"Thanks to whom? To Rome."
Kosta, you and I have said that so many times here on FR that even the Protestants accept that we believe that! It goes without saying.
"Once the Church split along the east-west fault line, there was no balance. The Latin Church became the hyper-Church and the Greek Church became a pauper and a virtual prisoner of the Ottoman Empire."
Over 400 years, yes, but even then Greek and Antiochian Orthodoxy didn't become paupers or even come close to dying. Indeed that didn't happen at the hands of the Ottomans until the dawn of the 20th century, Kosta. Dhimmitude, oppression, pogroms, yes; near destruction? Not until quite recently and then only in Turkey and the Middle East and because the West sat by and let it happen...as it still is. In the meantime, the 3rd Rome arose.
"The checks and balances were gone, no one to oppose, no one to account to. Five centuries later, it reached the critical mass and exploded."
My point precisely.
How do they say here? "Great minds think alike?" :)