Anti-Ottoman Cruelty and Christian Rite: The Deeds of the “Repenting” Vlad III of Wallachia

Abstract When Byzantium fell, Western attitude towards Greek rite Christians began to change, whether they were ‘schismatics’ or in union with Rome, following the troublesome enactment of the Council of Florence (1439). The modification, noted for Balkan Christians, crossed the Lower Danube. There laid the mostly Greek rite zones that stayed outside of Ottoman direct authority, even after Mehmed II’s victories in Serbia (1459), in Bosnia (1463) or in the Crimea (1475). These zones formed two (divided) states: Wallachia and Moldavia. The change of attitude towards Greek rite Christians was visible also in the Kingdom of Hungary, the traditional suzerain of Wallachia and Moldavia, and, by definition, Christendom’s anti-Ottoman ‘bulwark’. The realm had been shielded by a series of “buffer states”. These lands had largely collapsed by the early 1470s. No ruler of Wallachia or of Moldavia was “blacklisted” in the realm (and by its representatives) as ‘schismatic’ after the Ottoman conquest of Byzantium, as well as after “the miracle of Belgrade”, in 1456. The long and predominantly tolerant reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg had certainly altered the “so-to-say” Angevine rhetoric of the 1300s (that is, the Wallachians, and their lords, were ‘schismatic’ “lowlife” to be crushed). Still, the documentary (at least) change, in favour of Greek rite Wallachians appears dramatic. In this framework we turn to the controversial figure of Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia. The ‘Germans’ may have been correct: Vlad was the monster of one – single- Christian faith. This may explain why his deeds did not lead to a collapse of the unstable Christian compromise at the Danube borders of the Ottoman Empire. Vlad was a Greek-Latin Golem (officially by calling, not by making), whose death was later lamented by both King Matthias Corvinus and Stephen III of Moldavia, the Greek rite athleta of the Papacy, Vlad’s relatives.