Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was superior to anything Islam had developed. Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam. Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions. Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'. Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.
(Alexius Comnenus)
John Julius Norwich’s very detailed and well written narrative entitled ‘Byzantium, the Apogee’ is a great primer for any who are interested in the most Christian, and for nigh on 1000 years, the world’s wealthiest and most sophisticated empire. As Norwich relates, the battle of Manzikert on August 26, 1071 AD, was unquestionably,
“…the greatest disaster suffered by the Empire of Byzantium in the seven and half centuries of its existence. The humiliation was bad enough, the performance of the imperial army having been characterised by a combination of treachery, panic and ignominious flight; the fate of the Emperor, too, was unparalleled since the capture of Valerian I by the Persian King Shapur I in AD 260….the real tragedy lay not in the battle itself but in its appalling epilogue. Had Romanus Diogenes been permitted to retain his throne, all would have been well…”
The Musulman Seljuk Turk annihilation of Romanus and the largely mercenary armies of Byzantium at Manzikert, denuded the Christian empire of valuable and arable land, which provide men for the armies, taxes for the state and food for Constantinople. The Musulman Sultan was more focussed on conquering Fatimid Shia Egypt than in eradicating Byzantium. He took Romanus prisoner and on very lenient terms, without demanding more land or excessive ransom, allowed him to return to Constantinople, assuming that his northern border would now be secured and he could assault and reduce the Fatimid Caliphate. Romanus never regained the throne, losing it to the usurper Michael VII, who blinded the former emperor, and imprisoned him in a monastery, where he died 2 years later. One of the first acts of Michael VII was to repudiate the treaty between Romanus and the Seljuks.
The abrogation of the lenient treaty meant that by 1080, the Turks had conquered wide swathes of Anatolia, some 30.000 square miles according to Norwich, renamed the Sultanate of Rum (Eastern Rome). In a short period of time Byzantium had lost half its manpower and a considerable portion of its grain output. The court intrigues in Constantinople, the persona ambition, the smug ‘intellectualism’ of the inner circle, led to disastrous and quite ignorant decisions. The empire did nothing to obstruct the flood of Muslim Turks over once Christian territory, with wealthy cities, trade routes and valuable farmland given up with nary a fight. The magnificent achievements of Basil II or the Bulgar slayer, in extending Byzantine control over the Balkans and to the Danube were also crumbling away due to ineptitude and corruption. The empire was seeing itself torn from the south and from the north.
Inflation and economic malaise followed political and military turmoil and tumult. The standard gold coin lost 25% of its value in a decade, with Emperor Michael VII nicknamed ‘Minus-a-quarter’. A weak and feckless leader, Michael VII allowed the government to be run by a corrupt eunuch from his inner circle, one Nicephoritzes, who promptly continued the great centralisation of authority. Corn and grain trade became government monopolies, which predictably became disasters. The socialisation of key agricultural output created shortages, high prices and poor quality. The supply of grain dropped as the landowners were squeezed by high taxation and reduced prices and profits, whilst consumers saw their price of basic bread rise sharply. Inflation simply accelerated.
As with all flailing and failing empires, civil war followed and hollowed out a lost decade after Manzikert. It was a mixture of ‘the anarchy’ in the England (1138-1153) and the War of the Roses (1455-1485). It ended with the rise of a young, dynamic and successful military commander to the throne, one Alexius Comnenus. He gave the empire 30 years of solid leadership but even his skills and acumen could not repair the damage of Manzikert and the lost years from 1025 and the death of Basil II, to 1080. As Norwich states, ‘But he could, and did, restore to Byzantium its reputation and its good name among nations, thus preparing it to play its part in the great drama that was to begin to unfold even before the end of that turbulent century: the Crusades’.
The fate of Byzantium leads to one of the great ‘what if’ questions of history. What if after 1025, the leadership of the Christian Byzantine leadership had been as intelligent, skilful, ruthless and militarily bold and capable as Basil II, or Alexius Comnenus? It is unlikely that Manzikert would have occurred, and improbable that the Muslim Turks would have swept through Anatolia and beyond. It is highly likely that modern day Turkey would be Christian, and Istanbul unknown and still called by its rightful name – Constantinople.
