Selected Books Turkey in Europe & Europe in Turkey
by Turgut Ozal
The following is an extract from Turkey in Europe and Europe in Turkey by the late Turgut Ozal (1991).
The Eastern Roman Empire
"Alas! O unhappy and long suffering race of mortals! From what
conflicts, from what Iamentations you are born."
Empedocles of
Agrigentum.
Constantine became Emperor in 306, after a period of
considerable upheaval. He adopted Christianity in 312, and in 330
established at Byzantium the city which would carry his name,
Constantinople.
Constantine was born at Naissus, a town situated
not far from Byzantium. He first considered using Troy or Nicomedia as his
capital, but, for reasons still obscure to this day, his final choice fell
upon the large village situated between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.
After very rapid development (its population soon reached five hundred
thousand people), Constantinople merited the title of `the New
Rome'.
Having become sole Emperor, Constantine rendered the title
hereditary, in an endeavour to spare his people the crises which would
erupt at each succession. He created a new coinage, the solidus,
and introduced various measures to encourage farmers, merchants, and
artisans. He reformed the civil administration by separating the military
and political powers. He thus gave the Empire a longheaded period of
stability.
Although he did not make Christianity the State
religion but merely one of the religions tolerated by the State, it is
true to say that he `Christianized' the legal system.
It was during
the reign of Theodosius I in 391 that a decree made Christianity the
official State religion, thus opening the era of religious empires which
would continue with the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, established by
Charlemagne in 800, and the Ottoman Empire created in 1299.
Though they had aspects in common, the two religious empires presented
important differences. Whereas in the Eastern Roman Empire only one
religion was officially recognized and others discouraged, among the
Ottomans a special regime (the system of `nations') not only protected the
rights of the faithful of other religions, but also tolerated a variety of
Islamic sects and orders.
In 395 Theodosius divided the Empire between his two sons, from which
date there were two Roman Empires. Both had to repel repeated invasions
coming from the north and the east, but the Eastern Roman Empire succeeded
better in this struggle than the Western Empire.
There were various reasons for this. Firstly, Anatolia was much more
densely populated, was to a large extent urbanized, and had become
affluent through long established industry and commerce. Constantine's
reforms, although they had not been applied in their totality, had
accelerated economic development. In the sixth century the East was much
more skilled than the West in employing tools and other techniques in
agriculture, the fundamental sector of economic growth. The West did not
attain a comparable level until the tenth century.
Secondly, in addition to demographic and economic superiority, the East
also enjoyed a more effective sociopolitical structure. In the West, a
very powerful class of senators came between the Emperor and the people,
and also between the workers and the sources of production. This class had
accumulated into its hands all the natural resources. It had also gained
control of the labour force, which it guarded against the demands of the
Emperor for soldiers.
It had no intention of sharing its wealth.
In the East, the Emperor had free access to men and money. During the
seventh century Emperor Heraclius introduced the division of the Empire
into provinces or `themes', the administration of which he entrusted to
the commanders-in-chief of the armies. Conquered lands were distributed to
the soldiers in perpetuity, in exchange for the hereditary obligation of
military service. A class of peasant-soldiers or officer-proprietors was
thus established.
In peacetime they cultivated their land; in wartime they served in the
army with their men. The cultivator of the land and its defender were one
and the same. Later the system was extended to the inhabitants of Anatolia
and, under the reign of the Ottomans, it became the basis of the
land-owning system. It was not until the period of the decline of the
Eastern Roman Empire that the feudal lords, having become powerful, began
to exploit the workers and other resources for their own profit. This same
phenomenon occurred again during the decline of the Ottoman
Empire.
Thirdly, the Black Sea to the north of Anatolia was an effective front
line of defence for the centre of gravity of the Empire against attacks
from the north, whereas Italy is dominated by the Alps.
For this reason, a little-known Germanic tribe, the Herules, was able
to invade Italy in 476 and occupy Rome, unconquered for the previous eight
centuries. It was the end of the Western Roman Empire. Admittedly it was
re-established, but not until much later, and then in a form which the
East considered barbaric, namely as the Germanic Holy Roman Empire with
Charlemagne in the year 800, and Otto I in 962. Many would say that it had
become neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
The Eastern Roman Empire, on the other hand, would endure for almost
another thousand years during which, having become the major world power,
it would play a triple role, politico-military, civilising, and religious.
Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria would prevail for centuries over
Naples and Rome.
The characteristically Roman direction of history-the progression from
West to East-reversed, and the centre of the Empire shifted towards the
eastern Mediterranean.
Few states have engaged in as many wars as the East Romans. Most of
them resulted from the geostrategic characteristics of Anatolia. Most of
the invasions came from the north-west, such as those of the Ouz, the
Bulgars, the Slavs, and the Petchenegs. As they gradually established
themselves in the Balkans, they pushed back towards the west the
populations who were already inhabiting the two Roman Empires.
Then, after
these Empires had collapsed, they fought or harried the Papacy.
The Eastern Roman Empire also had to defend itself on another front:
Persia. There the Sassanids had imposed Zoroastrianism as the official
religion. Although this had triggered extensive internal troubles, it did
not prevent the Sassanids from having an aggressive policy towards the
West.
The struggle between the two most powerful states of the time was long
and devastating. The East Romans, menaced from the west, had also to
withstand attacks from the rear. Whenever the Emperor massed his defences
to the east, the Balkan tribes immediately tried to take advantage of the
situation. It is therefore not surprising that the eastern frontier of
Anatolia was altered many times during the four centuries of Sassanid
dominance (third to seventh centuries).
Towards the middle of the seventh century, the Arab menace arose in the
south-east. The Arabs invaded Egypt and Syria, who at the time were in
religious conflict with the Empire. These two countries preferred Arab
domination, and the religious tolerance it allowed, to the incessant
interference of an authority narrowly punctilious about religious beliefs.
After conquering Egypt and Syria, the Arabs repeatedly stormed the
Anatolian frontiers and arrived at the gates of Constantinople.
The frontier of the south-east, however, remained fairly constant at
this time, with the exception of minor changes which took place on the
south coast of the Taurus, and around Antioch.
To the east, Sassanian power being in decline, the Empire fortunately
only had to defend itself on two fronts, not three. (We leave aside the
defence of southern Italy and north Africa, which had only a minor
influence on Anatolia, the heart of the Empire.)
The Ottomans would similarly have to fight on two fronts in the middle
of the seventeenth century.
The enormous area of both Empires rendered war on two fronts extremely
costly in men, money, and materials. Furthermore, the difficulties of
movement and transport jeopardised the very existence of the country,
since while the army was at war on one front the other was necessarily
left undefended. To conclude hostilities in progress on one front and then
to hurry to the opposite front was an undertaking scarcely achievable in a
single season. Yet the maintenance of two separate armies was beyond the
economic means of the Empire.
The prospect of one day having to fight on two fronts at the same time
was therefore always the nightmare of Eastern Rome. In this respect their
situation was worse than that of the Ottomans, who had succeeded in
warding off the Persian threat by means of a treaty drawn up towards the
middle of the seventeenth century. The Ottomans would not again be menaced
by the Arabs, whereas the Romans of Anatolia had to struggle on all fronts
to the end.
This situation explains why, even at those times when they were
powerful, foreign armies were able to reach the gates of Constantinople.
The Ottoman Empire experienced similar dangers only rarely, and then only
in the darkest hours of its decline.
It is easy for us to imagine the climate of anxiety in which the
leaders and people of this Empire had to live.
The epidemic of bubonic plague which occurred in eastern Anatolia
around AD 550 caused tremendous devastation throughout the Empire. This
illness (which on a much smaller scale resurfaced even during the
twentieth century) killed a third, perhaps half, of the population of
Constantinople, leaving an insufficient number of peasants and soldiers.
Since the risk of war was undiminished, the leaders had no recourse other
than to diplomacy, and to seek allies against a possible aggressor. The
imperial Governments became so skilful at these manoeuvres that the
expression `Byzantine intrigues' became commonplace.
It is worth noting that, during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the
population of Anatolia was similarly stricken by another scourge, this
time malaria.
The Eastern Roman Empire experienced its golden age from the ninth to
the eleventh centuries under the Macedonian dynasty. Its frontiers during
that period corresponded more or less to those of the original Roman
Empire before the division.
