Chapter 199 The Crusader Hurricane is Coming
The island of Cyprus lacks a highly unified bureaucracy, and there is no connection between the court and the local government.
In fact, the island of Cyprus exists apart from being a geographical concept.
The only one that can cover the entire island on a social entity level is the Church of Cyprus.
After the "Senate" disappeared from the physical and physical level, the only one who could represent the islanders of Cyprus, mobilize the power of people everywhere, and issue a unified "Oracle" was the Church of Cyprus.
At the same time, the Cyprus Church, as a branch of Christianity, found itself powerless when faced with a super-standard existence like Garris.
In other words, ever since Garris performed a miracle in the Holy Synod, killed all the "Varangis" in an instant, and picked up the gold-plated "royal scepter" from the body of Sophronius. hour.
Under the whole world, the north and south of the earth, the four poles of the universe...
The only true head of Christ was born.
He was not an archbishop appointed by the false emperor who overran the church, nor was he a Catholic pope who inherited the legacy of St. Peter.
He is the reappearance of Christ the Head, the second reaffirmation of the Word to this earth.
When Garris came to this sacred meeting of bishops and picked up the scepter, he was only taking back the authority he deserved.
Because Christ is the source of all priesthoods, the priests of the Old Testament were only images of Christ, while the priests of the New Testament actually acted in the identity of Christ.
As part of Orthodoxy, the Church of Cyprus rightfully recognizes this.
In fact, in the 12th century, there were not many substantive differences between Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism.
Christianity maintained relative unity in the first few centuries. Churches in various places recognized each other's bishops and used ecumenical councils, such as the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Constantinople, etc., to resolve theological disputes.
But as the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire developed different cultural and linguistic practices, differences emerged between Eastern and Western Christianity.
The Eastern Church used Greek, while the Western Church was dominated by Latin. Differences gradually emerged between the East and the West in terms of liturgy, theological concepts, and church organizational structure.
To be precise, there are more and more disagreements between Western European Christianity, centered on the Roman Patriarchate, and other scattered Orthodox churches under the jurisdiction of the Roman Patriarchate.
In 1054, the conflict officially exploded, and the so-called "Great Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches" occurred between the Eastern and Western churches.
The immediate causes of this schism included the "Filioque" issue (Latin "Filioque", meaning "and the Son") and the authority of the church.
The "Philioc" issue refers to the fact that in 1014, the Roman Catholic Church added a word to the Nicene Creed without the approval of the Ecumenical Council.
So that the original [I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the Giver of life, proceeds from the Father. 】
It becomes "I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and Life-giver, proceeding "from the Father and the Son". 】
The change of a word is intended to indicate the equal status of the Son and the Father in the Trinity, emphasizing the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity.
Other churches think, you bastard Roman Church, you didn’t discuss this with us before doing this, so why are you talking to yourself? Where to put their authority, status, and face?
In addition, almost all formal churches in Western Europe at that time had the Pope as the highest leader, advocating that the Pope had supreme authority and was free from fallacies.
Other Christian churches reject this papal monopoly and advocate autonomy for local churches.
As a result, the Eastern and Western churches excommunicated each other's bishops, leading to the official split of the church into the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
It can be seen from this that the split between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church is more reflected in the conflict over whether the Roman Church and the Catholic Pope have supreme authority in the Christian system.
But this problem is not a problem when facing Garris.
No matter how authoritative and sacred the Pope of Rome is, can he be as authoritative and sacred as Gallis?
Can the Roman Pontiff stand still and let the blood of sinners be shed?
Can the Pope of Rome stand still and not be hurt by mortals?
The Holy One of Jerusalem, the Passionate Body of Jesus, the prophet who has been hiding for thousands of years, is the brother of the Heavenly Brother! He died of a stab wound!
The bishops present either rejected the grace of Garris and were accused of being sinners, but they were unable to use biblical criticism to argue against the actual miracles.
Or you can only accept it from the heart, and then become more and more fanatical.
The Kingdom of Heaven is no longer just words, the Holy Word has come to earth for the second time.
This bleeding earth is bound to usher in the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Every benefit and authority that Garris takes away from the powerful and the church is guaranteed by the kingdom of heaven after death.
Eternal life, resurrection of the body, and a wonderful future with God.
It has never been as real as it is now, so real that people can’t help but give everything...
Thirteen bishops, through more than two hundred priests, they are spread throughout Cyprus.
Every church proclaims the real "oracle" to the surrounding farmers, citizens, and landowners.