Two great schisms occurred in Christian history. In the modern era we are witnessing a third and probably final and fatal schism. The First schism occurred in 1054 between the Western and Greek Eastern churches. The differences between Roman and Western European culture and liturgical rites, idols and art, and of Greek and Eastern language and ecumenical emphasis, made a division ineluctable. Add in the sordid nature of politics, the dynamics of dynasties and territorial control, and the endless conflicts which dominate the Middle Ages, and the original schism can be viewed as inevitable. The second Christian civil war and separation was the Protesting ‘Reformation’ leading to Lutheranism and State-controlled churches. Thought protests and outrage at the abuse of the Catholic Church and its accretion of wealth and power was necessary, very little in the way of reforming or reformation can be seen from this event. It did benefit the State and its cabalistic interests, however which was the main purpose.
The third great schism is occurring in the modern age. After 10 years of the worst Pope in a very long time, the interests and sects which preach the secularisation and ‘globalisation’ of the Church have hollowed out the core of Catholic history and dogma. Pope Francis and his coup of 2013, erected by a small group of ‘St. Gallen mafia’, initiated the evisceration of traditional Catholic teachings and history. The purpose is to align the Church to secular interests in all areas of culture, finance, and technocratic globalism. Perversely, this very same objective will be the end of the Church itself. The disaster that is the Papacy of Bergoglio heralds the collapse of the Catholic Church and this is simply a matter of time. The Church, a 2000 year old institution steeped in history, miracles, revelations and innovation has made itself irrelevant. It is probably fair to say that many if not most of its operatives, clergy, Bishops, Cardinals and apparatchiks, including the Pope, are not really Catholic. They are politicians and of a very crude and low quality.
For the past 10 years, under Bergoglio, the imposed and false Pope, a great revolution and schism has developed in the Catholic Church. It is in essence the infiltration of the Church in Rome, by operatives who ultimately work for “the prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), namely the Devil and are evil in their influence and objectives. ‘The prince of this world’ works through the faux-Pope Bergoglio, who is implementing the wishes of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 which sought the collapse of traditional Catholicism. This disastrous council ushered in Masonic influence within the Catholic Church, mirroring the Masonic penetration in most Western governments, in particular the ‘criminal’ US Federal government. The philosophies of Bergoglio and Vatican II are represented by ‘nominalism’ (nothing is real), ‘progressivism’ (science as religion), and ‘relativism’ (everything is equal), and have been employed as weapons to undermine fidelity to Catholic history and tradition.
Bergoglio and his cabal do not promulgate Catholic doctrine. They are on the record for stating that Catholics and Christians should not evangelise their faith. They believe in the power of secular government and authority to be far greater than the Church. ‘Relativism’ imbues the Church’s position on Muhammadanism, open borders, other faiths and even paganism. Under Bergoglio the Catholic Church is just one faith or belief system of many, and probably not even the best, truest or most important. Traditional mass is now outlawed, and some of the most traditional Catholic and holy of groups are openly persecuted by the Vatican and Bergoglio including the Franciscans of the Immaculate, the Heralds of the Gospel, the Little Sisters of Mary Mother of the Redeemer. Other traditional Catholic groups are declared to be ‘terrorist’ groups. It all fits the pattern for both Church and State. From Vatican II and Bergoglio Catholic doctrine is demoted and ridiculed and its place the new religious doctrines are elevated, including inter-alia:
This third and final schism, on-going since 1965, is an act of self-immolation, implemented by the ‘Deep Church’ in alliance with ‘Deep State’ actors, and those pushing a ‘New World Order’. All of the above theologies from the globalists and deep state. The core of Church-rot lies within the once-vaunted, now emasculated and corrupt order of Jesuits. Bergoglio is first a Jesuit and then a Catholic. It used to be Catholic law that it was forbidden for a Jesuit to ascend the ranks of the Hierarchy. For some reason, in Bergoglio’s case, this precedent was ignored when he became a consecrated Archbishop of Buenos Aires. This was a papal dispensation given rather ironically and surprisingly by Pope Benedict, often portrayed as the anti-thesis of Bergoglio. If that dispensation had not been granted and instead the Rule of St. Ignatius had been respected, Bergoglio would never have become Pope. It is evident that the Jesuits have played a prominent role not only in carrying out the conciliar revolution, but also in manoeuvring to bring one of their own to the Throne of Peter. It is also obvious that the rot in the Jesuit order and the Vatican long pre-dates 1965 and that for whatever reason, Pope Benedict wittingly, or unwittingly, played a decisive role in bringing the disaster called Bergoglio to the papacy.
