Crusader

3-19

Authors: Evgeniуa V. Kravtsova

The article presents some aspects of the relationship between the Roman and Greek churches during the crusades to the East. The author made attempts to structure the main methods of the Roman Catholic Church, with which she tried to subdue and assimilate Eastern Christians, as well as to show how effective they were and what was the reaction of the Greek Church to such an impact. The ways that Roman Catholic Church was guided on the basis of the work of Hegumen Arseny (Ivashchenko) are divided into such groups as the policy of strengthening the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the region, economic coercion, violent mechanisms and negotiations. Each group of selected methods is illustrated by corresponding examples from the history of the relations between Rome and Constantinople. Besides this, the work is observed that the crusaders were not only the pope's weapon in promoting his policy of Catholic assimilation into Byzantine lands, but also became one of the reasons that intensified the contradictions and schism of the churches. Therefore, the work also reflects such an aspect as the manifestation of disobedience by the Greek clergy to the policy of Rome and what role the positions of the patriarchs and emperors of Byzantium played in this. The article shows that the consequence of the hostility of Eastern Christians towards the crusaders and popes will be a change in the vector of attitudes towards the representatives of Islam, from which the Greeks initially endured oppression. One of the features of this article is the usage of the work of Hegumen Arseny (Ivashchenko) «On the relations between the churches of Latin and Greek during the Crusades», published back in 1867, as a scientific work containing references and citations of various types of historical sources. However, the work of Hegumen Arseny today is slightly attracted by historians to study the moments of the confrontation between Rome and Constantinople on issues of faith, but also to study such a complex, diverse phenomenon as the era of the crusades in general.