Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/411



At Rome the popes were always ready to regard the distress of the East as their own opportunity; and more than once the threatened approach of the Turks to Constantinople had opened up the way for negotiations between the Lateran and the Byzantine court. A similar condition is to be observed in Russia under the Mongol oppression. The orthodox Church appeared to be now in the most helpless and hopeless condition. The Latin conquest of Constantinople had forced the Greek patriarch into exile, and his immediate task was to gather together the scattered remnants of his authority, while a usurper, a bishop of the papal Church, was sitting on his throne at St. Sophia. Thus harassed and hampered, he could not be expected to do anything to help his protégés in the north. Under these circumstances the Pope Innocent proposed to assist Russia by raising a crusade against the Mongols on condition of union with Rome. With this end in view he sent his legates to the two princes, Alexander at Novgorod, and Daniel, the Prince of Galick in the south. The former, being fairly out of the reach of the invaders, could afford to reject the papal overtures; but Daniel, whose territory was suffering from the full force of the Asiatic scourge, accepted the crown the pope had sent him and with it the title of King of Galick, though shrewdly postponing the execution