Pope Gregory IX Calling Eastern Schismatics To Conversion

Pope Gregory IX, Considerantes Olim, March 17, 1238: “Some time ago the Church of the Greeks was severed from obedience to its mother, the Apostolic See… no branch survives when it is detached from its root, nor can a member which is severed from the body retain life… there is no doubt that because it was founded upon blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, any other church whatsoever which is organized outside this church or believes it is possible to be organized outside it, is certainly sundered from the life of the true faith and will fall into the death of heresy… And so for this very reason we have sent brothers Preachers and brothers Minor [Dominicans and Franciscans] fully trained in the divine law, to Vatatzes, the so-called Patriarch of Nicaea, urging the Greek clergy with paternal admonitions and entreaties, to rouse themselves from the sleep of death and, fleeing from the coming wrath, enlightened by the light of celestial splendor, reform themselves by rejoining the Catholic union.”