The Saints of Otranto: A Papal Provocation?

In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI provoked an international furore by using in his Regensburg speech the words of a medieval Byzantine emperor which condemned both the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic religion. Vatican authorities were quick to deny any anti-Islamic intent, but many of the world's Muslims took a different view.

This month Pope Francis, Benedict's successor, has awarded sainthood to 800 Catholic Christians said to have been massacred at Otranto, Italy, in 1480 by invading Muslim troops of the Ottoman Turkish sultan. The martyrs were put to death for refusing to convert to Islam. As in 2006, the Vatican has claimed this papal action is not anti-Islamic, but will it be seen that way in the Muslim world?

Although it is Pope Francis who has completed the canonization process, the decision to fast track the Otranto martyrs to sainthood was taken by Pope Benedict XVI. In July 2007 he issued a decree recognizing that the martyrs were killed 'out of hatred for their faith', and by late 2012 the last formalities had been completed. In February 2013, at the same time as he announced his own retirement, Benedict announced that the Otranto martyrs would become saints.

The Ottoman Turkish sultan Mehmed II had captured the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul), the 'second Rome', in 1453 and put an end to the Byzantine empire. The conqueror added the name of Caesar to his already long list of titles. However, he was well aware that he could not truly claim to be the inheritor of the legacy of the ancient Roman empire until he captured Rome itself. However, many distractions delayed Mehmed's plan to invade Italy and drive the pope out of Rome. Only in 1480 did he begin serious preparations for an invasion.

As a first step in this operation, the Ottoman ruler ordered his forces to seize the Italian port of Otranto, which was not far across the Adriatic Sea from Ottoman-held Albania. The city fell to the Muslim invaders in August 1480. Many of the Christian inhabitants were killed or enslaved, with 800 said to have been offered their lives if they converted to Islam. They refused and were executed. Leaving a garrison in the captured port, most of the Ottoman forces returned to Albania, but with the intention of returning in the following year to begin the march on Rome.

The Ottoman capture of Otranto spread panic throughout Italy. Plans were made for Pope Sixtus IV to flee from Rome, but instead he called for a crusade against the infidel invaders. In 1481 a Christian crusader army, largely made up of soldiers from the kingdom of Naples and a foreign contingent from the kingdom of Hungary, marched to recapture Otranto. The crusaders laid siege to the port in May 1481, and in the same month Sultan Mehmed II died. This latter event prevented Ottoman reinforcements being sent to Otranto, and the port was soon recaptured by the Christian forces, with most of the Muslim garrison escaping to Albania. The Ottoman threat to Rome had been removed.

Quite why Pope Benedict chose to remember this otherwise forgotten event in the centuries-old struggle between Christianity and Islam is not clear. How the canonization of the Otranto martyrs will be received in the Muslim world is also unknown, despite all the Vatican claims that it is not an anti-Islamic gesture. When Pope Benedict made his Regensburg speech in 2006 the hostility between the West and the Islamic world was intense. Today, Western forces have left Iraq; they will be leaving Afghanistan next year; Osama bin Laden is dead; and Al Qaeda is now just a shadow of its former self. Tensions have eased, so perhaps Muslims will merely ignore the papal action rather than be offended.

Nevertheless, how would Westerners feel if Muslims took to lavish celebration of their martyrs for the faith? Should Tunisians commemorate the thousands of Muslims slaughtered when Christian emperor Charles V conquered Tunis in 1535? Of course they could declare that there was no anti-Christian intent in their celebration, but would they be believed? Catholics do not have a monopoly in remembering martyrs, and they should think carefully about the possible contemporary impact of their actions.