【Look! The tabernacle of the Lord is on earth! God Himself will live with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 】
【No more weeping, no more mourning, no more death, old things have passed away, all things are new...】
For a time, in the hearts of countless people, Cyprus seemed to be only one step away from welcoming the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Even though there is no explicit statement from any priest, many people feel that as long as they follow Garris's footsteps, they may get a ticket to the Kingdom of Heaven.
And this also explains the confusion in the hearts of many people: why a group of peasants can defeat Isaac's army one after another; on the contrary, the big shots of the "senior" nobles were easily slaughtered when they resisted Isaac.
But it would be easy to understand if those victories are all part of the miracle.
After all, everyone knows that this world was created by the Lord Almighty. As a son of the Lord Almighty, it is natural that he can win all wars.
After the preaching of more than two hundred priests, thirteen bishops, and the deacons vividly restored the scene in the "Council Hall" to testify for Garris.
A wave of religious fanaticism spread across the island, including the heroes who had been resisting Isaac and the devout believers.
Under the organization of the priests and bishops, a scene of 14 armies of princes gathered together was staged.
Nearly 30,000 people abandoned their work, obeyed the priest's call, and joined such a "pilgrimage" or "crusade."
This time the "Crusade" was no longer announced by the Pope of Rome, but by a saint from Jerusalem: Gaelius.
Of course, it was also not an eastward expedition, but a march to the west, toward Isaac's palace.
However, it was different from the disastrous First Crusade.
This time the 30,000 "Crusader" were divided into more than 200 small teams. Each team was led by a priest and each had only about 150 people.
Coupled with the obedience of the deacons to the priests and priests, who can serve as squad leaders, and the Frankish veterans who serve as consultants, the effect of the organization is actually quite good.
In addition, the distance between the east and west of Cyprus is up to 220 kilometers. For most people, the round trip distance does not exceed 200 kilometers. Bringing 7 days of dry food can solve the problem of eating.
Therefore, Gareth is happy to see this happen.
……
Once the number of people exceeds 10,000, it is a sea of people.
On this vast coastal plain, a larger army than the island of Cyprus had ever seen was assembled.
Most of these people are farmers in simple clothes, their faces are tanned and their hands are calloused.
Citizens wore relatively few clothes, but more of them carried weapons.
A very small number of nobles stood out from the crowd. They were well-equipped and rode horses, and they seemed to stand out among the crowd.
Of course, the Greek nobles did not have the same martial spirit as the Frankish nobles, so they were all just fake.
Although most of the thirty thousand people did not carry any decent weapons, just when they gathered together, they were already like an ocean.
Those soldiers of the Liberation Front patrol the outer layer and are constantly on guard against any suspicious potential enemies.
But on the island of Cyprus, no one, no one, dared to launch an attack.
Isaac's Turkic mercenaries were frightened after experiencing the war in Garis.
They couldn't understand artillery, and they couldn't understand Garris. In these days, they were in panic all day long, constantly spreading their fear to their compatriots who had never participated in the war.
It can be said that the Turks have given up on Isaac, and all they want is to get rich quickly.
I don't want to stay on this isolated island for even one more day.
The dust was raised as the people marched, the sun penetrated the sparse tree shadows and sprinkled on the ground, and the sea breeze was mixed with the salty and humid atmosphere, just like the unconventional footsteps of these people.
The palace in the distance and the guards standing on the castle had their legs shaking just by seeing the scale of this "holy war" army.
This was a sloppy army nearly a hundred meters wide and stretching hundreds of steps from front to back.
Indeed, they are a mob.
But after the number of mobs accumulated to this scale, the guards on the castle wall could no longer afford any resistance.
This is an army that has never been assembled on the island of Cyprus!
A hundred times the number of defenders in the castle!
[Therefore, the method of using troops is to surround an enemy with ten troops, attack it with five troops, fight it if it is doubled, fight it if the enemy is small, escape from it if it is small, and avoid it if it is weak. Therefore, if the small enemy is strong, the big enemy can be captured. 】
——"Sun Tzu's Art of War: Planning and Attack"
The meaning of this passage is that if the enemy is twice as strong, we must work hard to defeat the enemy; if we are five times as strong as the enemy, we must attack; if we are ten times as strong as the enemy, we must encircle and annihilate the enemy.
So what if we are a hundred times stronger than the enemy?
The answer is to conquer the enemy without fighting.
When the 30,000-strong army arrived at Isaac's Castle, the billowing black smoke had already filled the castle along with the rising fire and loud calls for help.
Flames raged deep within the castle, dancing among the stone walls and singing a silent dirge above the ashes.
The huge smoke column is like a spear piercing the sky, trying to involve the heavens in this inevitable catastrophe.
In this raging fire, the will of the sinner turns into the soul of the flames, and the ghosts of the ages rise from the abyss, swallowing up the city walls and hope with a hissing sound.
