“The Christian victory of Lepanto on October 7, 1571,” a “triumph…still today is a symbol of the militant spirit that should never leave the Christian,” writes Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Astana (Kazakhstan) Athanasius Schneider in a recent book preface. He thus thematically introduces the excellent new book by leading Italian Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei, Saint Pius V: The Legendary Pope Who Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, Standardized the Mass, and Defeated the Ottoman Empire.
Schneider notes that 2021 is the 450th anniversary of this decisive defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire fleet off Greece’s western coast by the Holy League’s combined Christian naval force “closely tied to the name of St. Pius V.” Michele Ghislieri, whose brief but tumultuous papacy as Pius V lasted from 1566-1572, “was the true author of the Holy League” in 1571 among the Vatican, Spain’s King Phillip II, and the Venetian Repulic, notes Mattei. “It is not by chance that the Church on earth is called the Church Militant, inseparably united in the communion of saints with the Church Triumphant that rejoices eternally in Paradise,” thus observes Schneider. “St. Pius V offers us a luminous example of this militancy.”
Mattei examines in detail how the “defense of Christianity against the Turks constituted a dominant theme of the pontificate of Pius V.” “From its foundation to its fall,” the Ottoman Empire “was a state dedicated to expanding the Islamic faith by means of arms.” Particularly during the “second half of the sixteenth century, Islam had reached the apex of its expansion from the Red Sea to Gibraltar, from Baghdad to Budapest, reaching the gates of Vienna.”
No romantic illusions color Mattei’s descriptions of Ottoman rule’s brutal reality. “The Italian coasts were devastated by the raids of Barbary pirates, who sought women for the harems of the viziers and men to sell as slaves or to be enlisted in the Janissaries, the elite private army of the sultan,” Mattei writes. Thus the “pontiff knew that there would be no possible truce with Islam until the Ottoman Empire was definitely annihilated.”
Pope Pius V’s grand strategy was accordingly ambitious. The Holy League “constituted ‘a perpetual League, both offensive and defensive, against the Turks,’ in order to recover all the places usurped by them from the Christians,” Mattei writes. He notes how Pius V additionally sought alliances against the Ottomans as far away as with Persia’s Shiite Muslim shah, Ethiopia’s Coptic king, and Russia’s Orthodox czar.
Correspondingly, Pius V was not satisfied with resting on the Lepanto victory’s laurels. “For the first time in a century the Mediterranean was free. From that day forward the Ottoman Empire began its long decline,” Mattei writes. Yet in Pius V’s eyes, the “victory of Lepanto was not for him a point of arrival but the beginning of a possible reconquest of the Christian East.
By contrast, other European powers rejected Pius V’s vision in pursuit of their own practical political goals, Mattei repeatedly recounts. French king Charles IX, for example, dispatched the bishop of Dax, François de Noailles, to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople to negotiate between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The resulting “nefarious peace” of March 7, 1573, marked the Holy League’s end.
Nonetheless, Spain’s Philip II remained resolutely “Joined in Battle” with Pius V, as Mattei analyzes. He writes in description of the Spanish sovereign:
Philip II was certainly, along with St. Pius V, the dominant figure of his age, but while the pontificate of Pope Ghislieri lasted only six years, the kingdom of the Spanish sovereign lasted for the entire second half of the sixteenth century. During this half-century, no great political decision escaped his gaze and influence.
“Pius V saw in Philip II the political personification of the Counter-Reformation, the sword on which he could count to fight against heretics and the infidel Turks alike,” Mattei notes. The pair shared the “conviction that Catholic doctrine did not admit accommodations or compromises.” By example, Phillip II “personally attended five autos-da-fé” or burnings at the stake of Protestant dissidents from the Catholic Church. At one, Philip II notoriously said to the condemned, “I would carry the wood to burn my own son if he was as wicked as you.”
The Catholic Mattei does not shy away from the brutality in the wars of religion among Protestants and Catholics as a once united Christendom fractured, yet he also debunks myths surrounding the Catholic Church’s Inquisition. “Specialists have shown that the procedure of the Inquisition was in fact a step of progress in the history of law, because of the guarantees it granted to the accused and the seriousness with which the trial was carried out,” he writes. The Inquisition’s “guarantee of the right of defense, which was unusual for that time, went so far as to grant to the accused the right to freely choose a lawyer.” The defendant could also “have the court give him a copy of all the documentation gathered in his regard in order to set up a defense strategy.
Yet Pius V’s link to Lepanto is central for Mattei, as he places this battle in a cosmic context. Frescoes commissioned by Pius V in commemoration of Lepanto and completed on May 2, 1572, a day after his death, today adorn the Vatican’s Sala Regia, the reception area for sovereigns and ambassadors. Here the “battle is also shown taking place in Heaven, with Christ with a lightning bolt in hand, followed by St. Peter and St. Paul,” Mattei notes. “On the left side of Christ appear St. Mark, the patron of Venice, and St. James, the patron of Spain, and around them is a host of angels with darts and bolts of lightning.”
