Pale Death of the Saracens and the Byzantine Crusade

Support us on Patreon :   / projectglorious   Join our free Discord server:   / discord   In the mid-10th century—well before Pope Urban II—Byzantium flirted with its own idea of a crusade. This video traces how the Orthodox notion of “holy war” evolved from venerating captives who died for refusing conversion to tentatively honoring soldiers fallen in battle. We explore rare liturgies commemorating the war-dead, local cults like that of General Katakalon in Thessaloniki, and the empire’s grim reality after centuries of Arab raids and Aegean piracy. Into this crucible strides the ascetic general-emperor Nikephoros II Phokas—“the Pale Death of the Saracens”—fresh from the brutal reconquest of Crete and devastating campaigns in Cilicia and Syria. Backed by monks, troops, and commoners, Nikephoros dared what no basileus had: he asked Patriarch Polyeuktos to canonize as martyrs all who fell liberating Crete—effectively offering salvation through the battlefield. Did Byzantium almost sanction a true Orthodox crusade? We unpack the Church’s resistance to reshaping salvation around imperial war aims, the political and spiritual pressures on Constantinople, and the legacy of Nikephoros’s piety, state-building, and violence. With Antioch retaken peacefully (by order if not always in practice) and Aleppo sacked mercilessly according to Muslim sources, his reign embodies the era’s contradictions. The episode closes with informed counterfactuals: how might an Orthodox “holy war” have changed the East-West balance, the Schism’s course, or even the Renaissance? Grounded in primary accounts and liturgical texts, this is a sober look at the closest Byzantium came to turning the sword into a sacrament. Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: http://www.epidemicsound.com 0:00 True Holy War 2:02 Outside enemies of Byzantium in mid 10th century 3:28 Byzantine martial martyrdom in mid 10 century 6:48 Nikephoros and the Byzantine vengeance 9:40 Nikephoros gains support 11:17 Nikephoros demands his fallen men become martyrs 13:00 The Orthodox Church's response 13:58 Legacy and what could have been #byzantineempire #crusade #history #historyfacts #medievalhistory #epichistory #crusaderkings2 #crusaderkings3 #eu5 #byzantium #europauniversalis4 #europauniversalis5