Even the ground beneath the feet of the 30,000-strong army was trembling slightly, as if in response to the faintly audible anxious whisper in the air.
The bishops and priests were stunned, and the "Crusaders" who came here for pilgrimage and holy war were also at a loss.
This is an ending they never imagined.
Amid the waves of whispers, the cheerful laughter of revenge, or the heartfelt cries of grief, the castle door was opened from the inside out.
A man, riding a horse alone, walked towards the ocean with the crisp sound of hoofs in this silent world.
Behind him is the towering castle like a giant, and the smoke column rising into the sky. Each flame in it seems to be chanting ancient scriptures. “That day is coming, says the LORD of hosts, and it will be like a burning furnace, and all the arrogant and evildoers will be like stubble, and they will be burned up in that day, and not a branch or a branch will be left. 】
——"Malachi" 4:1:
As he approached, Archos and the others saw clearly who was coming.
That was Isaac, but his clothes were not the royal robes he usually wore in the past.
In fact, in the eyes of Aljos and the others, today's Isaac is not only less majestic than "royal".
On the contrary, he is more like a dramatic actor on stage.
He wears traditional purple robes and his face is painted red, imitating the appearance of the oldest statues of the god-king Jupiter.
This is the treatment that only a victor in the ancient Roman Empire should have, but now, a "Basilius" who is in the sunset has dressed himself up like this.
But it was all worth it, he became the only protagonist in the world, and the eyes of tens of thousands of people were focused on him.
The sky is high, the earth is deep, and he is alone.
"Holy One of Jerusalem! Stand up and look me in the eye!"
However, no one responded to Isaac, just when Isaac was impatient.
From the crowd, there were shouts of "borrow", "sorry" and "give way".
Only one person squeezed out from the crowd.
In the cold wind of February 1188, the man was wearing a heavy coat. When he took off his hood and revealed his rather young face, everyone realized his identity.
He is Gareth, the leader of all this today.
Now, he stood in front of Isaac.
However, compared with the lonely Isaac, behind Garris now are the ocean, the waves, and a total of 30,000 people!
The one-man tyrant, who places himself above all things, only drives a small boat from one side of the sea to the other, and then he dares to claim that he has conquered the sea.
Garris turned himself into water and melted into the ocean, breathing together with the people.
Everyone became a priest, and now it was no longer the consecrated bread or the sacrifice that was sacred, but the people.
What these people have lost are only their shackles, and what they have knocked down are only tyrants and idols. However, what awaits them is the Lord’s mercy and the entire world that they are bound to gain.
This was Isaac's first time seeing Garris, and he never imagined that Garris would be so simply dressed and so young.
Garris walked slowly to Isaac's horse.
The "lonely God King" and the "Christ" who stirred up the sea met under this sky.
Once upon a time, the island of Cyprus was once full of temples to the old gods. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was believed to have been born on this island.
Even Augustus of Rome was regarded as a god, and even his daughter Julia and his wife Livia became "the goddess Augusta and the new goddess Aphrodite" respectively.
But the old beliefs, those idolatries, eventually disappeared with the coming of the gospel of Christ.
But those lost old gods and those dismantled idols are, after all, the ghosts of the ages rising from the abyss and returning to the world again.
The idol of a tyrant falls from heaven, causing sorrow to the innocent. Therefore, the power of Gareth must defend these victims.
Idols have caused injustice in the world, and Gareth needs to exercise justice and implement the right path;
Idols caused his priests to ignore the suffering of all sentient beings, and Gareth was like the loving Samaritan who bandaged up the wounds of the wounded soul.
The kingdom of Jesus does not belong to this world. It does not seek a legal foothold in this world.
Because this world is full of forces that rebel against the kingdom of heaven and push people into the sinful realm of destruction, they must resist the shackles of idolatry.
Jesus announced that he would destroy the temple, which symbolized the law, because the point of fighting for life was to challenge the authority of death, because this world is a strong anti-life kingdom.
The one appeals to divine life, the other to the tyrant's sword. This is the struggle between the Lord of life and the idol of death.
This sworn conflict sent Jesus to the cross.
However, this time it was Garris who came.
Facing Garris, Isaac on horseback asked condescendingly:
"Everyone who sees me should kowtow every step of the way. Who are you? How dare you call yourself the Holy One of Jerusalem and shake the eternal sacred order of the universe?"
The Greeks have a unique spiritual world. Even though Isaac is wearing the robe of the Roman god-king, those spiritual foundations still remain.
Under the whole world, there is nothing but king's law, the universe is perfect, and God's will rules everything.
