in the afternoon of the first day of occupation. Constantinople was finally his and he intended to make it the capital of his mighty Empire. He toured the ruined city. He visited Saint Sophia which he ordered to be turned into a mosque. He also ordered an end to the killing. What he saw was desolation, destruction, death in the streets, ruins, desecrated churches. It was too much. It is said that, as he rode through the streets of the former capital of the Christian Greek Empire, the city of Constantine, moved to tears he murmured: "What a city we have given over to plunder and destruction".

The sultan show in front of many houses the symbol of half moon. He asked why was this symbol everywhere, and they told him that this symbol was dated from the time of 340 b.c. when Philipos Macedonian did not manage to take Byzantium. Ancient Byzantines has since that victory, preserved this symbol. Sultan liked it and added to it a star. So was formed the turkish flag which terrorized for many centuries the christian states.

So a civilization of 1100 years old was lost in some days. The barbarians didn't respect anything holy icons, books, paintings, mosaics. They demolished and vandalized churches, ancient monuments, palaces dated from 4th century. Nevertheless the ideas did not vanished. Turks didn't manage to vanish the Hellenic spirit. Many Greeks like Byssarion, Dimitrios Kavakis, Georgios Xaritonimos, Ieronimos of Sparta fled to Europe where they spread the ideas of Socrates, Platon, Aristotelis, Aeschylus, Archimidis, Homer, Euripides, Solon.

Turks must be grateful to the "civilized" Europeans for helping them taking and still keeping this City.

FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE "Ealo h Polis"

[akritas]

Τη υπερμάχω στρατηγώ τα νικητήρια
Ως λυτρωθείσα των δεινών ευχαριστήρια
Αναγράφω σοι η πόλις σου Θεοτόκε.
Αλλ’ ως έχουσα το κράτος απροσμάχητον
Εκ παντοίων με κινδύνων ελευθέρωσον
’Ινα κράζω σοι. Χαίρε, Νύμφη ανύμφευτε.

http://www.ec-patr.net/keimena/PAGES/Nikolaidis_09.htm

[The Blood of Dorus]

Constantinos Paleologos at the battlements, dawn of the 29th May of 1453:



The last moments of Constantinos Paleologos, emperor of Byzantium:



Map of the fall of the city: