Podcasts about pope pius ii

Send us a textNiccolo Machiavelli is often held up as the paradigmatic political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. But as James Hankins argued in an earlier book, Virtue Politics, Machiavelli in fact repudiates the framework common to many of the humanists of the Renaissance. Machiavelli is an outlier. Who then can replace him as the Renaissance's paradigmatic political philosopher? In his new book, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy, Hankins proposes the little-known Francesco Patrizi, friend and protege of Pope Pius II, as Machiavelli's replacement. Hankins joins the show to make his case for Patrizi as emblematic of Renaissance political philosophy and to explain some aspects of Patrizi's life and thought.James Hankins's Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674274709James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/4d0f0buAdrian Wooldridge's Aristocracy of Talent: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781510775558The Patrizi Project: https://patrizisiena.hsites.harvard.edu/Nate Fischer's Meritocracy Must Not Be Our Goal: https://americanmind.org/salvo/meritocracy-must-not-be-our-goal/James Hankins and Allen Guelzo's The Golden Thread: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Thread-Ancient-World-Christendom/dp/1641773995New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a textThe Renaissance humanist Biondo Flavio dedicated his massive book Roma Triumphans, a historical investigation of what made Rome great, to his fellow humanist Pope Pius II. He contended that central to the story of Roman greatness was Roman religion, and that the Roman Catholic Church was the heir of the Roman Empire, correcting its faults even as it carried its legacy into the modern world. As James Hankins discusses in Virtue Politics, the main policy position that Biondo advocated for, in order for Europe to recapture the spirit of ancient Rome, was a renewal of the Crusades, so that the dominion of the Catholic Church could encompass the territory of the Roman Empire.James Hankins' Virtue Politics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674278738New Humanists episode on Irving Babbitt, feat. Eric Adler: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/15574729-humanism-with-or-without-god-feat-eric-adler-episode-lxxivBiondo Flavio's Roma Triumphans: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674055049Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300240023New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Questions Covered:  02:20 – Is there a way to get an English translation on Pope Pius II's encyclical on aliens?  05:53 – How to ponder the fact that our sins put Jesus on the cross? And why did Jesus go through so much suffering for us?  13:26 – How do we debunk the statement that the Catholic church is a cult?  16:32 – If sin causes death, why do animals die? If animals don't sin?  21:09 – Can Fr. talk about the particular judgment versus the final judgment?    29:28 – What happens if a minor wants to join the church but the parents are against it? What do they do?  34:31 – What would hinder any baptized Christian (even non catholic) from going to confession and receiving God's grace?  43:19 – can Fr. Paul explain why we have gluten free hosts?  52:00 – What is the difference between a sacramental marriage and valid marriage in the church?  …

♪♫This is Halloween!  This is Halloween!♫♪  Supporters on our Patreon and fans in our FB group chose the topics for today's episode (plus now there's a sub-reddit):  01:35 sorting Dracula fact from fiction 07:49 how horror stars got their stars 20:01 when did clowns become scary 23:29 the history behind zombies 28:38 movie monster fast facts!  Mentioned in the show: Overly Sarcastic's Frankenstein run-down Cutting Class podcast on Christopher Lee Oh No! Lit Class on The Phantom   Who needs a costume when you could wear this?!   Read the full script. Reach out and touch Moxie on FB, Twit, the 'Gram or email. Music by Kevin MacLeod  Sponsor: City of Ghosts Brandi B. asked that we sort fact from fiction on Vlad Dracula.  Personally, I can remember a time when I didn't know that Vlad the Impaler was thought to be the inspiration from Bram Stoker's genre-launching vampire Dracula.  Hop in your magic school bus, police box, or phone booth with aerial antenna, and let's go back to 15th's century Wallachia, a region of modern day Romania that was then the southern neighbor of the province of Transylvania.  Our Vlad was Vlad III.  Vlad II, his father, was given the nickname Dracul by his fellow Crusade knights in the Order of the Dragon, who were tasked with defeating the Ottoman Empire.  Wallachia was sandwiched between the Ottomans and Christian Europe and so became the site of constant bloody conflict.  Without looking it up, I'm going to guess that they failed, since the Ottoman Empire stood until 1923.  Dracul translated to “dragon” in old Romanian, but the modern meaning is more like devil.  Add an A to the end to denote son-of and you've got yourself a Vlad Dracula.   At age 11, Vlad and his 7-year-old brother Radu went with their father on a diplomatic mission into the Ottoman Empire.  How's it go?  No too good.  The three were taken hostage.  Their captors told Vlad II that he could be released – on condition that the two sons remain.  Since it was his only option, their father agreed.  The boys would be held prisoner for 5 years.  One account holds that they were tutoried in the art of war, science and philosophy.  Other accounts says they were also subjected to torture and abuse.  When Vlad II returned home, he was overthrown in a coup and he and his eldest son were horribly murdered.   Shortly thereafter, Vlad III was released, with a taste for violence and a vendetta against the Ottomans.  To regain his family's power and make a name for himself, he threw a banquet for hundreds of members of his rival families.  On the menu was wine, meat, sweetbreads, and gruesome, vicious murder.  The guests were stabbed not quite to death, then impaled on large spikes.  This would become his signature move, leading to his moniker Vlad the Impaler, but wasn't the only arrow in his quiver.  Facing an army three times the size of his, he ordered his men to infiltrate their territory, poison wells and burn crops.  He also paid diseased men to go in and infect the enemy.  Defeated combatants were often treated to disemboweling, flaying alive, boiling, and of course impalement.  Basically, you turn your enemy into a kabob and let them die slowly and, just as important, conspicuously.  Vlad's reputation spread, leading to stories we have trouble sorting from legend, like that he once took dinner in a veritable forest of spikes.  We do know that in June of 1462, he ordered 20,000 defeated Ottomans to be impaled.  It's a scale that's hard to even imagine.   When the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II came upon the carnage, he and his men fled in fear back to Constantinople.  You'd think Vlad was on the road to victory, but shortly after, he was forced into exile and imprisoned in Hungary. [[how?]]  He took a stab, no pun intended, on regaining Wallachia 15 years later, but he and his troops were ambushed and killed.  According to a contemporary source, the Ottomans cut his corpse into pieces and marched it back to Sultan Medmed II, who ordered them displayed over the city's gates.  History does not record where the pieces ended up.   Vlad the Impaler was an undeniably brutal ruler, but he's still considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history for protecting it against the Ottomans and a national hero of Romania.  He was even praised by Pope Pius II for his military feats and for defending Christendom.  So how did get get from Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, a warrior king with a taste for torture, to, 400 years later, Dracula the undead creature of the night who must feed on the blood of living, can morph into bats or mist, and must sleep in his native earth?  Historians have speculated that Irish author Bram Stoker met with historian Hermann Bamburger, who told him about Vlad III, which ignited some spark of inspiration, but there's not actually any evidence to back this up.  Stoker was actually the first writer that we know of to have a vampire drink blood.  Vampires are actually a common folklore baddie around the world, from the obayifo in Africa which can take over people's bodies and emit phosphorus light from their armpits and anus to the manananggal of the Philippines who can detach her torso from her legs so she can fly around with her organs trailing behind her and use her snakelike tongue to steal babies from the womb.  In Western culture, though, Vlad the Impaler became the basis for everything from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to Count Chocula.  That means he's also the source of the Twilight saga, truly one of history's greatest monsters.   Ronnie asked for “how some legends got their stars.”  I wasn't sure what that meant, so I asked for clarification.  No, I didn't, I launched off immediately and at a full gallop with the first interpretation that came to mind, as I do in all aspects of my life.  So let's talk horror actors and the Hollywood walk of fame.   Even if he weren't a recognizable face, Vincent Price is probably the most recognizable voice in horror history.  For folks my age, you probably heard him for the first time on Michael Jackson's Thriller.  Folks in their 30's might have heard him first as Prof. Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective.  Price wasn't always a horror icon.  He'd done theater, radio, including Orson Wells Mercury Theater of the Air, and other genres of films, but 1953's House of Wax, which was also the first 3D movie to crack the top 10 box office gross for its year, solidified his place in horror history.  It's almost odd that Price went into acting at all.  His father was the president of the National Candy Company and his grandfather had set the family up with independent means thanks to his brand of cream of tartar.  Price and his wife Mary wrote a number of cookbooks, one of which my mother had when I was young.  You cannot fathom my confused disappointment that it was just a regular cookbook full of regular, boring, non-scary recipes.  And now, for no other reason than it makes me smile, is another amazing voice, Stephen Fry, talking about Price on QI.:  Romanian-born Bela Lugosi was a classical actor in Hungary before making the move to movies.  In fact, he was already playing Dracula on stage when the movie was being assembled.  Lugosi wanted the role so badly he agreed to do it for $500 per week, about $9K today, only one quarter that of actor David Manners who played Jonathan Harker.  It was a good investment, I'd say, since everyone knows Lugosi and this was the first time I'd ever seen David Manners' name.  Though Lugosi turned down the role of the monster in Frankenstein, he was quickly locked into horror.  He appeared in minor roles in a few good movies, like “Ninotchka” with Greta Garbo, but mostly bounced like a plinko chip from mediocre to bad movies, with ever decreasing budgets.  His drug addiction probably had a cyclical relationship with his work prospects.  He died two days into filming the absolutely dreadful “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and was replaced by a much younger and taller actor and his ex-wife's chiropractor because he fit the costume.   Peter Lorre is a name you might not recognize, but you would absolutely recognize his overall aesthetic.  It's still being referenced and parodied to this day.  See the bad guy?  Is he short, with round eyes, and a distinctive way of speaking?  What you got there is Peter Lorre.  Hungarian-born Lorre struck out at 17 to become a star.  For 10 years he played bit parts in amateur productions, but in 1931 he got his big break in the German film “M,” and Hollywood took notice.  His first English-speaking role was in the Hitchcock thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”  The character spoke English, but Lorre didn't.  Just like Bela Legosi during his first turn as Dracula, Lorre had to memorize his lines phonetically.  Imagine how difficult it must be to put the right pacing and inflection into a sentence when you don't know which word means what.  He continued portraying psychopaths until John Huston cast him in a quasi-comic role in “The Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet, which led to lighter roles like the one he played in Arsenic and Old Lace.  If you never seen it, make it you next choice.  It's a comedy, but you can definitely watch it with your horror movies, since it's about a pair of serial killers hiding bodies in their cellar.   Arsenic and Old Lace also features a bad guy getting plastic surgery to avoid the police, which accidentally leaves him looking like Boris Karloff and he's really touchy about it.  I don't know why.  Even though he played many monsters and villains in his career, Karloff was said to actually be a kind, soft-spoken man who was happiest with a good book or in his garden.  We hear him narrate How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year.  He doesn't sing the song, though.  That's Thurl Ravenscroft, who was also the original voice of Tony the Tiger.  The title role in Frankenstein took Karloff from bit player to household name.  Karloff said of the monster, “He was inarticulate, helpless and tragic.  I owe everything to him. He's my best friend.”  By the way, if you're one of those people who delights in going “Um, actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor,” can you not?  We all know that.  And since it's the last name of the man who gave him life, aka his father, it's a perfectly passable patronym to use.  Oh and by the way Mr or Ms Superior Nerd, Frankenstein wasn't a doctor, he was a college dropout.  I refer you to my much-beloved Red at Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube for a thorough explanation of the actual story.  Penny Dreadful did get pretty close in their interpretation.   Here's a name more people should know, John Carradine.  Wait, you say, the guy from Kill Bill?  No, that's his son David.  Oh, you mean the FBI guy the sister was dating on Dexter.  No, that's his other son Keith.  Revenge of the Nerds?  No, that's Robert.  The patriarch John Carradine was in over 500 movies, big names like Grapes of Wrath and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but he also did a lot of horror, though it could be a mixed bag — everything from Dracula in House of Dracula down to Billy the Kid vs Dracula.  Not always for the love of it, either.  Sometimes a gig's just a gig.  He told one of his sons, “Just make sure that if you've got to do a role you don't like, it makes you a lot of money.”  Good advice for many areas of life.  If you've got Prime Video or Shudder, look for The Monster Club.  It's an darling, schlocky little anthology movie, which they just don't seem to make anymore, starring Carradine and Vincent Price.     Jaime Lee Curtis could have been on this list since she was in 5 of the Halloween films, but I just don't think people think “horror” when they hear her name.   There were a few names surprisingly not set in the stones.  While ‘man of a thousand faces' Lon Chaney, who played the original Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame, has a star, his son, Lon Chaney Jr, who played the Wolfman, the Mummy and numerous other roles in dozens of horror movies, does.  Somehow, Christopher Lee doesn't either.  In addition to the 282 roles on his imdb page, he deserves a star just for playing Dracula 10 times and still having a career after that.  Also, he was metal as fuck, recording metal albums into his 80's and there was the time he corrected director Peter Jackson on what it's like when you stab someone, because he *knew.  My buddies over at Cutting Class diverged from their usual format to tell us all about his amazing life.   Over in the Brainiac Breakroom, (plug sub reddit, thank Zach), Alyssa asked for the history behind clowns being evil.  One day, a man dressed up as a clown and it was terrifying.  Thank you for coming to my TED talk.   No?  Okay.  Fine!  It's not like I have to research them and keep seeing pictures of clowns.  Clowns weren't really regarded as frightening, or at least a fear of clowns wasn't widely known, from the creation of what we'd recognize as a clown by Joseph Grimaldi in the 1820's until fairly recently.  David Carlyon, author, playwright and a former clown with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s, argues that coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, was born from the counter-culture 1960s and picked up steam in the 1980s.  “There is no ancient fear of clowns,” he said. “It wasn't like there was this panic rippling through Madison Square Garden as I walked up through the seats. Not at all.”  For centuries, clowns were a funny thing for kids — there was Bozo, Ronald McDonald, Red Skelton's Clem Kaddidlehopper and Emmet Kelly's sad clown– then bam!  Stephen King's hit novel “It,” the doll in “Poltergeist,” and every incarnation of The Joker.  It could be seen as a pendulum swing.  Clowns had been so far to the good side that it must have been inevitable they would swing *way the hell over to evil.   Not so fast, argues Benjamin Radford, author of the book “Bad Clowns,” who argues that evil clowns have always been among us.  “It's a mistake to ask when clowns turned bad because historically they were never really good.  Sometimes they're making you laugh. Other times, they're laughing at your expense.”  Radford traces bad clowns all the way to ancient Greece and connects them to court jesters and the Harlequin figure.  He points particularly to Punch of the Punch & Judy puppet shows that date back to the 1500s.  Punch was not only not sweet and loveable, he was violent, abusive, and even homicidal.   Maybe when isn't as important as why.  Why are some of us afraid of clowns?  Personally, I think it's their complete disregard for personal space.  Kindly keep your grease-painted face at least arm's length away.  The grease paint may be part of it.  It exaggerates the features.  The face is basically human in composition, but it's not.  It dangles us over the edge of the uncanny valley, where something makes us uncomfortable because it is *almost human.  The makeup obscures the wearer's identity, so we don't really know who we're dealing with.  Clowns also act in aberrant ways, contrary to societal norms and expectations, and that might subconsciously get our back up.  As for coulrophilia, sexual attraction to clowns…. I got nothing.  You do you.   Charlie asked for the real history behind popular horror icons, like werewolves, vampires, and zombies.  Even though the zombie craze held on longer than the 2017 obsession with bacon, most people don't know about them pre-George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.   The word “zombie” first appeared in English around 1810 in the book “History of Brazil,” this was “Zombi,” a West African deity.  The word later came to suggest a husk of a body without vital life energy, human in form but lacking the self-awareness, intelligence, and a soul.  The Atlantic slave trade caused the idea to move across the ocean, where West African religions began to mix with force Christianity.  Pop culture continually intermixes many African Diasporic traditions and portrays them exclusively as Voodoo. However, most of what is portrayed in books, movies, and television is actually hoodoo. Voodoo is a religion that has two markedly different branches: Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Vodoun. Hoodoo is neither a religion, nor a denomination of a religion—it is a form of folk magic that originated in West Africa and is mainly practiced today in the Southern United States.   Haitian zombies were said to be people brought back from the dead (and sometimes controlled) through magical means by voodoo priests called bokors or houngan. Sometimes the zombification was done as punishment (striking fear in those who believed that they could be abused even after death), but often the zombies were said to have been used as slave labor on farms and sugarcane plantations. In 1980, one mentally ill man even claimed to have been held captive as a zombie worker for two decades, though he could not lead investigators to where he had worked, and his story was never verified.   To many people, both in Haiti and elsewhere, zombies are very real and as such very frightening.  Think about it.  These people were enslaved, someone else claimed dominion over their body, but they still had their mind and their spirit.  What could be more frightening to an enslaved person than an existence where even that is taken from you?   In the 1980s when a scientist named Wade Davis claimed to have found a powder that could create zombies, thus providing a scientific basis for zombie stories, a powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, which can be found in several animals including pufferfish.  He claimed to have infiltrated secret societies of bokors and obtained several samples of the zombie-making powder, which were later chemically analyzed.  Davis wrote a book on the topic, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” which was later made into a really underappreciated movie.  Davis was held up as the man who had scientifically proven the existence of zombies, but skeptic pointed out that the samples of the zombie powder were inconsistent and that the amounts of neurotoxin they contained were not high enough to create zombies.  It's not the kind of thing you can play fast & loose with.  Tetrodotoxin has a very narrow band between paralytic and fatal.  Others pointed out nobody had ever found any of the alleged Haitian plantations filled with zombie laborers.  While Davis acknowledged problems with his theories, and had to lay to rest some sensational claims being attributed to him, he insisted that the Haitian belief in zombies *could be based on the rare happenstance of someone being poisoned by tetrodotoxin and later coming to in their coffin.   Bonus fact: Ever wonder where we get brain-eating zombies from?  Correlation doesn't equal causation, but the first zombie to eat brains was the zombie known as Tarman in 1984's Return of the Living Dead.  This wasn't a George Romero movie, though.  It's based on a novel called  Return of the Living Dead by John Russo, one of the writers of Night of the Living Dead.  After Russo and Romero parted company, Russo retained the rights to any titles featuring the phrase “Living Dead.”    Cindra asked for movie monster facts.  The moon is getting full, so let's hit these facts muy rapido.   1922's Nosferatu was an illegal and unauthorized adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Stoker's heirs sued over the film and a court ruling ordered that all copies be destroyed.  However, Nosferatu subsequently surfaced in other countries and came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.   Not a single photograph of Lon Chaney as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) was published in a newspaper or magazine, or seen anywhere before the film opened in theaters.  It was a complete surprise to the audience and to Chaney's costar Mary Philbin, whos shriek of fear and disgust was genuine.   In the original Dracula, Lugosi never once blinks his eyes on camera, to give his character an otherworldy vibe.  Francis Ford Coppolla did something similar by having Dracula's shadow move slightly independently, like the rules of our world don't apply to him.   Even though he starred in the film, Boris Karloff was considered such a no-name nobody that Universal didn't invite him to the premiere of 1931's Frankenstein.   Karloff's classic Mummy the next year did not speak because the actor had so many layers of cotton glued to his face that he couldn't move his mouth.   The Creature from the Black Lagoon's look was based on old seventeenth-century woodcuts of two bizarre creatures called the Sea Monk and the Sea Bishop.   To make a man invisible for 1933's The Invisible Man, director James Whale had Claude Rains dressed completely in black velvet and filmed him in front of a black velvet background.   The movie poster for The Mummy (1932) holds the record for the most money paid for a movie poster at an auction: nearly half a million dollars.   Boris Karloff's costume and makeup for 1935's Bride of Frankenstein were so heavy and hot that he lost 20 pounds during filming, mostly through sweat.  His shoes weighed 13 lb/6 kg/1 stone apiece.   The large grosses for the film House on Haunted Hill (1960) were noticed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock was inspired to make a horror movie after the seeing the box office gross for William Castle's House on Haunted Hill.   Filming the shower scene for Psycho was pretty mundane, but actress Janet Leigh was so terrified by seeing the finished product –thanks to the editing by Alma Reveill-Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann score– that she did not shower, only bathed, from the premier in 1960 to her death in 2004.  You can read more about Alma Revill in the YBOF book.   According to our friends Megan and RJ at Oh No! Lit Class podcast, the first use of Toccata Fuge in G Minor in a film was the 1962 Phantom of the Opera.  It's hard to imagine classic horror without it.   In Night of the Living Dead, the body parts the zombies ate were ham covered in chocolate sauce.  George Romero joked that they shouldn't bother putting the zombie makeup on the actors because the choco-pork made them look pale and sick with nausea anyway.   A lot of people know that Michael Myers' mask in the original Halloween was actually a William Shatner mask painted white.  They bought it because it was on clearance and the film had a small budget.  Most people don't know that Shatner later repaid the favor by dressing up as Michael Myers for Halloween.   Freddy Kruger's look was based on a scary drunk man Wes Craven saw outside his home as a child.  His glove made of leather and steak knives was actually inspired by Craven's cat.  Looks down at scratches on both arms.  Yeah, that checks out.  The idea of being killed in your sleep comes from real deaths of people who survived the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, only to die mysteriously later.   1987's The Monster Squad. With a werewolf, a mummy, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster in the mix, the group looked suspiciously like the line-up of the 1930s and '40s Universal horror movies. To avoid confusion (i.e. lawsuits), filmmaker Fred Dekker made some subtle changes to his monsters, like removing Dracula's widow's peak, and moving Frankenstein's neck bolts up to his forehead. See? Totally different!   Yes, those were real bees in Candyman, even the ones in Candyman's mouth.  Tony Todd had a clause in his contract that he would get $1k for every bee sting he got during filming.  Even though juvenile bees with underdeveloped stingers were used, he still got $23k worth of stings.   You might think 1991's Silence of the Lambs was the first horror movie to win an Oscar, but Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde beat them to it by 60 years with Fredric March's Oscar for Best Actor.

Today's exhilarating episode takes us on a trip to the fifteenth-century, to see one of the greatest of all technological inventions at the moment of its creation: the Gutenberg Press. Until the mid-fifteenth century European society had had a predominantly oral culture. The books that did exist were expensive manuscripts, produced by scribes in scriptoriums, each of them taking weeks or months to complete. At the Frankfurt Trade Fair in 1454 something appeared that would change this. Among the English wool and French wine, one tradesman was selling a new kind of regularly printed manuscript, produced by a mysterious machine in the nearby town of Mainz. The flutter of interest these pages generated was more than warranted. In fact, fair-goers were the first people to get a glimpse of Johannes Gutenberg's magnificent Bible. This was a book that would catalyse the shift from script to print, changing the world as it went. Guiding us through this enchanting historical story is the author Susan Denham Wade. The author of A History of Seeing in Eleven Inventions, Denham Wade explains the brilliance of Gutenberg's invention and why it appeared at the time it did. This episode of Travels Through Time is supported by The History Press. To read a beautifully illustrated, exclusive extract from A History of Seeing, head over to the newly launched Unseen Histories. As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our own website tttpodcast.com. Show notes Scene One: Mainz, Spring 1454. A middle-aged man delivers a parcel to an office in the Church of St Martin, wrapped in cloth. Inside are 200 printed indulgences. The man making the delivery is Johann Gutenberg. Scene Two: Summer 1454.  A workshop near a riverbank in Mainz, Germany.  Gutenberg's printing presses are working frantically on producing the monumental Bible project. Scene Three: October 1454. Frankfurt's famous trade fair. The Italian cardinal Piccolomini – future Pope Pius II, but at this point Bishop of Siena – catches a first glimpse of Gutenberg's Bible. He is amazed at the beauty, accuracy and clarity. Memento: A handful of original Gutenberg type. People/Social Presenter: Peter Moore Guest: Susan Denham Wade Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Unseen Histories Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 1454 fits on our Timeline 

In 1459, Pope Pius II transformed the provincial town of his birth, Corsignano, into an ideal Renaissance urban town and renamed it after himself - Pienza. His architect, Bernardo Rossellino, was a follower of Leon Battista Alberti, and applied both medieval and classical architectural principles to his design. This episode explores the history and architecture of this exquisite and charming example of Renaissance urbanism.    

Full Text of ReadingsWednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent Lectionary: 253All podcast readings are produced by the USCCB and are from the Catholic Lectionary, based on the New American Bible and approved for use in the United States _______________________________________The Saint of the day is St. Catherine of SwedenSt. Catherine was born near the beginning of the fourteenth century to parents Ulfo and St. Bridget of Sweden. At the age of seven, Catherine was sent to the Abbey at Risburgh by her parents and placed under the care of the abbess to receive an education and to build a foundation for her spiritual life.At the age of 13, Catherine was taken from the abbey and given in marriage to Egard, a German nobleman. Upon meeting Egard, Catherine persuaded him to make a mutual vow of perpetual chastity with her. Catherine and Egard dedicated themselves to the service of God and encouraged each other in works of mortification, prayer and charity.Around the year 1349, after the death of her father, Catherine accompanied her mother on a pilgrimage to Rome to visit the relics of the Roman Martyrs. The two spent several years living in Rome. In 1373 St. Bridget died and Catherine returned to Sweden with her mother's body. Two years later, Catherine returned to Rome to promote the cause for her mother's canonization and to gain approval for a Rule she had written for a group of religious women.After gaining approval for her rule, Catherine returned to Sweden and became abbess of Vadzstena. Catherine served as abbess of Vadzstena until her death in 1381. During the final 25 years of her life, Catherine was known for her austere lifestyle and her practice of making daily use of the Sacrament of Confession. St. Catherine was canonized in 1484 by Pope Pius II. Saint of the Day Copyright CNA, Catholic News Agency

Our pope this week is one unlike any other of the 265 successors of St. Peter. Smart and eloquent with a pen though he was, for most of his life he was best known as a smooth-talking womanizer and deadbeat dad whose only goal was elevating his own career, all the way up to being crowned as the emperor's imperial poet. And then he met the pope (who he hated), and everything changed. -- BECOME A PATRON of The Popecast at patreon.com/thepopecast to support our mission and get some nice perks -- Today's episode is sponsored by our friends over at Sock Religious (sockreligious.com), where you'll find all sorts of different saint-themed socks to spice up your Sunday best. They've got Pope Francis & St. John Paul II themed socks along with a ton of other excellent designs that make for awesome birthday presents or honestly just a nice treat-yo-self gift. So head over to sockreligious.com and say The Popecast sent you!

