including the one at
Moscow--at last signed the Act of Union. But when the astonished
Russians heard the prayer for the Pope, and saw the Latin cross upon
their altars, their indignation knew no bounds. The Grand Prince
Vasili so overwhelmed the Metropolitan with insults that he could not
remain in Moscow, and the Union was abandoned. Its wisdom as a
political measure cannot be doubted. If the Emperor had had the
sympathy of the Pope, and the championship of Catholic Europe, the
Turks might not have entered Constantinople in 1453. But they had not
that sympathy, and the Turks did enter it; and no one event has ever
left so lasting an impress upon civilization as the overthrow of the
old Byzantine Empire, and the giving to the winds, to carry whither
they would, its hoarded treasures of ancient ideals. Byzantium had
been the heir to Greece, and now Russia claimed to be heir to
Byzantium; while the head of Russia was Moscow, and the head of Moscow
was Ivan III., who had just settled himself firmly on the seat left by
his father, "Vasili the Blind" (1462).

Christendom had never received such a blow. Where had been before a
rebellious and alienated brother, who might in time be reconciled,
there was now--and at the very Gate of Europe--the infidel Turk, the
bitterest and most dangerous foe to Christianity; bearing the same
hated emblem that Charles Martel had driven back over the Pyrenees (in
732), and which had enslaved the Spanish Peninsula for seven hundred
years; but, unlike the Saracen, bringing barbarism instead of
enlightenment in its train.

The Pope, in despair and grief, turned toward Russia. Its Metropolitan
had become a Patriarch now, and the headship of the Greek Church had
passed from Constantinople to Moscow. A niece of the last Greek
Emperor, John Paleologus, had taken refuge in Rome; and when the Pope
suggested the marriage of this Greek Princess Zoe with Ivan III., the
proposition was joyfully accepted by him. After changing her name from
Zoe to Sophia, and making a triumphal journey through Russia, this
daughter of the Emperors reached Moscow and became the bride of Ivan
III. Moscow had long been the ecclesiastical head of Russia; now she
was the spiritual head of the Church in the East, and her ruling family
was joined to that of the Caesars. Russia had certainly fallen heir to
all that was left of the wreck of the Empire, and her future sovereigns
might trace their lineage back to the Rom