Bartholomew thought for several moments, each of which seemed an endless span of time to Jon. Finally the patriarch shook his head. “No, those barbarians, those putrid pirates, couldn’t even read. They wanted gold, not books.”
Jon tried not to look too elated. Swimming in relief-at least preliminary relief-he asked, “What… whatever happened to the written materials? Did the Turks destroy them?”
“Some were lost in the fires that burned at various parts of Constantinople after the conquest, but the church saved a goodly number of important documents.”
“And… where are they now?”
“Some are at church and seminary libraries of the Orthodox churches across the world-St. Vladimir’s in New York, St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai, Mount Athos-but many are here in the patriarchate.”
Glorious news! Now was the time for Jon to bare his heart. How abrupt should he be? A bald, frontal assault with an unvarnished confession of what he and Shannon ultimately desired? A series of gradual insinuations and hints? No, plain honesty would be best, he decided.
“Your All Holiness,” Jon began, “I wonder if you’d be generous enough to let us see some of the written materials-the documents, the older manuscripts?”
The patriarch seemed somewhat puzzled, hesitant.
“Well, certainly not today,” Jon quickly added, almost in panic. “But perhaps before we leave Istanbul?”
Bartholomew finally nodded. “I only wonder why we have not talked more about the matter that concerns me most, concerns the church most, which is-”
“The debate, of course?” Jon broke in.
“Yes, the debate, Professor Weber. I am to be joint moderator with Mustafa Selim. Don’t you think we should talk more about the debate?”
“Yes, certainly. This must indeed be our central concern. How well do you know Mustafa Selim?”
“Well, we are not the closest of friends, obviously, but we do respect one another. Each time Christians are attacked somewhere in Turkey, he publicly deplores it and tries to build tolerance among the more fanatic elements in Islam. Several times when our patriarchate was bombed, he even sent workers over to help in the repair. A good man. But now, Professor and Mrs. Weber, please to join me for lunch so that we can plan together at table.”
Both the patriarch and Jon had checklists for items related to the debate. Jon was most concerned for the safety of the Christians inside Hagia Sophia and whether there were really enough in Istanbul to constitute half the audience. To his surprise, the patriarch said they could have filled the entire structure with Christians, since many were coming to Istanbul for the event from Asiatic Turkey. He also reported that he and Mustafa Selim were in charge of ticket distribution, and the latter passed them out only to known, moderate Muslims. And yes, the police would be able to assure the safety of those inside.
For his part, Bartholomew wanted to know the main thrust of Jon’s opening remarks and the strategy that he planned to pursue. In response, Jon unpacked his arsenal of Christian arguments as well as the principal points in Islam that he felt were open to challenge. The patriarch’s repeated noddings in affirmation were a welcome sight for Jon, but his concluding caution was quite sobering. “You must walk a very careful line, Professor Weber. If you triumph in the debate-or, I should say, when you triumph-please do so gently. Were you to mortify your opponent, there could be ‘blood in the streets,’ as you Americans put it. On the other hand, our faith must be defended with vigor, for it is God’s own truth. The way will be narrow-and difficult.”
“That’s very sage advice, Your All Holiness, and I thank you for it.”
As they stood up from the table, their host said something in Greek to an aide. This translated itself when an aged, scholarly monk appeared and greeted them in the courtyard below the patriarch’s quarters.
“This is Brother Gregorios,” Bartholomew said. “He is our archivist and librarian. I have instructed him to let you examine our entire collection of ancient records and documents anytime you wish.”
Jon felt like wrapping his arms around the patriarch for a big hug, but he checked himself. Offering most genuine gratitude, they left the patriarchate.
On the drive back to the Hilton, Jon was pensive, even crestfallen. Shannon asked what the problem might be.
“What a study in contrasts,” he commented, shaking his head. “We’ve just conversed with the spiritual head of the second-largest church in Christendom-the eastern pope, so to speak. But the patriarchate is so much smaller than the Vatican, so very modest by comparison. It just… doesn’t seem fair.”
Shannon sighed. “Well, you can thank the Ottomans for that. Just imagine what might have happened had the Turks not conquered the Byzantine Empire.”
“Or what if they had converted to Christianity rather than Islam? We’d have a very different world today.”
“We’d have a better world!”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss, thankful that their driver was so engrossed in fighting his way through Istanbul traffic that he took no notice.
The debate was one week away. All eight thousand portable seats on the main floor inside Hagia Sophia had been spoken for. Additional folding chairs would surround the basilica on all sides, with closed-circuit television screens and loudspeakers conveying the program inside. Representatives of Christian church bodies would have VIP seating-meaning they could sit inside the basilica-as would an equal number of Islamic leaders, 84 percent of whom would be Sunni and 16 percent Shia, in accord with their relative numbers in the Islamic world.
Already the lofty galleries of Hagia Sophia were getting cluttered with television cameras, cables, and broadcast paraphernalia, next to which a special section was reserved for the world press corps. The rest of the surrounding galleries were given over to additional seating. Adjacent to the three main entrances to the basilica were security checkpoints with turnstiles, first-aid facilities, and of course, additional porta-potties.
Nothing was left to chance. Click and Clack, who suddenly had additional security help from the CIA, were putting in twelve-hour days. Each evening, they briefed Jon, Shannon, Dick, and Osman. Ferris seemed to be in constant phone or e-mail contact with Marylou Kaiser and the ICO in Cambridge. Jon himself was keeping his wits sharp through verbal duels with Osman.
Yet Jon was acutely aware that there was such a thing as too much preparation. Two days before the debate, he and Shannon decided to take a break. Perhaps an excursion on the Bosporus? A museum tour of the Topkapi Palace? Never! Like iron filings drawn to a powerful magnet, they were back again at the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate to explore the archives. This time their host was not the patriarch himself but Brother Gregorios, the librarian-archivist.
A diminutive older figure with a pointed gray beard and sallow skin, Gregorios seemed to have spent his entire life in row after row of book stacks. At first he was somewhat cool toward Jon and Shannon, as if his assigned task of showing them around his domain would cut into his beloved affair with words-printed, written, painted, pictured. But their obvious interest and apt queries seemed to melt the old man’s heart as he recognized them as genuine bibliophiles.
They had seen much larger libraries, of course-here there were only six hundred thousand books-but they had not come for the printed word. Instead, manuscripts were their target, early codices and documents from times of yore, the older the better. They had to be looking at the right place. It was in Istanbul that the Greek scholar-churchman Philotheos Bryennios had discovered the famous Didache, lost to the world since the third century, when Eusebius, the father of church history, almost included it in the New Testament canon. The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles was the real name of the work, lost for fifteen centuries until 1873 and Bryennios’s discovery.