Trinitarian Christianity in Europe 151There was, however, yet another revival of Unitarianism in the
Eastern Byzantine Empire, centred in and around Constantinople,
and culminating in the campaign of Leo the Iconoclast who liter
ally set about breaking up images and id ols in earnest in 726 AD.
Pope Gregory II, fearing that Leo' s puritanical zeal might spread
to Italy,warned him of dire consequences if he did not stop smash
ing id ols. Leo ignored his threats and subsequently invaded Italy,
determined to purify the Western as weIl as the Eastern Church.
Leo and his army were, however, heavily defeated by the Roman
Catholic troops near Ravenna.
After this confrontation, the two Churches never re-united - in
spite of the fact that they both subscribed to basically the same
Paulinian and Trinitarian doctrines - especially after Leo's son, Con
stantine the Adoptionist, called the seventh Synod of Constantino
ple, in 774 AD,whichdulydeclaredthatimageworship was a cor
ruption of Christianity and a renewal of paganism and that accord
ingly all images should be destroyed.
There was, predictably, a backlash against this attempt to eradi
cate and eliminate the use of images which had been so easily and
so comfortably accommodated into European Christianity, and it
cornes as no surprise to learn that in 787 AD the second Council of
Nicea re-endorsed the permissibility of using images. This ruling
finally resulted, after many years, in the widespread use again of
images not only by the Greek Orthodox Church, but also by what
became known as the Russian Orthodox Church. By the time that
both the Eastern and Western Trinitarian Churches were united
once more in this practice of permitting and using images, how
ever, they had drifted so far apart in other respects - especially as
regards their respective ruling hierarchies - that it would have been
impossible for them ever to re-unite again under a single head of
'the Christian Church'.
It is in the light of this split between the Eastern and the West
ern Churches that the sack of Constantinople during the fourth
Crusade, in 1203 AD, by a Roman Catholic army -which had os
tensibly set out to 'Iiberate' [erusalem from the Muslims - can be
understood. Although the majority of the inhabitants of Constan
tinople at the time were Trinitarian Christians, and accordingly
subscribed to the same basic religious doctrines as the majority of
the members of the army which was attacking them, the two 'sides'
were nevertheless far enough apart ideologically for one to be able
to regard the other as 'the enemy'.