The king of heaven rules the kingdom of heaven, and the king of earth rules the world.
There should be a clear line between the two.
In this regard, Gareth's answer was: "Christ has been raised from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Death came for one man, but the resurrection of the dead comes for all."
< br>
"I am the resurrected dead. I return to this world for the sake of all living people, so that they can live to their destined age."
"Some people are crying on the earth: Lord, holy and true, how long will it take until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?"
"The Lord said to them from the beginning: They will rest a little while longer, until their fellow servants and their brethren who are killed like them will be killed, so that the number will be fulfilled."
"Now, the number is almost full, so I'm here."
When Garris finished speaking, those closest to Garris heard a crisp explosion.
And those people crowded in the front row saw with their own eyes that Isaac's head was dented out of thin air, as if it had been knocked open.
Only then did people with sharp eyes see the gold-plated royal scepter held in Garris's right hand, and noticed that the top of the scepter was stained with blood and brain matter.
But Gareth is clearly still a few steps away from Isaac!
And Isaac is still on a horse!
However, no matter what, things are over, and this drama called "The Death of the Old God" has come to an end.
The actor used his own life to give his last performance to the 30,000 spectators present.
After seeing this, Archos lowered his head and crossed himself over and over again.
He chanted in a low voice.
"Lord, please crush the teeth in their mouths. Lord, please break the jaws of the young lions."
"May they flow away like rushing water, may they wither like trodden grass; may they crawl like snails and melt away, and may they be like aborted fetuses that never see the light of day!"
"May the raging wind blow them all away before their pots feel the fire!"
"The righteous will rejoice when he sees that great vengeance has been avenged; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked!"
The vow Aljos made two years ago was fulfilled just two years later.
But he knew that this was just the beginning, there were more evil people, and in this world full of sin, they were in urgent need of people like him to follow Garris closely.
Go and smash the teeth of those evildoers!
The wind arose, and the hurricane on the sea arose, blowing to the ends of the sky.
……
In February 1188, the small town of Gisol in northern France.
The three leaders, King Henry II of England, King Philip II of France, and Prince Richard of England, are accepting mediation from the Holy See.
Now, news of the fall of Jerusalem has spread throughout Europe through messengers asking for help.
The Holy Land is in danger! Faith in God is crumbling!
All believers should stop whatever they are doing at this time, pray to God, and prepare for a new crusade.
During this mediation, though, the bishop spoke some nonsense.
But a real problem faced these three people: after years of war, their pockets were actually empty, and they even had to borrow money from Jews to survive.
When Henry II saw his son, he was filled with anger. He knew that he was now 54 years old and getting older, and sooner or later the throne would fall into the hands of Richard or his brother John.
But in the past few years, Richard, the traitor, can’t wait any longer!
"Richard, what I give you belongs to you; what I don't give you, you can never get it unless I die."
Henry II couldn't help but say when he reunited with Richard the "Lion-Hearted" after a long separation.
Faced with his father's words, 31-year-old Richard responded with a playful smile: "Father, what you said is actually too much. I didn't come to kill you."
Philip II was the youngest on the field, but he felt very embarrassed listening to the argument between father and son.
Over the years, the father and son's "father's kindness and son's filial piety" can be said to have spread throughout Europe.
Although the civil strife between father and son was in favor of the King of France, he had always supported Richard the Lion-Hearted.
But after years of war, he achieved nothing and drained the treasury.
"So, we might as well cease the war for a few years and take the opportunity to collect Saladin's tithe to replenish our respective treasury."
To break up the childish quarrel between father and son, Philip made a constructive suggestion.
Henry and Richard had different reactions after hearing this, but they both obviously understood that it was impossible to maintain the war.
"Although Saladin's tithe is collected to make up for the deficit, we have to send troops." Richard pondered for a moment and said slowly.
"This is not a big problem. It can just consume the excess second sons of nobles in the country. They are willing to support the children for the new fiefdom. We don't need too much funds." Philip seemed very shrewd in this regard, showing that he was in a good relationship with him. A completely different side of the subject image.
Eventually, peace talks were reached.
According to the external propaganda of the Holy See envoy.
King Henry II of England and King Philip II of France were moved to tears after hearing about the tragic situation in the Holy Land.
They decided to put aside their past grudges and jointly organize a crusade to support the Christian brothers in the East.
At the same time, Philip, Count of Flanders, who had been warmly entertained by the "Leper King" Baldwin IV in his early years, also expressed his willingness to join the new Crusade.
This Crusade will go out with the White Cross of England, the Red Cross of France, and the Green Cross of Flanders.
Continuing the two-in-one, super-large chapter today!
(End of chapter)