You have likely heard of Saint Bernardine of Siena, a 15th century Franciscan. Pope Pius II called him a second Paul. This past week, I read through the Life of Saint Bernardine and discovered he had a strange approach to fundraising. As any Saint would do, he challenged my perspective and made me rethink my views on how to ask. Here is what I learned for him. For more information, check out: http://bit.ly/2Mx4xvh Get your free e-book on how to fundraiser here: http://catholicfundraiser.net/

In 1492, something else happened besides Columbus sailing the ocean blue, namely, that the most notorious pope EVER ascended to the Chair of Peter. This week it's the guy who typically tops the list of every rundown of the so-called “Bad Popes”, and who was described by contemporary historian as “more evil and more lucky than perhaps any pope before him”. SUPPORT THE POPECAST: patreon.com/mattsewell LINKS * Letter of Pope Pius II rebuking Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (https://books.google.com/books?id=jgDVSSisM0sC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=We+have+heard+the+the+dance+was+indulged+in+in+all+wantonness;+none+of+the+allurements+of+love+were+lacking,+and+you+conducted+yourself+in+a+wholly+worldly+manner.+Shame+forbids+mention+of+all+that+took+place,+for+not+only+the+things+themselves+but+their+very&source=bl&ots=IpuLNhDl8P&sig=ACfU3U1o-1BKW0avibesmXGfOewURZnfcQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw4oOg3I3iAhXhPn0KHQlvD-YQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false) * Inter Caetara (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/alex06/alex06inter.htm) (papal bull granting Spain exclusive rights to colonize and explore the New World) * Pope Alexander VI (https://projects.flocknote.com/note/2360409) (Popes in a Year - Flocknote) * Pope Alexander VI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI) (Wikipedia) * Pope Alexander VI (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01289a.htm) (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Pope Mark I witnessed many significant shifts during his early church career, so by the time he became pope, it was practically time for a break. In this episode, we introduce the Athanasius interlude, clerical fashion, and the merit of beards. A special thank you to our friend Ben oFukushimama Laser Shark for the music for our new segment.    Show notes:Papal Ring of Pope Pius II:  https://sammlung.mak.at/en/collection_online?id=collect-22068&fbclid=IwAR1c-biPNqKitoVsIHaFMTxhpJ0yAKlXzEV823gnUVSwRAbv-YBbkwtNv-4The Tomb of Mark: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Tomb_of_Pope_Mark.jpg/800px-Tomb_of_Pope_Mark.jpg"Why is That" Podcast Article on John Henry Newman:http://whyisthatpodcast.blogspot.com/2018/05/saving-john-henry-newmans-legacy-how.html?m=1

The Crusades are typically bookended between Pope Urban II's call to reclaim the Holy Land in 1095 and the fall of Acre and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291. But two of the most notable religious figures of the 1400s—Pope Pius II and John of Capistrano—show that the lines between these periods were considerably blurred. Take the example of Pope Pius II’s famous 1461 letter to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, which he wrote following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. The humanist scholar-turned-pope called on Mehmet to convert to Christianity. Yet behind his back Pope Pius denigrated Mehmet as barbarous due to the same Asiatic pedigree and for destroying classical Greek civilization. He simultaneously worked furiously to promote a crusade against the Ottomans. This fifteenth-century project did not come to pass, but scholars in the last two decades have shown that there was no reason to see a discrepancy between Renaissance intellectualism and Holy War. In fact, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull on September 30, 1453 (four months after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople) to urge Christian rulers to launch a crusade to save Constantinople and restore the fallen Byzantine Empire. They were called to shed their blood and the blood for their subjects and provide a tithe of their revenue for the project. No such crusade was launched that year, but the call launched a final period of European crusading fervor that lasted until the end of the fifteenth century, what many historians consider an end point for the Middle Ages

Pienza is a small town that packs a lot of Renaissance punch. In the 1400s, Pope Pius II of the Piccolomini family decided to remodel his hometown in a style that was all the rage: Renaissance. At http://www.ricksteves.com, you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination.

Pienza is a small town that packs a lot of Renaissance punch. In the 1400s, Pope Pius II of the Piccolomini family decided to remodel his hometown in a style that was all the rage: Renaissance. At http://www.ricksteves.com, you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination.

We have a competition running and the winner will get to write Martine's Tinder Profile for 1 week. Get on board and help him find the weird little family of his dreams. Also there was a pope in the 1400s who wrote erotica before he became a pope and that's something that needs to be examined, don't you think? Plus why would anyone invent the term 'Bees Knees' and how were they expecting that to be used in every day life? Hosted by Dave Zwolenski and Matthew (Redd) Peterson.