This celestial cloud of witnesses connects for Mattei Lepanto to modern times. “Today another battle is unfolding, more dramatic and uncertain, and it seems as if the enemies have conquered the flagship of Christ’s fleet. However, St. Pius V continues to assist the Church Militant from Heaven,” Mattei writes. Pius V’s “mission is not over, and he appears as a model of the Pastor of the Church that the Christian people urgently need.” To learn more about this model, Mattei’s biography is a good place to start.
gregbeetham says
It is lamentable that the French didn’t get behind the movement inspired by Pius V to expel the Muslims from every Christian place they had invaded. I don’t think we will ever unite under a Pope again because the Christian faith is too fragmented and doesn’t have the clout it once had, most governments would laugh at the suggestion of supporting some kind of Crusade these days and they are also totally inept at recognizing the threat posed by Islam’s continual expansion into our countries by one means or another.
The future looks bleak unless we and our governments wake up.
GFF says
Thanks for this article…..
This sea action meant a great deal (and it was a big deal) to my brother (RIP).
Thanks again.
I have a vague memory of some connection to the Rosary and an Admiral of the fleet.
I’ll look it up, if there is a connection (Cervantes too). Thanks again, again.
Andrew Harrod says
Cervantes fought at Lepanto.
Infidel says
Okay, how did you manage any article about the Battle of Lepanto w/o any mention of Don John of Austria – the admiral who led the effort from the Holy Roman side?
gravenimage says
Here is G. K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto”:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47917/lepanto
And many mentions of Don John of Austra (as well as a mention of Cervantes).
Infidel says
I found it interesting that Chesterton still used the name ‘Byzantium’ to refer to the Ottoman Capital, even though it had already been renamed after Constantine
gravenimage says
I think this was because “Byzantium” generally meant more than just the capital.
Infidel says
But wasn’t Byzantium the original name of the city, and only changed to Constantinople after the death of Constantine?
SAFI says
@Infidel … Roman history nerd here… technically its official name during Constantine’s reign was “New Rome” , a name that still survives in the official title of the orthodox Patriarch (“Bishop of New Rome / Constantinople”) . Before its “New Rome” rebranding it was known as Byzantion for nearly a millenium except for a brief period when Septimus Severus renamed it “Augusta Antonina” as part of its punishment for supporting a rival claimant to the the imperial throne (similar to how Jerusalem’s being renamed “Aelia Capitolina”)
Worth noting though that the ancient name Byzanti-on(/um) was never completely forgotten and occasionally pops up even in much later medieval sources.
Also besides Constantinople it was sometimes referred in Greek and various other languages by several alternative names such as “Queen of Cities”, “Great City”, “City of the Caesar/emperor”(Tsargrad) etc…
PS. Gravenimage thanks for G K Chesterton’s poem which I think somehow hadn’t read before , despite having done a ton of reading on this Battle 😉
gravenimage says
Thank you, SAFI.
G. K. Chesterton also wrote “The Flying Inn” about resistance in an Islamised England of the future.
gravenimage says
The Church Militant and the Battle of Lepanto, 1571-2021
……………….
This battle was a watershed (no pun intended) on Europe defending against Islam–and largely put an end to Islam as a great sea power. (Of course, their piracy in the Mediterranean would continue for another two hundred years).
Kepha says
I recall that when I visited Sicily and Italy, all the coasts had these watchtowers and castles whose purpose when they were built was to warn of Islamic pirate raids. It is said that the Sicilians built on top of mountains, and seldom lived near the sea prior to the 19th century’s breaking of the Barbary Pirates.
gravenimage says
Kepha, it is interesting that recreational bathing in the sea–the beginning of “beach culture”–developed in Britain and spread to France and Italy and beyond starting right after the threat of the Barbary pirates was ended in the early 19th century. Before that it was only fishermen and seamen who braved the coasts.
GFF says
Semper fi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSRlQPD6Xiw
Prince Eugene says
“From its foundation to its fall,” the Ottoman Empire “was a state dedicated to expanding the Islamic faith by means of arms.”
The Turks have never ended their current 759 year-long War of Jihad on Western Civilization. The intent of all Islamic States is to conquer the world for Sharia.
David Foot says
My comment is for the cotton pickers who have never seen a plant of cotton in their life at benefit office where they earn their living and want “reparations” on top of the easy life which we pay for them.
Well if you put together ALL the black slaves taken to North America you don’t get to the amount of white slaves which were taken from Northern Europe by the Africans to their slave markets in North Africa.
And I have more numbers and evidence for the cotton pickers, after the battle of Lepanto 15,000 white slaves were freed and which had been captured by the Africans.
Are the Africans going to pay Europe reparations for all the slaves which they took to the Barbary coast to sell in their slave markets?