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Christian-Muslim Encounters: George of Trebizond and the ‘Inversion’ of Eastern Discourse regarding Islam in the Fifteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Konstantinos Papastathis
Konstantinos Papastathis*
Affiliation:
University of Luxembourg
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Extract

The capture of Constantinople (1453) by the Ottoman troops of Mehmed II was a historical turning point. The political reference point of Eastern Christianity was now in Muslim hands, the Ottomans representing in the eyes of late medieval Europeans not only an enemy of the true faith, and as such an obstacle for ecclesiastical unity, but also a potential rival of the papacy as a political power. In short, within the contemporary context and the socially dominant apocalyptic frame of mind, the Ottomans were viewed as an existential threat for Christianity as a whole. While the papal reaction to this development was to go on the offensive, expressed through the call for a new crusade, the emergence of a few voices expressing divergent theological content and political orientation had special significance. One of the voices which ‘set off the politics of religious synthesis from different quarters” was that of George of Trebizond (1395–1472/3), a Cretan emigrant to Italy who lived in Venice and Florence before moving to Rome. He had converted to Catholicism without losing his sense of belonging to the East, and became a prominent figure of the Italian intellectual elite and an editor of classical and theological literature, as well as a member of the Vatican bureaucracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 51: Christianity and Religious Plurality , 2015 , pp. 137 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2015

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Footnotes

*

The author is grateful to Angeliki Ziaka, Bishara Ebeid and the editors of Studies in Church History for their support.

References

1 Krstić Tijana, Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Stanford, CA, 2011), 62.

2 For more biographical details, see Monfasani, John, George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of his Rhetoric and Logic (Leiden, 1976), 3—237 Google Scholar; Thierry Ganchou,'Le dilemme religieux de la famille crétoise de Géôrgios Trapézountios: Constantinople ou Rome?', in Maltézo, Chryssau et al., eds, I greci durante la venetocrazia: Uomini, spazio, idee (XIII—XVIIIsec.) (Venice, 2009), 251—75 Google Scholar; Ziaka, Angeliki, La Recherchegrecque contemporaine et VIslam (Lille, 2004), 111—13.Google Scholar

3 Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 130-6; Balivet, M., ‘Deux partisans de la fusion religieuse des Chretiens et des musulmans au XVe siècle: Le turc Bedreddin de Samavra et le grec Georges de Trebizonde', Bυζαντινά 10 (1980), 361–96.Google Scholar

4 Zoras, Georgios Th., ed., Γεώργιος ó Тραπεζούντιος καì αí πρòς ´Eλληνοτουρκικήυ συνεννóησιν πρоσπάθειαι αúτοῡ (H «Περì τής τών χριστιανών πίστεως» άνέκδοτος πραγματεία) (Athens, 1954)Google Scholar. For a French translation with an insightful introduction and notes, see Adel Th. Khoury, ‘Georges de Trebizonde: De la verite de la foi des Chretiens', Proche-Orient Chretien 18 (1968), 326-40; 19 (1969), 135-49, 32°-34; 20 ('97°), 238-71; 21 (1971), 235—61; this translation was later published by Khoury as Ceorges de Trebizonde ct I'union islamo-chrctienne (Louvain, 1971).

5 Monfasani, John, ed., Collectanea Trapczuntiana.Texts, Documents, and Bibliographies of George o/Trebizond (Binghamton, NY, 1984), 492—563.Google Scholar

6 Ibid. 564-74.

7 Mercati, Angelo,‘;Le due lettere di Giorgio daTrebisonda a Maometto II', Orien-talia Christiana Periodica 9 (1943), 65—99.Google Scholar

8 Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 125—36; M. Balivet, Pour tine Concorde islamo-chré-tienne. Démarches byzantines et latines à la Jin du Moyen Âge. De Nicolas de Cues à Georges de Trébizonde (Rome, 1997); Balivet,'Deux partisans', 385-7.

