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It is (not only) the will of god»: the king-doms of Cyprus and Cilician Armenia... 175

Principality of Antioch, in which the papacy had to interfere several
times. To solve this problem, Innocent III sent letters and legates and
as a result returned Gaston, which had been recaptured from Saladin
by Leo, to the Templars. However, not wishing to ruin relations with
the Armenians, the pope sent a vexillum to Leo . In fact, the Armenian
92
approach was similar to that of the Byzantine Empire, which also reg-
ularly played the unification card when this suited its political inter-
ests. One of the first effects of the so-called Armenian ‘unification act’
can be seen in 1199, when Leo II, reminding the pope of the union of
the churches, asked for practical help against the Muslims, but in re-
turn received an answer from Innocent III stating that Leo should
make the Armenian Clergy act according to the unification . Never-
93
theless, though pressure from Byzantium had been one of its short-
term causes, Cilician Armenia’s political dependence on the papacy
did not end even after the Byzantine Empire was divided in 1204 and
rendered unable meaningfully to threaten Cilicia. At that point, the
Seljuks became a more dangerous threat to the kingdom, pushing the
Cilicians to seek further military and diplomatic protection from the
West and the Crusader kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Cyprus .
94
As has already been demonstrated, Cilician relations with the pa-
pacy were not always stable. The conflict with Antioch exacerbated
tensions until 1210, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem excommuni-
cated Leo because the latter had confiscated the Templar properties in
Cilicia. In reply, Leo took several measures against the Latin Church.
Pope Innocent, in return, threatened to cut Leo off from all military aid
95 . Although Leo confiscated Templar properties, however, he also
granted lands to the Teutonic Order, since the Order was close to the
Holy Roman Empire . This was not enough to keep him in papal favor,
96
though, and Leo had to make peace with the Templars, which resulted
in Innocent lifting Leo’s excommunication in 1213. In the following
years, relations between the Armenian Catholicos and the Latin

92 Ivi, p. 74; C. Mutafian, The Brilliant Diplomacy of Cilician Armenia, cit., p. 103. The
pope intervened in the Antiochene problem by sending letters and legates: see O. Ha-
geneder, A. Haidacher, A. A. Strnad, (eds.), Die Register Innocenz III 1198-1199, vol.1
cit., pp. 462-69, 475-77, n. 242-244, 249.
93 Ivi, pp. 409-10, n. 211.
94 B. Hamilton, The Armenian Church and the Papacy cit., p. 73.
95 J.J. Moore, Pope Innocent III (1160/61-1216): To Root Up and to Plant, Brill, Leiden,
2003, p. 205.
96 E. Strehlke, Tabulae Ordinis Theutonici cit., pp. 37-39, n. 46. In the same letter,
Leo honored the Order by describing its members as the successors of the Maccabees.
From papal letters dated to 1211 and 1215, it can be attested that the Teutonic prop-
erties and privileges in Cyprus and Armenia were affirmed by the popes Innocent III and
his successor Honorius III. See Ivi, pp.270-274, n. 302, 303.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XIX - Aprile 2022
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