APOSTLE TALK - Future News Now! WWW.REALMIRACLES.COM with Prince Handley NEW FRONTIERS: NATIONAL DELIVERANCE You can listen to this podcast NOW. Click the center of the Libsyn pod circle (top left). Give it 30 seconds to load. Listen now  ... or download for later For INSTANT REPLAY, go to:  www.blubrry.com/prophecy/ After you listen to this message, you can scroll down for all messages previously in the LibSyn Archives (with Show Notes). RSS PODCAST Please forward this posting to friends and acquaintances. You may post it on your own lists or on the web as well. Subscribe to THE APOSTLES E-zine newsletter: ApostleHandley@gmail.com DESCRIPTION: In this podcast we will discuss in detail how God works “behind the scenes” to bring mass deliverance of nations and groups of people. In this podcast you will learn HOW to be an instrument God will use to impact the world, and even to open NEW, HITHERTO UNTRAVERSED FRONTIERS. NEW FRONTIERS:  NATIONAL DELIVERANCE MUSIC / INTRO In the last podcast we discussed how God works “behind the scenes” to bring mass deliverance of nations and groups of people ... and how god works for you! My friend, pray that God will guide you into the ministry of “national deliverance”. We also discussed certain ways God has to help you. Many times He or His angels are working ahead of time ... or right on time ... in unseen ways to deliver you, to prosper you, and to bring you into a place of super productivity. In this podcast / newsletter we will discuss more in detail how God works “behind the scenes” to bring mass deliverance of nations and groups of people. In this podcast you will learn HOW to be an instrument God will use to impact the world, and even to open NEW, HITHERTO UNTRAVERSED FRONTIERS. Remember, God is FOR YOU. If you ever doubt this, look at the cross. If when we were His enemies He loved us so much that He sent His only son to die for us, how much more, now that we are His friends, does He want to make us whole in every area of our lives. (Romans 5:10) God has every detail of your life covered. If you walk in constant communion with Him ... if the Holy Spirit is your best Friend ... and if you are involved in kingdom work, then you can expect His VERY BEST for you. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you shall go; I will guide you with my eye.” [Psalm 32:8] Realize that this promise is both “individual” and “corporate”. God is not only working for YOU, but also for those PEOPLE under your tutelage and leadership. He wants you to KNOW His deliverance, direction, and dynamics: for your sake, as well as the sake of those people under your watch care ... and for the sake of people in the FUTURE! MUSIC Before Christopher Columbus (real name Cristobal Colon) made his transatlantic voyages he began to believe that his plan for Atlantic navigation was divinely supported, that it was somehow connected with God’s purpose for the world. Five pages of remnants of some of Columbus’s original “papers” were sewn into the back of one of his favorite books: Historia Revum Ubique Gestarum or History of All Things and All Deeds by Aeneas Sylvius (later Pope Pius II) printed in Venice in 1477. On one of these pages he had written the Old Testament books and prophets which inspired him. He wrote: “ … the Holy Spirit, which with rays of marvelous brightness comforted me with His holy and sacred Scripture, in a high, clear voice.” Surely, not all was perfect in his life, but he had been used as a marvelous vessel in frontier work that opened up the New World from which the Gospel and workers for Christ spread throughout the world in the last 500 years. Also, think of the many people who have fled persecution and oppression through the centuries and found refuge in the New World. At the end of his life Columbus was convinced that prophecies had been fulfilled by his voyages to the Indies and he gave up his quest for science to “cleave to the Holy and Sacred Scriptures.” I have used the life of Columbus as an example. You don’t have to know every detail ... and you don’t have to be perfect ... to be an instrument God will use to impact the world, and even to open NEW, HITHERTO UNTRAVERSED FRONTIERS. Let your heart speak to you; let the Spirit’s prompting in your inner man guide you in accordance to the Holy Scriptures. What is it that the Holy Spirit is leading you to implement? God’s Spirit is in the business of impacting nations. He is in the business of opening NEW FRONTIERS. He works “behind the scenes” to bring mass deliverance of nations and groups of people. For those who will listen and pay the price, He births the ministry of “national deliverance”. MUSIC A scripture generally ascribed to the end times tells us: “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” (Mark 13:10) The word for “nations” here is the Greek word “ethnos” which can mean a tribe or people with similar characteristics, or a race. It can be as broad as a nation and as narrow as a family or clan; and usually distinguished by linguistic or cultural characteristics. God wants to impact clans and tribes, language groups and races ... people from all characteristic groups of the world to represent His Son’s bride in Heaven. “And they sung a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (Revelation 5:9) FIRST, how do you make this apply to yourself and the ministry God has given you? Answer: By IDENTIFICATION with God’s plan. If your plan fits into God’s plan, you will have GOD’S FAITH and God’s faith ALWAYS works! SECOND, why would you want it to apply to you? Answer: You will be able to effect tremendous and numerous MIRACLES - real miracles - of worldwide EVANGELIZATION and CHURCH or SYNAGOGUE PLANTING with growth of disciples who are partaking in “strong meat”. THIRD, how can you implement this? Answer: You will believe IN FAITH for an ANOINTING OF MULTIPLICATION. For help with this, go to the Archives in The Apostles Group and study the Newsletter titled “Anointing of Multiplication”. You can access the Archives at: www.realmiracles.injesus.com. Type the subject title into the “Search” box at the top of that page. MUSIC When your heart is woven into the heart of God’s plan then you can expect mighty DELIVERANCES as well as MIRACLES. God can work for you through many avenues: Enemies; Circumstances; Dreams or sleeplessness; Angels; Fastings. Prayers of believers. We see most, if not all, of the avenues listed above being used in the Book of Esther. Ahasuerus was monarch of the Medo-Persian empire and ruled over 127 provinces from India to East Africa. For six months He made a feast to all his princes and servants during which time he flaunted his riches. At the end of this time he made a great feast for seven days, inviting all people in Shushan, the palace. He had sent for his wife, Queen Vashti, to come that he might display her beauty to the crowd; but she refused, and the king became angry. The king asked his wise men, the seven princes of Persia and Media: “What shall we do unto the Queen Vashti according to law, because she has not performed the commandment of King Ahasuerus by the household officers?” The concensus of the princes was that a decree should be made that every man should bear rule in his own house; and that Vashti could come no more before the king. Also, that her royal estate and position be given to another woman better than she. Later, the king’s servants that waited upon him suggested, and talked him into, making another decree: “Let fair young virgins be sought for the king ... and let the maiden which pleases the king be replacement for Vashti.” (Esther 1:22-2:2) The king appointed officers in all 127 provinces of his kingdom to gather beautiful young virgins to the palace at Shushan so that he could choose one to be queen instead of Vashti. IT’S REPLACEMENT TIME IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH ... NOW! In the next podcast / newsletter we will discuss HOW God sets up situations to bring YOU to the forefront of ministry. MUSIC Podcast time: 11 minutes, 46 seconds (with music) Prince Handley Ministry Portal: www.princehandley.com Subscribe to The Healing and Miracle Podcast here:  SUBSCRIBE Subscribe to Apostle Talk Podcast here: SUBSCRIBE Subscribe to The Voice of Israel Podcast here: SUBSCRIBE FREE online New Testament Bible Studies, email to: worldservicesinc@gmail.com Apostle Talk Podcast (advanced teaching): www.apostle.libsyn.com Healing and Miracle Podcast: www.healing.libsyn.com Voice of Israel Podcast: www.podcastsatellite.libsyn.com Rabbinical Studies: www.realmiracles.com/rabbinical.htm Israel News and Prophecy: www.podcastsatellite.com Advanced Teaching & Growth website: www.realmiracles.com University of Excellence information, email to: universityofexcellence@gmail.com If you need healing, deliverance, or prayer, email to: princehandley@gmail.com