9 Zoras, Γεώργιος, 15-16.

10 Ravegnani, Giorgio, ‘Nota sul pensiero politico di Giorgio da Trebisonda', Aevum 49 (1975), 310–29.Google Scholar

11 Howarth, David, Stavrakakis, Yannis and Norval, Aletta J., eds, Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change (Manchester, 2000)Google Scholar; Phillips, Louise and Jørgensen, Marianne W., Discourse Analysis as Tlieory and Method (London, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Zoras, Γεώργιος, 93.

13 Ibid. 95.

14 Ibid. 97.

15 Ibid. 164.

16 Ibid. 99.

17 Ibid. 113.

18 Ibid. 76; Khoury, ‘Georges de Trébizonde', 146—9.

19 Zoras, Γεώργιος, 98-9.

20 Ibid. 100.

21 Ibid. 117, 115 respectively.

22 Ibid. 118-23, 126-31.

23 Gerhard Podskalsky, Griechische Tlieologie in der Zeit dcrTiirkenherrschaft, 1453—1821 (Munich, 1988), 20.

24 Monfasani, Collectanea, 492 (On the Eternal Glory). 21 Ibid. 493-4.

26 Ibid. 494-5.

27 Ibid. 495.

28 The chronological order of this step is clearly problematic, since the birth and growth of Islam in the seventh century long preceded the schism between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. On the other hand, it is likely that George perceived the events of 1054 as the cause of the gradual weakening of Byzantium and the defeat of the its army by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert (1071), which opened the way for the Muslims to the heartland of the Christian empire, leading to its actual fall.

29 Mercati, ‘Le due lettere', 87-91.

30 Ibid. 92-7.

31 Matt. 1: 23.

32 Monfasani, Collectanea, 565 (On the Divinity).

33 Monfasani, George ofTrebizond, 86—8.

34 Griffith, Sidney H., The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 32–9 Google Scholar; Muriel, Debié, ‘Muslim- Christian Controversy in an Unedited Syriac Text: Revelations and Testimonies about Our Lord's Dispensation', in Grypeou, Emmanouela and Swanson, Mark N., eds, Tlie Encounters of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam (Leiden, 2006), 225—36Google Scholar; Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. An Alexandrian World Chronicle, ed. and transl. Benjamin Garstad, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 14 (Cambridge, 2012).

35 Rev. 20: 7—10.

36 Monfasani, George ofTrebizond, 133-5.

37 Monfasani, Collectanea, 564 (On the Divinity).

38 Ibid. 565.

39 David Howarth,'Hegemony, Political Subjectivity, and Radical Democracy', in Critchley, Simon and Marchart, Oliver, Laclau: A Critical Reader (Abingdon, 2004), 256—78, at 260Google Scholar; compare, for this understanding of this term, Phillips and Jorgensen, Discourse Analysis, 50.

40 Laclau, Ernesto, ‘Why do Empty Signifiers matter to Politics?', in idem, ed., Emancipation(s) (New York, 1996), 36–46 Google Scholar.

41 Monfasani, Collectanea, 492 (On the Eternal Glory).

42 Toffanin, Giuseppe, ed., Lettera a Maometto II (Epistola ad Mahumetem) di Pio II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini), L'idea umanistica nella sua sintesi pit) alta (Naples, 1953)Google Scholar; Gaeta, Franco, ‘Sulla lettera a Maometto di Pio II', Bullettino dell'istituto storico italiano per il medio evo e archivio muratoriano 77 (1965), 127—227.Google Scholar

43 Monfasani, Collectanea, 525 (On the Eternal Glory).

44 The influence of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis is germane to this point: Samuel P. Huntington, Tlie Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, 1996); cf. Edward W. Said, ‘The Clash of Ignorance', The Nation, 4 October 2001, online at: <http://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance#>; Fox, Jonathan, ‘Paradigm Lost: Huntington's unfulfilled Clash of Civilizations Prediction into the 21st Century', International Politics 42 (2005), 428-57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar