Bizanţul şi Europa Centru-Orientală: criză structurală sau reviriment identitar (II): de la Cruciada a IV-a la Common-Wealth-ul instituţionalizat
Byzantium and Central-Eastern Europe: structural crisis or identity revival (II): from the Fourth Crusade to the institutionalized Common-Wealth

Summary/Abstract: The diversion of the Fourth Crusade from its original goals to the actual conquest of Constantinople and the formation of the Eastern Latin Empire was considered a turning point for the relations between the two entities of Christendom, officially separated with the Great Schism of 1054, marking the transition from the mutual contestation on doctrinal grounds of the legitimacy of each other, to the violent confrontation that would indirectly favor the Ottoman expansion and compromise the chances of restoring the unity of the Church of Jesus, in a form compatible with the institutional framework of the ecumenical synods. The confrontations that opposed the institutional actors involved in the struggle for the succession of Byzantium gave the theological disputes the concrete dimension given by the interference with the mundane agenda, but this crisis which affected both Byzantium and the Holy See, also favored the process of political maturation of some regional centers structured around some family, ethnic or regional solidarities. It also accelerated the process of crystallization of confessional identities in the border space between Byzantium and Rome. This dynamic of political and religious commitment generated the involvement of participating forces in partnerships and conflicts beyond the simple confrontations between neighboring states typical of the first medieval centuries, generating also the first attempts to structure inter-confessional dialogue, affected by the specifics of the conduct of a world bound by the lack of resources to experience tolerance or at least coexistence.

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