Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade(Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought)

Colonizing Christianity employs postcolonial critique to analyze the transformations of Greek and Latin religious identity in the wake of the Fourth Crusade. Through close readings of texts from the period of Latin occupation, this book argues that the experience of colonization splintered the Greek community over how best to respond to the Latin other while illuminating the mechanisms by which Western Christians authorized and exploited the Christian East. The experience of colonial subjugation opened permanent fissures within the Orthodox community, which struggled to develop a consistent response to aggressive demands for submission to the Roman Church.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 1. Robert de Clari 13 2. Gunther of Pairis's Hystoria Constantinopolitana 35 3. Innocent's Ambivalence 49 4. Demetrios Chomatianos: Colonial Resistance and the Fear of Sacramental Miscegenation 73 5. George Akropolites and the Counterexample(s) 89 6. The Chronicle of Morea 103 Conclusion 123 Acknowledgments 131 Notes 133 Index 177

About the Author :
George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of four monographs, most recently The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity and Gregory the Great: Ascetic Pastor and First-Man of Rome. With Aristotle Papanikolaou, he co-founded the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He presently serves as co-editor of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies.

Review :
In drawing attention to the unique colonial circumstances generated by the Fourth Crusade, Demacopoulos succeeds in opening up the discourse for greater interdisciplinary investigation.-- "Comitatus" George Demacopoulos's Colonizing Christianity is a truly extraordinary reevaluation of historical events in light of new theoretical approaches. It is both ground-breaking and measured, revolutionary and rooted in historical specificity. Demacopoulos knows the sources he works with and presents them eloquently. These sources carry their own historiographical baggage--so much so that one might doubt the possibility of saying anything new about them. The author manages, however, to argue convincingly for a new framework in which to understand these sources, and in so doing brings them to life in fascinating ways.-- "Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies" Colonizing Christianity's analysis of a number of texts through the lens of colonial and postcolonial theory makes for useful, important, reading. There are significant stakes both for medieval historians and those committed to finding pathways of reconciliation among contemporary Christians.---David Perry, Sacred Plunder: Venice and the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade