Page 258 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

eastern europe 607

trial sector was in Hungary, where industry was only 24 allies,and the Greek church,which was backed by Byzan-
percent of GDP. Development of industry, transporta- tine power. Local princes looked both to Rome and Con-
tion, and communications in the late nineteenth and stantinople. Duke Borivoj (d. 889), founder of Prague,
early twentieth centuries was generated largely through was baptized into the Slavic rite,while the Bulgarian czar,
foreign investment. Austrian, German, and French firms Boris I (d. 889), exchanged letters on theological ques-
owned factories, railroads, and shipping lines in the tions with the Roman pope.Their choices,and the success
region. Foreign companies owned 95 percent of Roman- of one rite or the other in a particular principality,resulted
ian oil deposits. The other driving force behind the more from political exigencies than religious conviction.
region’s economies was state interference in or direction The expansion of the Roman church in the Czech lands
of development.Thus, the economic central planning of and Poland during the ninth and tenth centuries was due
the post-World War II Communist regimes was not a largely to German bishops and the emperors Otto I and
great departure from the pattern of preceding decades. Otto III. In 917, the patriarch in Constantinople estab-
Under the Communist regimes, the Eastern European lished an independent patriarchate for the Bulgarian
economies were tied to each other and to the Soviet church.Although independent, this new church followed
Union in the COMECON trading bloc. Industrialization the Slavic rite and maintained loyalty to Constantinople
advanced rapidly in the region, although at a steep cost: —thus remaining free from Rome. This competition
resources and finished goods were exported, below mar- between the ecclesiastical authorities, and local princes’
ket value, to the Soviet Union, while factories scarred the strategies of playing Rome off against Constantinople,
landscape of the region, particularly the northern Czech continued after the Great Schism of 1054 separated the
lands, southern Poland, and Romania. patriarchates into the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
churches.In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,the two
Frontiers Between churches vied for converts in the last pagan areas of
Religions Europe: an arc from Lithuania through Belarus and
The indistinct boundaries of the Catholic patriarchates of Ukraine to the Black Sea.At the same time, in mountain-
Rome and Constantinople also met in Eastern Europe, ous Bosnia,a church emerged that was independent of the
and missionaries from both cities brought Christianity two authorities and combined elements of both Latin and
into the region. Both the Roman pope and the patriarch Slavic-Greek traditions. By the mid-1400s, though, this
in Constantinople recognized the early mission of the Bosnian church was broken, largely through the efforts of
brothers Cyril (c. 827–869) and Methodius (d. 885). Franciscan missionaries, and both Catholic and Ortho-
Sent from Constantinople, Cyril and Methodius carried dox churches competed for its former adherents.
the Christian faith north of the Danube, together with a The religious map of Eastern Europe was further col-
Slavic literary script to be used for liturgy. Even in areas ored by migrations, invasions, and reform movements of
that were loyal to Rome after the Great Schism of 1054, the late medieval and early modern periods. Ashkenazic
this liturgy and script, known as Glagolitic, continued to Jews, speakers of Yiddish, migrated from the Holy Roman
be used: in Poland and the Czech lands, the Slavic rite Empire into Poland in the twelfth through the fourteenth
persisted until the twelfth century; in Croatia and Dal- centuries and into Lithuania, Ukraine, and Romania in
matia, Glagolitic was the script for liturgical texts into the the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Of the 7.5
twentieth century. This script became the basis for the million Jews living in Eastern Europe in 1900, 70 percent
Cyrillic alphabet used today in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, lived in these areas.The Sephardic Jews of Southeastern
Bulgaria, and other nations. Europe, distinct from the Ashkenazim in custom and lan-
Following the mission of Cyril and Methodius, com- guage, were descendents of the Jews expelled from Spain
petition arose between the Latin church, with its German in 1492 and welcomed into the Ottoman empire. The