The ‘Bergoglian’ revolution is the extension of Vatican II. Since 1965, the Church no longer views itself as unique or inspired by divine guidance. It roundly rejects most of its history, especially those pertaining to the mystics, the saints, the physical and well recorded and observed miracles, the apparitions, bleeding statues, stigmata, blood giving eucharists, the Shroud of Turin which cannot be explained even by the most mendacious of Church-haters. The entire corpus of the immaterial and spiritual, so significant and real for Catholics over 1900 years, consigned to the superstition, illiteracy, gullibility and fanaticism of primitive people – the same ones who built civilisation including modern science, mathematics, medicine and technology.
It is hard to know if priests, bishops, cardinals, the Vatican, the hierarchy of the Church and Bergoglio actually believe in God or Christ. Perhaps real faith hides within the governance structure. The Catholic Church is a top-down dictatorial model of governance. There is no room for individuality. No church in the Catholic world preaches Catholic history, miracles, the saints, or Hell. Some of the gospel readings do include miracles created by Christ but are usually glossed over as the sermon rushes on to the ‘urgent’ issue of ‘the climate hell’. Not a mention of Christian Hell in any church. No historical anecdotes, analogies, personality expositions, or references to the great achievements of the Catholic Church. Nothing.
The only refrains uttered in the Catholic Church is that ordained by its top-down directorate and the themes are globalist-Marxist, suffused with ‘relativism’, earnest applause and concern for not just Muhammadans but non-believers, Gaia and the deep-state demands of compliance and conformity. Anyone who is ‘good’ goes to heaven states Bergoglio, no need for that tiresome investment of energy and intellect to understand the Catholic catechism and the old and new testaments. Christ was Lord says the Church, but let’s be quiet about it quickly adds. It might sound ‘unscientific’ to be too bold about the claim. Some sermons cautiously mention that imitating Christ and ‘loving thy neighbour’ no matter what, would be a good path forward. But the sermon will reiterate that the relationship of ‘love thy neighbour’ is entirely uni-directional. There is no need for anyone to love you the Catholic and when you are hated, you should accept it and know your place. Turn your cheek and don’t fight back, accept your inferiority, and ‘bear your cross’. You are of no importance and your creed is at best a nice superstition. These are vapid and degraded inversions of the real gospel and point of Christianity. Such a doctrine of passive supine ignorance would have landed a medieval priest a meeting with a rope and a stake.
What is the logical outcome of Vatican II and the Bergoglio-coup? Empty churches, empty offertories, empty seminaries, empty religious orders and empty-headed clergy.
The Corona scamdemic was in my opinion, the death knell for the Catholic Church. It could have stood up to the globalist-secular state and defended freedom. It could have invoked its muscular 2000-year history of civilisation and protecting natural law rights. From Don Pelayo to Copernicus, from Leo III to John Paul II, the Church could have rallied civilisation and those with critical thinking skills, even those non-Catholics who could view the Fascism for what it was, against the demonic evil of the scamdemic. The dead from lockdowns, the stabs, the policies, may have been prevented. Instead the Church acquiesced and ignored its historic role as the guardian of civilisation and freedom, not to mention critical thinking and faith. It was simply an accessory to fascism and murder. The Church abdicated its power and authority to the ‘deep state’ and its globalist cabal. More than likely, money was involved as a reason for the abdication. Priests or any Catholic who spoke out were attacked, marginalised and shuttered – by the Church.
It is clear that the Catholic Church is rending itself into pieces. Traditional Catholics are attacked, some are declared to be terrorists. They won’t participate in the Bergoglian heresy. Globalist ideology, open borders, relativism, neo-Malthusianism, the New World Order, and the Religion of Humanity, all conspire to destroy the Church from within. When the Christian Church sounds like the BBC, or a UN manifesto, it patently serves no real purpose.
Read: Archbishop Vigano on what ails the Church.
After the Muslim victory at Manzikert in 1071 A.D., the enslavement, slaughter and rape of Christians inside and near to the Muslim state reached biblical levels. A French priest wrote in the late 11th century, “Far and wide (Muslim Turks) ravaged cities and castles together with their settlements. Churches were razed down to the ground. Of the clergymen and monks whom they captured, some were slaughtered while others were with unspeakable wickedness given up….” The Muslim Turks had taken over the most fertile and important manpower areas of the Byzantine empire after Manzikert. Entire areas and populations were forced to accept the Muhammandan cult or face depredations, enslavement, rape or even death.
There was no tolerance and no golden age. Byzantium’s Emperor Alexios I Comnenos (1081-1118) lamented that, “The holy places are desecrated and destroyed…Noble matrons and their daughters….violated one after another like animals….even bishops are defiled with the sin of sodomy…” The Muslims sought out to not only destroy Christian Byzantium but to defile, mock, degrade and absolutely debase it and its adherents in the most demonic ways imaginable. No criticism of such savagery exists today of this sordid chapter in history. None will be tolerated.
The atrocities committed by Muslims post-Manzikert included the lands of Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Armenia. Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, wrote Michael the Syrian, were easy prey for the Muslim Turks. Many female pilgrims were raped, some in the view of the pilgrimage group until the woman died from the repeated assaults. Other pilgrims were simply murdered, and their few possessions taken. Some others were tortured for sport. The Turks were simply following centuries of examples set by Muslim Arabs. It was nothing new. For example Caliph Hakim Allah (996-1021) ordered the destruction of 30.000 churches in Egypt and Syria including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. A persecution that was one of an endless array enacted by Muslims against Christians. However, by the 1090s after Manzikert, the Christophobia enacted by Muslims seemed to reach a crescendo. The demonic assaults against Christians and their edifices and culture were so lurid and so evil that even the usually apathetic Western states and its Church took notice.
The Muslim Turk and their endemic, obsessive Christophobia is the context for Pope Urban II’s November 27 1095 call for a religious war, a Crusade to save the Church in the East. Pope Urban II said inter-alia, “They (Muslim Turks) have completely destroyed some of God’s churches and they havre converted others to the uses of their own cult. They ruin altars with filth and defilement….They are pleased to kill others by cutting open their bellies, extracting the ends of their intestines, and tying it to a stake….And what shall I say about the shocking rape of women? Rise up and remember the manly deeds of your ancestors…Deus le Veult” God wills it said Urban. God demands a Crusade to save Christianity and those afflicted by the demonic assaults of Muslims. Save Christian siblings demanded Urban II. Can you imagine anyone in the modern Catholic Church stating even a jot or iota of these sentiments today? The modern Church would blame the victims.
By 1095, the Western world had changed. The states and empires of the West, forged in the smithy of Christianity, were by this time advanced civilisations. They were wealthy, agriculturally ahead of the rest of the world, technology and invention abounded in all spheres of life, it was the age that would birth universities, eyeglasses, blast furnaces and the heavily armoured mounted knight, basically an impenetrably tailored muscular warrior on a protected steed, an early form of mobile tank.
Western civilisation had been at the mercy of the Muslim Jihad for centuries. Its coastal areas depopulated and raided. Most of Spain and southern France taken, occupied, and devastated. The once Romano-Christian areas of North Africa which before the Muslim Jihad were appendages of the Christian Roman empire and tied by trade and culture to the eternal city, were conquered, occupied, looted and destroyed by Muslims. The once rich societies and their economies eviscerated never to recover which is why North Africa is a mess and a wasteland in the modern era. By 1095 the feudal warrior states of Western Christianity had had enough of Muhammad’s cult and its endless frenzied and psychotic Jihad. As St Augustine stated, “It is the injustice of the opposing side, that lays on the wise man the duty to wage war.” Nicely stated and true. The only way to end the Muslim Jihad is to annihilate it in war.
The Seljuks were Turks who converted to the Muhammandan cult in the 10th century. They were not the first group within the Muhammadan cult(s) to use slave soldiers, enabling and implementing the idea of chattel-soldiery during the 10th and 11th centuries. Arab Muslims ruling in Syria and Anatolia had used slave soldiers to great effect as early as the 9th century (in for example, the complete destruction of Christian Amorium). Later during the 14th century and beyond the Ottomans became the most successful with the idea of using chattel as military, until their slaves became the masters, or the arbiters of power during the 17th century and beyond. Scanderbeg the great 15th century Albanian-Christian leader who resisted Ottoman depredations for 25 years, was formerly a ransomed child slave and forced lover of a depraved Ottoman Sultan who enjoyed young boys, along with the unlimited numbers of White Christian and other sex concubines categorised meekly and inoffensively as a ‘harem’. As if being a sex slave was enriching and a path to better things in life.
