It is easy for westerners, and western Christians even,
to forget just how much the Eastern Romans protected Christendom from pagan and
Islamic threats. Charles Oman notes,
“To Leo, far more than to
his contemporary the Frank Charles Martel, is the delivery of Christendom from
the Moslem danger to be attributed. Charles turned back a plundering horde sent
out from an outlying province of the Caliphate. Leo repulsed the grand-army
of the Saracens, raised from the whole of their eastern realms, and
commanded by the brother of their monarch. Such a defeat was well calculated to
impress on their fatalistic minds the idea that Constantinople was not destined
by providence to fall into their hands. They were by this time far removed from
the frantic fanaticism which had inspired their grandfathers, and the crushing
disaster they had now sustained deterred them from any repetition of the
attempt. Life and power had grown so pleasant to them that martyrdom was no
longer an “end in itself”; they preferred, if checked, to live and fight
another day.”[1]
Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire, truly stood as a bulwark
of Christianity against the threats of the east for centuries, indeed a millennia.
From the moment that Constantine built the city as the capital of Rome in the
early 4th century until its fall it took the majority of the
onslaughts directed towards the Christian world from Persians and then Muslims, and other threats.
But its efforts have been so forgotten to the West, that
the comparatively minor efforts of Charles Martel are often given the credit
that Emperors like Leo the Isaurian actually deserve. Not that Martel’s efforts
were of no consequence, they were. But apart from the works of men like Leo the
Isaurian and others, they surely would have been of very little consequence.
This also demonstrates how often the narratives we believe about history are so different to the realities of history. A similar example can be found in World War 2. Future generations will be far less emotionally opposed to acknowledging that it was Russia that won World War 2, far more than Britian, or even the U.S.. But currently many people bristle at the suggestion because of the West’s emotionalization of the reasons and achievements of World War 2. Such is the way history is handled. Often what is remembered is based in fact, but spun in such a way that it obscures the greater truth.
The Franks may have been responsible for checking the
Saracens in western Europe, but they are also in large part responsible for the
destruction and pillaging of Byzantium, an attack that very much led to its
eventual fall and capture by the Turks.
One can hope and pray that through the work of the gospel
Byzantium is again returned to Christendom and stands again as a bulwark
against the incursions of antichristian forces. But until that day we should
remember its efforts more accurately. Byzantium was lost, eventually, but it
stood strong for so long it gave the West the chance it needed to flourish.
List of References
[1] Oman,
Charles. The History of the Byzantine Empire: From Its Glory to Its Downfall
(p. 96). e-artnow. Kindle Edition.
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