Quotes about Eastern Orthodox Church

Pope Pius II

We ourselves allowed Constantinople, the capital of the East, to be conquered by the Turks. And while we sit at home in ease and idleness, the arms of those barbarians are advancing to the Danube …. In the Eastern imperial city they have massacred the successor of Constantine, along with his people, desecrated the temples of the Lord, sullied the noble edifice of Justinian with their hideous cult of Muhammad.

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. 6 years earlier, the Ottoman Turks, had captured Byzantium (Constantinople, later Istanbul), the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. One o the reasons the city fell was the squabbling of the different Christian national armies about support for the city and the internal bickering of those armies and navies that were there. The Emperor, Constantine XI, the successor to Constantine the Great—the roman Emperor who Christianized the Empire, was killed. Emperor Justinian had built the Hagia Sophia—the largest church at the time and for 1000 years thereafter under a single dome, and this great house of Christianity was turned into a Mosque by the Islamic conquerors.

Innocent III

We believe that the Greeks have been punished through [the Crusades] by the just judgement of God: these Greeks who have striven to rend the Seamless Robe of Jesus Christ ... Those who would not join Noah in his ark perished justly in the deluge; and these have justly suffered famine and hunger who would not receive as their shepherd the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles.

Isaac Newton

In the reign of the Greek Emperor Justinian , and again in the reign of Phocas , the Bishop of Rome obtained some dominion over the Greek Churches, but of no long continuance. His standing dominion was only over the nations of the Western Empire, represented by Daniel's fourth Beast.

Pope Francis

[Sviatoslav] Schevchuk, in the dogmatic part declares himself to be a son of the Church and in communion with the bishop of Rome and the Church. He speaks of the Pope and his closeness of the Pope and of himself, his faith, and also of the Orthodox people there. The dogmatic part, there's no difficulty. He's Orthodox in the good sense of the word, that is in Catholic doctrine, no.

Pope Francis

The one thing that the Catholic Church desires, and that I seek as Bishop of Rome, “the Church which presides in charity”, is communion with the Orthodox Churches.

Frank Herbert

In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.

Francis Bertie

It seems incredible that the Russian Government should plunge Europe into war in order to make themselves the protectors of the Serbians.

But that is exactly what they did and the First World War was on. Europeans and Americans have often underestimated the political force of the common membership in the Orthodox Church.

Edward Gibbon

The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians.

Eastern Orthodox Church Quotes