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Rh an alliance must be reunion with the Latin Church. So there are a succession of embassies, proposals, arrangements made for this purpose by the Emperors, which eventually lead to reunion at the Council of Lyons in 1274. But the people over there were against the union all the time. Now especially, after the outrages they had suffered from the Crusaders, their hatred of the Franks had grown tenfold, and even to the Government the union was really only an annoyance to be borne for political reasons. So naturally the union did not last. Only in the West was there a real enthusiasm for reunion for its own sake. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Germanos II (1222–1240), now in exile with the Emperor at Nicaea, wrote to Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) in 1232 acknowledging his Primacy, and asking for reunion. The Pope sent four friars, two Dominicans and two Franciscans, with letters to Nicæa. They were very well received by the Emperor (John III, 1222–1254), but they could not arrange a union. Michael Palaiologos (Michael VIII, 1259–1282), after he had reconquered Constantinople (1261), again opened negotiations with the Pope. He was still afraid of having to defend his city against another Crusade. If only the Latins would acknowledge him and help him fight the common enemy of all Christians, the Turk, he might yet save or even enlarge his Empire.

As soon as Gregory X (1271–1276) became Pope, he set about arranging for a general council. This council was once more to arouse the Western princes to a great Crusade, so as to save the remnants of the Latin princedoms in the Holy Land, now in deadly danger, and to arrange a reunion with the Eastern Churches.

The council met on May 7, 1274, in the Cathedral of Lyons; five hundred bishops and one thousand abbots were present, also King James I of Aragon, and ambassadors from the (Western) Empire, France, England, and Sicily, as well as the Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch (p. 224); the Greek bishops arrived at the third session, on June 24th. This is the Second Council of Lyons and the fourteenth