The Turks were used in the 9th century and perhaps earlier as slave soldiers for the Arab-Muslim rulers or Caliphs in the Near East. They were chosen for their bravery, loyalty and savagery in battle. As with other nomadic people, the cult of Muhammadan resonated with them, and the Turkic tribes converted en masse during the 9th century. Ibn Khaldun always referenced as a Muslim polymath and genius descried the Arabs as stupid and wild, and the Turks as ravenous wolves who loved Jihad and the destruction of Infidels. The allure of Jihad, the plunder, the rape, the women as sex slaves, the squatting on higher civilisations such as Christian Byzantium magnetised and obsessed the Muslim Turk. In the Turkish Book of Dede Korkut, the Turks combined their pagan practices with Muhammadanism including a particular love for Jihad, “I shall raid the bloody infidels’ land, I shall cut off heads and spill blood, I shall make the infidel vomit blood, I shall bring back slaves and slave-girls.” Not much nuance or misunderstanding here.
By the early 11th century, the Muslim Seljuk Turkish tribe was the key power in the Muslim Near East. The Seljuks seized power and the torch of Jihad. The 11th century was the era of Holy War, with the Muslim zeal for the complete destruction of Christianity at a zenith, matching that of the early 7th century Arab Muslim Jihad invasions of Christian territory. The bloodthirsty ‘beasts’ of Islam, the Turks, made their baleful, evil presence felt first in Christian Armenia. Byzantium had sent much of the wealth and manpower out of Armenia back to Constantinople. By 1049 the Seljuks were running amok in Armenia, putting the large Christian city of Arzden to the torch, slaughtering over a 100.000 and enslaving the remainder.
Over 800 churches were burnt down. Priests were burnt in churches and nuns raped on altars, a particular Muslim enjoyment. A camel train stretching to almost 1000 was needed to cart out the plunder. In 1065 the Muslim Turks laid siege to the Armenian capital of Ani. The earth apparently trembled with the usage of the Muslims huge siege weapons. Once inside the entire city was put to the sword or enslaved. These are just some examples of what transpired in Armenia during the 11th century and beyond. Hundreds of thousands of Christians killed, raped and hundreds of thousands more enslaved by the Muslim Turk, just in one area (Armenia and eastern Byzantium) and just within one generation. No need for Turks to bend knees to Christians today.
The apogee of Muslim rapine and carnage was actualised in 1071 at the battle of Manzikert. The Muslim Turks had tried unsuccessfully to invest the Anatolian city in 1054. Manzikert was a key stronghold in eastern Anatolia and nearby Armenia, an extremely large, prosperous and well-fortified city. Constantinople did little to help the eastern borders of their empire, the raids became deeper, more savage and destructive by the year. The peasant Anatolian farmer who supplied not only food, but much of the Byzantine army, was being killed, wounded, exiled or forced off his estate. The army and economy thus suffered terribly. In 1070 the new Byzantine emperor Romanus lead an assault to turn back the Jihad. He expelled the Muslims from Cappadocia, and near Lake Van in Armenia wiped out a Muslim army. Due to an internal revolt in the West, Romanus withdrew, and the Muslims took advantage finally conquering Manzikert just north of Lake Van. Romanus responded by assembling a mammoth mostly-mercenary army and marched forth from Constantinople to confront the Muslim Turks at Manzikert.
Romanus recaptured Manzikert and divided his considerable forces into 3 parts. One large force under the Norman leader Bailleul, was charged with taking Khilat to the south of Manzikert. A large Muslim army of some 40.000 calvary confronted Bailleul who withdrew not to Manzikert but to the north west and safety. The Muslim Turks then rode onto Manzikert. Romanus had begun marching to Khilat to link up with Bailleul when he was surrounded by the Muslim legions under their commander Muhammad. On August 26 1071 the two armies met near Manzikert. The Turkish horse used light calvary tactics of hit and run, shooting volumes of arrows at the Byzantine infantry and disappearing. The terrain was to the Muslim advantage. They could gallop forward, fire their arrows, and disappear, while the heavily armoured Byzantine infantry plodded forward. The Muslims had unlimited land to work with, there were no natural barriers to obstruct their tactics.
It was treachery that doomed the Byzantine Christians. Intrigues had formed groups opposed to Romanus. During the battle the general leading the rear of the army, fled the scene, apparently citing the reversed standards of Romanus as proof he had been killed, when in fact he was alive and fighting with the standards displayed as they should be during battle. Once the rear army fled, the remainder panicked. Romanus and his remaining loyal rump were surrounded and cut down by the Turks. The Byzantine emperor was taken prisoner and most of the soldiers who stood with him were put to the sword either during or after the battle.
