second rank that she occupies among the Patriarchal Churches. As for the Roman Church, she has an exceptional rank, and to attack her rights is to attack the Church Universal, of which she is the divine centre. Pride and jealousy alone could suggest such sacrilegious intentions.
Such is the substance of the first letter of Leo IX. to the Patriarch Michael Cerularius.
Politics envenomed these first discussions. The Normans were attacking the empire. The Emperor Constantine Monomachus, too weak to resist all his enemies, resolved to ask the aid of the Germans and Italians, and to this end applied to the Pope, who had great influence over those people. In order to conciliate the Pope he wrote to him that he ardently desired to reëstablish friendly relations, so long interrupted, between the churches of Rome and Constantinople. He persuaded the Patriarch Michael to write in the same strain to Leo IX., who at once sent three legates to Constantinople with a letter for the Emperor and another for the Patriarch, (1054.)
He begins by felicitating the Emperor upon the pious desire he had communicated to him, but very soon comes down to the rights of the Roman see. "The Catholic Church," he says, "mother and immaculate virgin, although destined to fill the whole world with her members, has nevertheless but one head, which must be venerated by all. Whoever dishonours that head claims in vain to be one of her members." That head of the Church is Rome, whose power the great Constantine recognized by his grant. Now, as Bishop of Rome, he is the Vicar of God charged with the care of all the churches. He therefore wishes to restore its splendour to the Roman Episcopate, which for a long time has been governed by mercenaries, he says, rather than pastors. The Emperor of Constantinople can aid
