Benedict XVI Visits Turkey in Bid to revive Roman Christendom

This is The Bible in the News brought to you again this week by Paul Billington, speaking from Ontario, Canada! This week finds the pope visiting Turkey and trying to make peace with his Orthodox counterpart and with his Islamic critics. His visit is significant and is part of the Vatican’s policy to unite the whole of Europe under the dominant spiritual headship of Rome. Istanbul--formerly Constantinople--is the hub of early Christendom as it was organized by Constantine the Great and later ruled by Justinian and other Emperors. In those days it was a united Christian (or rather Catholic) Roman Empire, and it remained that way until the Great Schism of 1054. That is when Roman Catholics in the west split from Orthodox Christians in the east. That divided the Empire along religious lines.