This 84th Episode of CS is titled Lost & is a brief review of The Church in the East.I encourage you to go back and listen again to episode 72 – Meanwhile Back in the East, which conveyed a lot of detail about the Eastern Church & how it fared under the Mongols and Muslim Expansion in the Middle Ages.Until that time, Christianity was widespread across a good part of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, & across Central Asia – reaching all the way to China. The reaction of Muslim rulers to the incipient Mongol affiliation with Christianity meant a systemic persecution of believers in Muslim lands, especially in Egypt, where Christians were regarded as a 5th Column. Then, when the Mongols embraced Islam, entire regions of Christians were eradicated.Still, even with these deprivations, Christianity continued to live on in vast portions of across the East.Let me insert a verbal footnote at this point. Much of what follows comes form the work of Philip Jenkins, whose book The Lost History of Christianity is a stellar review of the Church of the East. I heartily recommend it to all you hardcore history fans.Consider this . . .The news recently reported the attacks by ISIS on Assyrian Christians in Northern Iraq. This is a reprise of 1933, when Muslim forces in the new nation of Iraq launched assaults on Nestorian & Assyrians, in what had once been the Christian heartland of northern Mesopotamia. But now, government-sponsored militias cleansed most of the area of its Assyrian population, killing thousands, and eliminating dozens of villages.Although the atrocities weren't new, the arrival of modern media meant they reached the attention of the world, raising demands for Western intervention.These anti-Christian purges were shocked many & elicited a new legal vocabulary. Within months, the Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin referred to the Assyrians & Christian Armenians before them, to argue for a new legal category called crimes of barbarity, meaning “acts of extermination directed against the ethnic, religious or social collectivities whatever the motive; be it political or religious.” In 1943, Lemkin expanded this idea and coined a new word for such abhorrent behavior—Genocide.Yes = The modern concept of genocide as a horror calling for international sanctions has its roots in successful movements to eradicate Middle Eastern Christians.I mention this less than century old genocidal campaign against Assyrian Christians because we may tend to assume the Middle East has ALWAYS been dominated by Islam, or at least, it has since the 7th C. What we ought to understand instead is that it was only in the last Century that the Middle East wasn't understood as a home to a significant popular of Christians. Take ANY Middle Eastern person out of the 18th C and plant them in the Middle East of today and they would be stunned by the paucity of Christian presence.Until a century ago, the Middle East was a bewildering quilt of religious diversity in which Christians were a familiar part of the social and cultural landscape. Particularly startling for our time traveler would be modern-day Turkey as a Muslim land.Historically speaking, until very recently, Christians were as familiar a part of the Middle Eastern scene as Jews are in the United States, or Muslims are in Western Europe. At the dawn of the 20th C, Christians of the Middle East were about 11% of the population while American Jews are only about 2%!The destruction of the Middle Eastern Christian community is an historic transformation of the region.The decline of Christianity in the Near East occurred in two distinct phases.The first occurred during the Middle Ages and largely as a result of the Crusades. But even then, Christians suffered more or less regionally. The Syriac Church was virtually annihilated while the Egyptian Copts held their own. Reduced to a minority status, they entrenched & proved durable.But the second phase of hostility against Christians began about a century ago with the advent of a new & virulent form of Islamism. Now Christians are being systematically eradicated; either by aggressive assimilation or outright persecution. The 20th C saw the emergence of a form of Islam intolerant of any other faith.The Ottoman Turks began as a rather small power in Asia Minor. After the Mongol invasions destroyed the Seljuks, the Ottomans used the wars that followed to create a power base in Asia Minor. They gradually spread over what had been the Christian Byzantine Empire. By the time they took Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire included the Balkans, and by 1500 they controlled the Black Sea. By 1520 they ruled most of the Muslim world west of Persia, as far as Algiers, and became the main enemy for European Christians. Their European conquests advanced rapidly through the 16th C under such Selim I & Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1526, the Turks conquered Hungary, destroying what was at that time a major European power. Turkish advances weren't reversed until the their loss at Vienna in 1683.Selim I took the title of caliph, and took his role as head of Islam seriously. He ordered the confiscation of all churches, many of which were razed, and Ottoman authorities forced thousands of conversions. A century later, the sultan Ibrahim planned the total extermination of Christians. From the 15th C onward, the pressure to convert to Islam was massive. Throughout Christian territories held vassal by the Turks was levied the “tribute of children” by which Christian families had to give a number of their sons to be raised by the state as slaves, or as elite soldiers, called Janissaries. These janissaries became some of the most feared warriors in the Sultan's army against the Europeans.Ottoman warfare was extremely destructive because it drew on methods stemming from the Turkish heritage of Central Asia. Ottoman forces massacred entire Christian populations, targeting clergy and leaders. In 1480, the Turks destroyed the Italian city of Otranto, killing 12,000 and executing priests by sawing them in half. The destruction of Nicosia in Cyprus in 1570 was a crucial loss to Europe. Accounts of Ottoman warfare and punishment include such gruesome techniques as impaling, crucifixion, and flaying. When a Christian leader in Wallachia, named Vlad decided to use these very same tactics against the Turks, it gave rise to the legend of Dracula.From the 15th thru the 19th Cs, the Turks ruled over a large Christian population on European soil. They called Christians rayah, “the herd,” and treated them as animals to be sheared and exploited. A Bosnian Muslim song says >> “The rayah is like the grass; Mow it as much as you will till it springs up anew.”Though pressure to convert was strong, Christianity survived, and managed to recover in a few places like Greece & Bulgaria. But the Eastern Orthodox Church now followed the way of their earlier cousins, the Nestorian and Jacobite Churches & passed under Muslim rule.As the Near East fell under the control of Islamic states, Western European nations had an ever-greater incentive to find alternative trade routes. This they did by exploiting the seas. Well into the 15th C, explorers dreamed of linking up with the fabled Prester John, and renewing the alliance against Islam. In the mid–15th C, the Portuguese explored the Atlantic & shores of Africa. By the 17th C, Europeans were well on their way to global domination. Rising economic power led to urbanization, and the share of the world's population living in Europe and in European overseas colonies grew dramatically. Demographic expansion vastly increased the relative power of European Christianity.Expanding commercial horizons brought Europe's churches into contact with the tattered shreds of the ancient Eastern Christian groups. Tensions between European and non-European churches were of ancient origin. As early as 1300, Catholic missions in China had met sharp opposition from Nestorians, who naturally saw the newcomers making inroads on their ancient territories. Now, however, the Latin powers were far stronger than before, and better able to enforce their will. During the great period of Spanish and Portuguese empire building from the mid-16th to 17th C, the leading edge of Christian expansion was the Roman Catholic Church, fortified by the militancy of the Counter-Reformation. As Catholic clergy and missionaries roamed the world, they found the remnants of many ancient churches, which they determined to bring under papal control.So long-standing was the separation of Western and Eastern churches that the 2 sides never stood much chance of an alliance. As Christianity fell to such dire straits outside Europe, Catholics dismissed foreign traditions as marginal or even unchristian. After the fall of Constantinople, Pope Pius II wrote to the victorious sultan, effectively denying that the non-Catholic churches were Christian in any worthwhile sense: they were “all tainted with error, despite their worship of Christ.” He more or less explicitly asserted the identity of Christianity with the Catholic tradition and, even more, with Europe itself.As Western Christians traveled the world, many were skeptical about the credentials of other churches. In 1723, a French Jesuit reported that “the Copts in Egypt are a strange people far removed from the kingdom of God…although they say they are Christians they are such only in name and appearance. Indeed many of them are so odd that outside of their physical form scarcely anything human can be detected in them.”Latins were troubled by the pretensions of these threadbare Christians, who nevertheless claimed such grand titles. In 1550, a Portuguese traveler reported that the 40,000 Christians along the Indian coast owed their allegiance to a head in “Babylon,” someone they called the “catholicos.” Bafflingly, they had not so much as heard of a pope at Rome. Some years later, envoys dispatched by the Vatican were appalled to discover India's Nestorians called “the Patriarch of Babylon the universal pastor and head of the Catholic Church,” a title that in their view belonged exclusively to the Roman pontiff.For the first time, many Asian and African churches now found themselves under a European-based regime, and were forced to adjust their patterns of organization and worship accordingly.Around the world, we see similar attempts at harmonization. From the 1550s, factions in the Nestorian church sought Roman support, and much of the church accepted Roman rule under a new patriarch of the Chaldeans. Like other Eastern churches, the Catholic Chaldeans retained many of their customs and their own liturgy, but this compromise was not enough to draw in other Nestorians who maintained their existence as a separate church. The Jacobites split on similar lines, with an independent church remaining apart from the Catholic Syrians.The most controversial moment in this process of assimilation occurred in 1599, when Catholic authorities in southern India sought to absorb the ancient Syriac-founded churches of the region, the Thomas Christians. The main activist was Aleixo de Menezes, archbishop of the Portuguese colony of Goa, who maneuvered the Indian church into a union with Rome at a Synod in Diamper. In Indian Christian memory, de Menezes remains a villainous symbol of European imperialism, who began the speedy Romanization of the church, enforced by Goa's notoriously active inquisition. The synod ordered the burning of books teaching Nestorian errors as well as texts teaching practices Europeans deemed superstitious. A substantial body of Syriac and Nestorian tradition perished. Many local Christians reacted against the new policy by forming separate churches, and in later years the Thomas Christians were deeply fragmented.Yet despite this double pressure from Muslims and Catholics, Eastern Christian communities survived. At its height, the Ottoman Empire encompassed the Middle East, the Balkans, and North Africa, & in Europe included millions of subject Christians. Even in 1900, Muslims made up a little less than half the empire's overall population.This survival seems amazing when we think of the accumulated military catastrophes and defeats between 1300 and 1600, and the tyranny of sultans like Selim I. Yet for all these horrors, the Ottomans also found it in their interest to maintain a stable imperial order. After Sultan Mehmet II took Constantinople, he formally invested the new patriarch with his cross and staff, just as the Christian emperors had done previously. Christian numbers stabilized as the Ottomans granted them official status under a system dating back to the ancient Persians. They had their own patriarch who was both religious and civil head. This system endured into the 1920s.Within limits, Christians often flourished, to the puzzlement of western Europeans, who could not understand the distinctive Ottoman mix of tolerance and persecution. Particularly baffling was the extensive use the empire made of non-Muslims, who were in so many other ways denied the most basic rights. Sultans regularly used Christians and former Christians as administrators, partly because such outsiders would be wholly dependent on the ruler's pleasure: eight of the nine grand viziers of Suleiman the Magnificent were of Christian origin.Making their life under the new order more acceptable, Christians actively proved their loyalty. Above all, Orthodox believers were not likely to work with foreign Catholic powers to subvert Turkish rule. The Orthodox found the Muslims no more obnoxious than the Catholic nations, whose activities in recent centuries had left horrendous memories. Apart from the Latin sack of Constantinople in 1204, later Catholic invaders like the Venetians had been almost as tyrannical to their Orthodox subjects as were the Turks. Even in the last days of the empire, a Byzantine official famously declared, “Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's hat!” Matters deteriorated further when the Orthodox saw how Catholics treated members of their own church in eastern Europe.By far the worst sufferers from the carnage of the 14th C were the old Eastern Syriac churches, precisely because they had once been so powerful and had posed a real danger to Muslim supremacy. Neither Jacobites nor Nestorians ever recovered from the time of Timur. If we combine all the different branches of these churches, we find barely half a million faithful by the early 20th C, scattered from Cyprus and Syria to Persia. This implosion led to a steep decline in morale and ambition. Instead of trying to convert the whole of Asia as they had originally envisioned and seemed within their grasp, the Syrian churches survived as inward-looking quasi-tribal bodies. Succession to the Nestorian patriarchate became hereditary, passing from uncle to nephew. Intellectual activity declined to nothing, at least in comparison with its glorious past. Most clergy were illiterate, and the church texts that do survive are imbued with superstition and folk magic.Well …That brings us now back to Europe and the monumental shift the Western Church had been moving toward for some time, as we've tracked over 8 episodes in our series, The Long Road to Reform.We'll pick it up there in our next episode.