The Arab invasion had been halted, and the frontier with the Abbasids
defined and stabilised. Bulgars and Slavs were embracing Orthodox
Christianity, a success which was due to the invention of the Slav
alphabet and the teaching of the Gospels in the Slav language, whereas the
Papacy had always insisted on the use of Latin.
Internally the administration had been centralised and bureaucratized
and, the Senate having been abolished, the power of the Emperor was
limited only by that of the Orthodox Church.
The agro-military system instigated by Heraclius, without equal in the
West, began to decline at the time the Empire reached its apogee. As
commerce and industry were often controlled in the public interest, the
most profitable object of investment was land. However, frequent famines
obliged peasant-soldiers to sell their land if they could not pay their
debts.
The Government tried hard to check this dangerous development by
legislation, but from 1025 the military aristocracy, which also
constituted the class of great landowners, was beyond control. Thus the
peasant-soldiers, who had been the backbone of the Empire, sank into
destitution.
History repeated itself in exactly the same way with the
Ottoman Empire between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries.
It was at this time that the Seljuks penetrated Anatolia from the east,
while the Petchenegs were attacking from the west. The advance of the
Seljuks into Anatolia after the battle of Malazgirt (1071) resulted in
great losses to the Empire, both of peasant-soldiers and of territories.
In the same year the Normans invaded southern Italy. The Empire
therefore requested the assistance of Venice against the Normans. Venice
agreed, but only on condition that it received in exchange certain
commercial concessions. These were the first Capitulations.
The concessions enabled the Venetians to eliminate the competition
which they had experienced from the local trade, and laid the foundations
of Venetian commercial domination in the eastern Mediterranean. There is
here another similarity between the East Romans and the Ottomans.
Then the first crusade took place. One might think that it was intended
to save the Orthodox Christian Empire from the Seljuks.
On the contrary,
it reclaimed for the Franks Jerusalem and the Holy Land which the Seljuks
had captured in 1077! This was partly because the final division of the
two Churches, the outcome of a lengthy process, had been an established
fact since 1054, and partly because the Papacy and Europe had little
interest in the fate of the Eastern Empire except as a matter of
form.
The most simple geopolitics reasoning would have concluded that the
`liberation' of Jerusalem, and its defence once `delivered', required
Eastern Rome to be a stable and powerful State. It was moreover agreed
that the crusaders would hand back to it whatever territories they won
from the Seljuks. In fact, having taken Nicaea, they did return it, though
there was a change of heart when they captured Antioch.
Nevertheless, the first crusade was not without benefit for the Eastern
Roman Empire: the frontier with the Seljuks was pushed back to the centre
of Anatolia.
The second crusade in 1147 ended in failure, for which the West held
Eastern Rome responsible. In 1176 the Seljuks, as at Malazgirt, again
encircled and destroyed the Eastern Roman army.
The third crusade was organised in 1187 to retake Jerusalem, which had
been captured by Saladin.
Richard the Lion-heart occupied Cyprus in passing, and the island was
never returned to the Empire. It should be remembered that in 1878 the
British took Cyprus on lease, in exchange for the aid they had provided
the Ottomans, and that the island was never returned! For the British,
Cyprus was the object of a strange cupidity.
The failure of this third crusade, again blamed on the Empire,
engendered in the West the idea of capturing Constantinople. The fourth
crusade achieved the taking of the town in 1204. It was burned, pillaged,
sacked; the soldiers even destroyed copies of Greek classics, some of
which were unique.
Venice had played an important role in the organisation of these
crusades, allowing them to retake or to acquire numerous warehouses and
almost all the islands, including Rhodes, Create, and Euboea, where she
had been able to establish her commercial empire in the
Mediterranean.
The occupation of Constantinople by the Latins lasted until 1261. Even
though the East Romans succeeded in retaking the town, most of the Aegean
islands and a large part of Crete remained in the hands of the Franks and
the Italians.
The Latin occupation was the most serious threat to the chances of
survival of the Empire. The Christian West, which should have been its
ally, delivered blows that it had been spared by its Seljuk
enemies.
The Empire then began to disintegrate, and every attempt that the
emperors made to save it only hastened its downfall. To rescue its trade,
which had been monopolised by Venice, the concessions were annulled, but
Venice then formed alliances again with the western enemies of the Empire.
When the Empire tried to improve its relations with the Papacy, the people
showed their disapproval.
The landed estates were seriously neglected, causing the Government to
attack the military aristocracy, the great landowners, who it held
responsible. The Government was thus itself responsible for destroying the
last force capable of supporting it.
The most anodyne measures intended to reinforce the Empire provoked the
mistrust and hostility of the Papacy and of the Germanic Holy Roman
Empire.
The lion had aged; it was dying. The less powerful, taking advantage of
the situation, went on the offensive: the Bulgars revolted, the Slavs
proclaimed their independence.
This is an evolution which the Turks know well, for it was a similar
series of events that led to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. On reading
again the story of Eastern Rome's agony, they cannot avoid experiencing
the same feelings of sadness.
These events prove that an allegedly shared religion has little
influence on political conflicts, and that barbarism is the monopoly of no
one, even in matters of religion. When the disintegration of the Empire
was complete,-its `natural friends' would have contributed in no small
measure to its collapse. During their own long decline, the Ottomans
perhaps had the advantage over their predecessors of not being struck in
the back by false friends.
The fate of the Eastern Roman Empire is an obvious lesson of history to
those today who insist on the importance of one culture (that is to say,
one religion) common to the whole European community. It should be
remembered too that, following the fall of Constantinople, the bloodiest
religious wars in the history of Europe erupted. At a time when the
Ottomans were considered to represent the mortal danger to Europe, it was
in fact these other wars, fought mainly between different Christian
factions, which cost many more lives than did the battles against the
Turks.
Having retaken Constantinople, the Eastern Romans rebuilt it. They came
to an understanding with Genoa, an enemy of Venice. However, when the
Emperor learned that a new crusade was being prepared, he proposed an
alliance with the Pope in order to prevent it, either because the safety
of the Empire was more important to him than the defence of Orthodoxy, or
because he was tempted by a simple tactical manoeuvre. The popular revolt
that broke out at the news of this intention was put down by
force.
The Greeks living in Anatolia under Seljuk authority were unaware of
this drama. Right to the end they benefited from the religious tolerance
of the Turks.
The Pope, however, did not believe the Eastern Romans to be sincere so
in 1281 Charles d'Anjou and a coalition of Venetians, Serbs, Bulgars, and
Greek separatists invaded the Empire. Had it not been for the revolt known
as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, it is probable that the Latins would have
achieved what they set out to do in 1204, namely to gain control of
Constantinople and the Empire before the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
A further word on the Capitulations.
In 1296 a naval battle took place
on the Bosphorus between Venice and Genoa, while their future victim,
Byzantium, looked on. Not long after this event, Genoa started abusing the
concessions she had gained to such an extent that the Empire found it
necessary to ally itself with the Venetians against the Genoese. This
alliance proved to be in vain, for Venice and the New Rome Byzantium lost
the contest the customs revenues of the Galata quarter of Constantinople,
where the Genoese lived, at that time exceeded the entire imperial
revenues.
These precursors of the capitalist system, Venice and Genoa, were
henceforward the principal actors on the world political scene. They
differed much from the ancient Great Powers and had certain advantages
compared to them. The Ottomans, who were no longer evolving in a
capitalist direction, would have to struggle not only against these two
republics but also against the whole of Europe.
The Seljuk danger gave way to the Ottoman danger from 1299. The Eastern
Roman emperors paid visits to several European countries, beginning with
the papal States, but they received nothing more than `good
advice'.
Finally, on 29 May 1453, all the titles and powers of the Roman Emperor
were transferred to Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, following his entry into
Constantinople. He thus became basileus. All the Eastern Roman lands
passed under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire.
A decree promulgated by the new Sultan made the Patriarch of Istanbul
the head of all Orthodox Christians. The Eastern Church was thus, for the
first time, given political power.
Conclusion
Rapid though it has been, this overview of the history of the Eastern
Roman Empire seems to point to certain conclusions.
Firstly, that the Empire was predominantly an Anatolian State. Anatolia
constituted its main territory, just as it was central to the Ottoman
Empire. The other territories, including that of Greece, were of only
secondary importance.
The Ottomans demonstrated this point again later by
reconquering virtually all the old Eastern Roman territories outside
Anatolia, whereas the reverse, the conquest of Anatolia itself, has not
been possible since Roman times. Head and heart of an empire with
immeasurably extended borders, Anatolia was committed to power, and even
super-power, in order to compensate for the geo-political weaknesses of
that empire.
Secondly, the classical culture, after having survived the original
Roman Empire, disappeared during the Eastern Roman Empire under the
influence of early Christianity. Neither the Digest nor the Codes of
Justinian, nor the humanist movement, nor the conservation of
classical texts in libraries constructed for this purpose, nor even the
fact that there were again scholars to study them, changed anything.
Classical culture had ceased to exist long before the arrival of the Turks
in Anatolia.
Thirdly, the fall of Byzantium had been provoked much more by the
Papacy and the Catholic West than by the Turks.
Far from uprooting or persecuting Orthodox Christianity, the Turks on
the contrary protected it, and encouraged it to thrive. If the Latins (by
'Latins' I mean Western Europe and the Papacy) had captured Anatolia, the
Greek Orthodox Church would not exist today. It is because they were
conscious of the Catholic menace that the Christians of Anatolia and
Rumelia offered the Turks only a token resistance, and in many cases even
received them as liberators.
Toynbee in his famous A Study of History lays down the universal
laws which govern history. He explains the genesis, growth, breakdown, and
disintegration of civilisations. He defines universal states as historical
units which slow down the disintegration process but which cannot prevent
dissolution indefinitely. His intellectual edifice seems impeccably
applicable to almost all civilisations, but hardly to those which appeared
in Anatolia, for reasons I cannot yet fully understand.
He classifies both the Empire of Alexander the Great and the Roman
Empire as Hellenic universal states whose mission, or rather raison
d'etre, was to save the Hellenized peoples from the immense sufferings
of the disintegration process. Yet he treats the Eastern Roman Empire as a
new civilisation, and dates its suicidal breakdown at ED 977-1019, i.e.
the time of the great Romano-Bulgarian war which exhausted both
contenders. He then singles out the Ottoman Empire as the universal state
of Orthodox Christianity.
If I perceive correctly, part of his problem arises from the fact that
he concludes, in line with his theory, that the universal church of
Orthodox Christianity, born in the universal state of the Roman Empire,
actually changed the nature of the latter into one of genesis and growth,
so creating the new civilisation of Byzantium. This new Orthodox Christian
civilisation in its turn breaks down at the Romano-Bulgarian war, but is
saved from disintegration by the Ottoman Empire. He contends that
Byzantium was not the continuation of the Roman Empire, despite its
claims.
In reality, all criteria point to the fact that the Eastern Roman
Empire was a universal state par excellence, and as such did
represent the continuation of the Roman Empire. The reforms initiated and
implemented by Constantine were designed to stop the disintegration
process in the Roman Empire.
These reforms re-established a centralised
order at the expense of social mobility and economic freedoms. They were
like a strait-jacket on society, because mobility between occupations, for
example between peasants, craftsmen, and tradesmen, was almost frozen, as
was geographical mobility between rural areas and towns and cities.
Similarly, the Government intervened heavily in the free market with
various regulations.
Ownership of land was based on class. The consequence
was an increase in production made possible by restored stability in the
political and financial spheres, though it did not result from enhanced
individual and social creativity which, by definition, is essential to the
existence of civilisation.
On the other hand, the Eastern Roman Empire covered almost all the land
area of the Roman Empire, with the exception of some parts in the
north-west. This resulted in a multi-ethnic society with many different
cultural backgrounds. The pax Romana (east), which reigned over this vast
area, attained its basic objective which was to prevent internal warfare
being triggered by disintegration.
The existence of Christianity as the State religion was the main
difference between the Roman and the Eastern Roman Empires, hence the
naming of the latter as 'the Christian Roman Empire'. As a rule a
universal state brings about a set of conditions necessary for the
creation of a universal church. Although this process started in the Roman
Empire, its principal development took place during the Eastern Roman
Empire.
One of the main functions of the universal church, namely to
preserve the germ of the characteristics of the subdued societies as it
were in a 'chrysalis', was thoroughly fulfilled during the Eastern Roman
Empire and, as we shall see, also during the Ottoman Empire. This was
clearly illustrated when Greece became independent, and it was plain that
the 'Greekness' of that society had not diminished over almost a
millennium.