The outcome of Manzikert was as decisive as that of Yarmuk for the Arabs in 636 A.D. The Turks conquered Anatolia, Asia minor, Nicaea not far from Constantinople and Ephesus. The Byzantine empire was near death. Hundreds of thousands if not more Christians were killed, enslaved, or forced to convert to Muhammadanism in once Christian lands. The Byzantines lost their most fertile and productive areas and their largest sources of manpower. It was a disaster that would take until 1453 to formally play itself out.
Christian Byzantium and Christian Constantinople were the wealthiest, most sophisticated, advanced, cultured and educated entities in the world in the 11th century. This ‘golden age’ far outshone anything offered by the Muslim slave empires, either current or past. A Turkish epic from this period, declared in reverential awe the splendours of Christian Byzantium and the need to destroy it for the sake of Jihad: ‘….of all the places I have seen, I never saw a place like the land of the Rum (Byzantium)…May they pull down its monasteries and set up mosques and madrassas in their places.’
The Arab domination of the Meccan moon cult empire fast waned after 750 AD with the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate. It was replaced by the Persian Muslim bureaucracy, with the military, the most important tool for social order, mostly of non-Arab origins. Many of the soldiers were slaves. The slave armies were voracious and vicious. In 838 AD, Armorium a rich Christian city near Armenia was assaulted by 80.000 or more Muslim slave soldiers, the walls were breached, the citizens raped and slaughtered, the pillage and looting monumental and thousands of white Christians became Muslim slaves (Michael the Syrian). The Muslims wrote that the bodies were heaped everywhere. Many Christians were roasted alive in public. Of the 70.000 citizens of Armorium, half were murdered, and the other half fell into slavery. It must have been a golden age of enrichment for the Armorians.
The destruction of Armorium had a tremendous effect on the entire Byzantine empire. The emperor during that period, Theophilus I, was from Armorium. The Muslims had chosen Armorium to be destroyed specifically to terrorise the emperor. He died 3 years after the annihilation of his home city, aged 28. The Byzantine military under a General named Bardas, took the offensive in 866 AD attacking the Muslims in modern day Iraq and along the coasts of the Levant and Egypt. Cyprus was liberated and a Muslim army eviscerated in Mesopotamia. The rise of a Bulgar empire during the 10th century distracted Byzantium from the Muslim threat, and forced it into a long era of wars, raids, treaties and expenditure.
Emperor Nikephorus II Phokas, in the early to mid-10th century, resumed the Christian Crusade against the Muslims. He was described as a great general, a Herculean figure, a powerful man in body and mind, severe in piety and religion, austere and brutal. He was born along the Anatolian frontier, an area devastated by the Muslims. He well knew the consequences of ‘enrichment’. Nikephorus won a long list of battles against the Muslim Jihad, including the liberation of Crete and wide swathes of Anatolia and Syria. He ordered his men to burn any copies of the execrable Muslim handbook of Jihad – the Koran.
The incessant warring had led to high taxation, and the usual Byzantine court of intrigues, disloyalty and gamesmanship was evident. Nikeophorus’ downfall was his wife’s doing. Dissatisfied with her monkish husband, famed for his all-night vigils and fasting, she became the lover of his nephew one John Tzimikes, who with a group of his men, murdered Nikephorus aged 57, late one night in 969, cutting off his head. Tzimikes became emperor and continued the Christian onslaught, taking many cities including Nazareth in Palestine and Syria. He met the same end as his predecessor, succeeded by Basil II, one of the great Christian conquerors in history. Under Basil II the Byzantine empire reached its greatest apogee of power. Basil II was known as the Bulgar slayer, reducing the empire and power of the Bulgars, as well as that of the weakened Muslim caliphate to the south and east.
Before the rise of the Ottomans, who would prove along with Tamerlane and the Mongols, to be an apogee of Muslim fanaticism, cruelty, ruthlessness and Jihad, the Christian Byzantine empire had achieved a century of great success, rolling back the Muslims in Asia, the Levant and the western Mediterranean. But as usual in history, apathy, civil discord, court intrigues, murders, depositions, corruption and immorality became endemic, post an era of expansion, success and peace. After Basil II internal dislocations and power seeking, including overt and covert civil wars within the civil bureaucracy took precedence. The threat of the Muslim Jihad was ignored. The military and related investments suffered. The lack of societal rigour, belief and commitment to the survival of the Christian empire ensured complacency and naivety. The threat of the Muslim Turk and its slave army was ignored, and its potency underestimated.