ABSTRACT
One of the interesting aspects of Sylvester Syropoulos’s account of the Greek delegation’s experiences at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438-39,1 which has intrigued students at every reading seminar that I have taught on this subject in recent years,2 is his personal, if unobtrusive, presence in every page of the Memoirs. Syropoulos does not portray himself as a central protagonist in this account – in fact, quite the contrary, since he is keen to demonstrate that he played no part in helping to bring about the ecclesiastical union that he now deplores; nevertheless, the reader is constantly aware of this acerbic figure’s interpretation of events, which is expressed by means of vivid narrative, dialogue and humorous depictions of the bishops or legates who contributed to this major encounter between the Eastern and Western Churches.3 Historians, including especially
1 Sylvester Syropoulos’s Memoirs were first published in 1660 by robert Creighton, under the title Vera historia unionis non verae (The Hague). This edition has since been superseded by Vitalien Laurent’s critical version, published in Les ‘Mémoires’ du Grand Ecclésiarque de l’Église de Constantinople. Sylvestre Syropoulos sur le concile de Florence (1438-1439) (Paris, 1971).