This fact applies equally to other societies under the rule of the
universal state within which religion served as a unifying force, while at
the same time respecting the ethnically features of the bodies social
included in the empire. Indeed, one god together with one emperor is the
driving force behind the quest of the state for universality, hence the
attributes 'unique' and 'universal' of the Eastern Roman Empire.
But this
attitude of the universal state puts it on a collision course with other
powers resisting its claims to universality, or simply making their own
counter claims. Therefore, the consequence is that the universal state
avoids internal conflicts by replacing them with large-scale external wars
which its claims to universality provoke.
Contrary to the growth period of
a civilisation, which creates a 'limen' (a broad threshold beyond its
frontiers of friendly states influenced peacefully by its civilising
radiation), the universal state is surrounded, as in the case of the
Eastern Roman Empire, by a 'limes' (hostile external environment) which
makes external wars inevitable.
It is obvious that the universal state, whether or not called Hellenic,
is a fundamentally different sociopolitical system to the Aegean
city-states. The free spirit of the newly born individual of the latter
was happily dormant in the former. No longer was he creative but
submissive to the Caesar-god of the Roman Empire.
Having sacrificed his
classical culture, he was to become subservient to the Christian theocracy
in the Eastern Roman Empire. Fratricidal wars between unruly brothers
(city-states) had died down, for the eternal father, the emperor,
reappeared on the scene of history in the image of god. Wars between
empires were waged for the supremacy of a religioideology, not to
determine who was best between brother city-states.
Problems which were
shelved or frozen, since there was no creative solution available for
them, brought about a stagnation in the Empire, in the absence of the
deadly struggles of the past between its components. The inhabitants came
to feel that the ecumenical state above race, culture, civilisation and so
forth was a world by itself, and that it was immortal, even timeless,
because of its internal inertia.
I have dwelt at some length on the nature of the Eastern Roman Empire
as a universal state, for I believe it prefigures the Ottoman Empire in
this respect. Now let us revert to the perennial question of the
differentiation between East and West.
In the first centuries of the Christian era the distinction between
East and West did not have the political or moral significance which was
attributed to it later.
The moral, rather than the geographic, differentiation between East and
West, which began with Herodotus, acquired a new dimension with the
designation of the Roman Empire as Byzantium. These terms, which initially
referred to the respective locations of the two Roman Empires,
progressively came to be used to signify two different worlds.
Because of
the rivalries between the Eastern Roman Empire and Catholic Europe, the
concept of 'the East' gradually became charged with pejorative or negative
connotations. However, 'the East' was first applied to the Orthodox Church
and the Christian people of Anatolia, who were labeled by Westerners as
'perfidious Greeks', and not to Turco-Islamic Anatolia, as is sometimes
assumed today.
In the sight of the Orthodox Christians,.the Franks were
'parvenu', cynically exploiting brute force. On the other hand, the
Franks regarded the Byzantines as mandarins whose overweening pretensions
were neither justified by merit nor backed by force. To the Greeks the
Latins were barbarians, to the Latins the Greeks were on the way to
becoming 'Levantines'.
The decline of the Eastern Roman Empire increased in the West the
negative feeling behind the terms 'East' or 'Orient'. After the conquest
of Anatolia by the Ottomans, these words no longer referred exclusively to
the Eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Church, but also to Eastern
civilisation in general.
The expression 'Asia Minor' was similarly imposed during the Roman
period. As I mentioned earlier, 'Asia' originally denoted the western part
of Anatolia, especially Lydia. When 'Asia' became the normal word in the
West to mean the whole continent, the East Romans used the term 'Asia
Minor' just for Anatolia, in order to distinguish it from the rest of the
continent. Hence two strongly negative qualities became attached to
Anatolia: that of 'Eastern', and that of `Asiatic'.
Ever since then, the territory to the north-east of the Mediterranean, though always an integral part of Mediterranean civilisation, has found itself relegated to the background by an artificial separation of the continents, and by the pejorative evolution of the words `East' and `Orient'.
Nevertheless, nothing can alter the fact that it was in this "East", in this "Orient", that civilisation was born; it was there that the fundamentals of science were discovered and developed; and it was there that a monotheistic religion took root and prospered.
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