VATICAN: Pope John Paul, in his latest effort to patch up relations with Orthodox Christians, expressed "disgust and pain" yesterday for the Catholic sacking of Constantinople, now Istanbul, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
The Pope made his comments in an address to Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and symbolic head of the world's some 300 million Orthodox believers. Bartholomew was visiting the Vatican for the first time in nine years.
The pope told Bartholomew that he could not forget what happened in April 1204 when Constantinople, the seat of the Roman empire in the East and considered a great Christian city, was attacked and sacked by other Christians in one of the most violent episodes of the Middle Ages.
"After eight centuries, how can we not share the disgust and pain," he said, referring to the fury expressed by Pope Innocent III when he heard of the raping and pillaging. - (Reuters)