Constantinople, 1116

The Offices of the Patriarch of Constantinople were marked as such; a fairly large, elaborate building located somewhere away from the Basileus’s, closer to a large cluster of churches. A Byzantine eagle was present on the building, as was the Patriarchal seal also present on all official proclamations made by Nicholas III. In contrast to the “open-door” policy common among the churches, the Offices were closely guarded. If one was to walk through the front doors, they would find themselves accosted by multiple guards, perhaps half a dozen, asking them their business in this place. Most were turned away. Repeat offenders would be thrown back onto the streets, sporting a few wounds.

Inside, the corridors of the place were a maze, with twisting hallways, numerous dead ends, and not-at-all conveniently-placed staircases, some of them on opposite sides of the building. The halls were also sparsely lit, devoid of windows and artwork. This was done to create and further the impressions of size and sameness. The door to Nicholas’s actual office was relatively inconspicuous, with the only distinguishing feature being a subtle carving of the Patriarchal seal on it.

All of it - the guards, the layout, the Spartan-ness of the hallways – was done so intentionally, to fit in with the motifs that the Patriarch had wanted: mystique, inaccessibility. Was this where the Patriarch worked? Yes. Did you know it? Yes. Did you have any chance of getting in and getting an audience with him? Not on your life. Enter not this building, for inside resides the man whom God Himself speaks through.

The Patriarch’s actual office was more traditional, but then again, it was not known or appreciated or viewed as a sign of relief amongst the population of Constantinople, for the people who made it inside actually had business doing so in the first place. It was moderately-sized, much better lit, and had a number of adornments on its wall: A fragment of the True Cross, a woodcut of Jesus’s miracle at Cana, a painting of Constantine founding the city. There was a rumor that, hidden in the Patriarch’s desk, was the Titulus Crucis itself: The plaque that read “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”, or INRI for short, but that was the stuff of hearsay, never to be confirmed.

Then, there was the man inside the office. Despite the power of his position, he was another one who had rarely been seen, and that was exactly the way he wanted it. He communicated almost exclusively through the written word, whether it be books, letters, or the Proclamations that the Senators of the Magnaura were now familiar with. If there was arguing to be done, his Representative (hand-selected, finely trained in the art of debate, among other areas) was there to do it – provided he wasn’t banned from the Magnaura by the Basileus.

Oh sure, there had been many requests for the Patriarch over the years, whether it be public appearances or private meetings. The Senators especially had wished for his presence. Meetings for general strategy? Requests for personal approval of charters of Orders? Go down to Athens to bless a church and then discuss the weather afterwards? Coronations of the unimportant? He had turned them all down – politely – and with good reason. The meetings, the blessing especially – they were the job of some two-bit mayor of a fishing village announcing the official opening of a market, not God’s representative on Earth!

No, the Patriarch had decided long ago, the Senators had just wanted them to use him as leverage. Get into a disagreement with me, will you? Well, I have the Patriarch on my side! This became quite evident in the Session of 1081, when his Proclamation was read, deemed “interesting”, and promptly forgotten. Words from such a man were not to be treated as such. It was only until Nicholas had offered a reward of exquisite armor did people follow his agenda.

Most of the Houses respected his position, but that was it. His words were taken merely as suggestions, weighted only as much as some lowly Strator’s, and not thoroughly studied as they deserved to be. Certainly, at least one House listened, but the Patriarch knew this was only because the Order of St. John’s goals, so far, had lined up with his. Had he pointed his finger west at Rome instead of east at Cairo and the Levant, he was certain that Grandmaster Ksanthopoulos would still argue to head to Antioch and pronounce his own reasoning correct.

It was after that Session of 1081 that the Patriarch made two decisions. First of all, considering the response to his words, he would become perhaps the most inaccessible man in the world. This was a success. The only audience that had been granted over the years with the Senators was with Vissarionas ek Lesvou, and that was only because the Patriarch had requested it in order to hear what his man had learned before he fled Cairo. Nicholas’s words would be few and far between, and as a result they would be more listened to. If the people of Byzantium wanted wisdom, they would have to first prove themselves worthy of receiving it.

His second decision was more an opinion of the overall situation than a course of action. In short, he decided that the Orthodox people, his flock, suffered from a severe lack of faith.

All of them focused on political gain rather than spiritual improvement. People wishing to destroy innocent lives in newly-conquered cities just to add to their already-wealthy coffers. Wishing to conquer land, not because it would mean more people would be saved, but because it would give them more power. Not even the royalty was spared from it. The Basileus’s whorish daughter, fancying herself to what appeared to be half the Empire. The Caesar, all but announcing his total disdain for the Crusade and instead focusing his attention on pleasing his supporters. Even the Basileus himself, taking priests along in offensive campaigns, converting the populace for public order reasons, not because it was simply the right thing to do. Yes, the Byzantine Empire was in desperate need of an injection of faith.

And who better to give it to them than their spiritual leader? He had sat and waited, establishing his reputation as a man who needed to be listened to on the few occasions he spoke, and then found an opening. In 1095, shortly after the close of that year’s Magnaura session, a young man, a Strator and Sergeant of the Order of St. John, had written to him, begging for penance to make up for his role in the sacking of Antioch. The Patriarch, sensing Vissarionas’s eagerness and willingness to do anything to erase the stain, quickly thought up a plan that would accomplish several things at once.

The boy was sent to Cairo, under vague instructions to work his way into the city environment and get far into the governmental proceedings. Hungry for redemption, he was eager enough to do anything. It was only a matter of when. Thus, the Patriarch began to wait.

Over the years, he had received numerous letters from Vissarionas, most of them long-winded and woefully uninformative things which said nothing of value. These were not letters to Mother, they were reports! It would have been much more efficient to say “no progress yet, am trying a different approach”. And so the Patriarch had waited still, occasionally replying with letters of encouragement.

Finally, in 1107, the boy had sent him something worthy. He had informed the Patriarch that he had made contact with one of the Caliph’s concubines, or perhaps the Caliph’s very favorite one, and now had access to the palace in Cairo as a result of his being her Greek tutor. Very soon, the spying would begin.

The Patriarch had then drafted the letter, informing the Caliph of a terrible Christian plot to rise up, form an army, and kill every single Muslim they could, with one Vissarionas ek Lesvou as the mastermind. It was all a hunk of lies, of course, but the Caliph, already a paranoid soul, didn’t need to know that. He would, naturally, overreact. To add credence to the letter, the Patriarch also put Vissarionas’s address in as a post-script, information gleaned from the boy’s many letters. The infernal things were finally good for something.

Naturally, this put Vissarionas at a great risk, but the Patriarch was confident in the boy’s ability to escape. Even if he perished, there would be no great loss, as he had other agents present in the city. His backups were unneeded, though, as Vissarionas had landed in Constantinople right before the Magnaura session, just in time to tell Nicholas of all the horrors that were about to transpire in Cairo.

The plan had worked perfectly, of course. As the Patriarch predicted, the Caliph had taken the bait and then some, highly overreacting to the point where he was ready to commit genocide. According to Vissarionas, it was fated that most of the Coptics and Gnostic residents of Cairo would soon die horrible deaths, not to mention the fact that the ancient monasteries were about to be torn down; material for outrage great enough to spur even the regrettably irreligious Senators into action. Nicholas cared little if there were any actual deaths among the Gnostics and Coptics. As far as he was concerned, they were heretical sects, only marginally better than the Muslims and no threat, unlike the Catholics to the west. Martyrdom would serve them better than life ever did. Besides, if the greatest man in history, Christ the Savior, had become a martyr, then surely some good-for-nothing breakaway sects could do it as well.

And so it was: The Crusaders were off, about to pass the point of no return on their mission. Naturally, the Muslims picked that time, the time when the Greeks were most vulnerable, to call their Jihad. The Patriarch was not surprised in the least; he had expected it, after all. More than that – he had planned it. What was once a muddled bunch of ideas in 1081 and a fuzzy outline after Vissarionas had written him in 1095 was now a clear and sharp strategy. Everyone was playing their parts, including the Caliph, whether he knew it or not. Of course he would call Jihad based on a perceived attack on his faith. The malleable fool was still under the impression that there was to be an organized uprising in his capital city, grounds enough to warrant the actions he took.

Yes, the Jihad would come – that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that it would be fought off (for that, the Patriarch had no doubt; he knew the fighting prowess of the Greek soldiers). The Orthodox faith would be defended when it mattered most, when the Patriarch had assured all it would be. Combine that with the undoubtedly to-be-successful Crusade, and all of sudden there would be two great, two massive, two enormous victories for Orthodoxy.

Then, maybe then, the Senators would realize the power of religion. Then, there would be a great swell of faith among the elite. Then, they would do the right things for the right reasons. Then, the wisdom of the Patriarch would go unquestioned and his detractors would be rightly ostracized.

Then, Orthodoxy would reign supreme.

Patriarch Nicholas III sat in his office, shut off from the rest of the world, dreaming of the utopian future he had set into motion.