Now the failure of the council of Florence finally broke the bonds of sympathy between the East and the West just when they seemed to be growing into some real strength, Constantinople was left to itself; the consequence was its doom.
When the war-cloud was threatening, although all hope of real reunion was now over, John's brother, Constantine, who had succeeded him, effected a nominal union. A united communion was held at St. Sophia on December 12, 1452, and the names of the Eastern and Western patriarchs were both mentioned in the prayers. But the people looked on with amazement and horror at the consecration of an unleavened wafer by the officiating Latin priest. Rushing out in wild excitement to the cell of Gennadius—who had been one of the promoters of union at Florence, but who now denounced it—they cried, "What occasion have we for succour, or union, or Latins? Far from us be the worship of the Azymites." The first minister of the empire was heard to declare that he would rather see in Constantinople Mohammed's turban than the pope's tiara or a cardinal's hat.
Under these circumstances the really surprising thing is that the city had held out so long. She had never recovered from the fatal blow that she had received in the conquest and ravages of the Latins. Her final struggle is a miracle of patriotic heroism. The end would have come much sooner than was the case if it had not been for a vast unforeseen movement arising in another part of the world. Timour, with his Tartar host, poured over the Turkish Empire, threatening to sweep it entirely away. Then, while engaged in a life and death struggle, the Turks were compelled to relinquish their encroachments on the Greeks and concentrate their attention on their own affairs. When the danger had passed they returned to their age-long policy of absorbing the civilisation of Eastern Europe. These Turks were of the Ottoman stock, directly connected with an earlier conqueror, Genghis Khan, who had devastated Western Asia, and therefore they
