The Battle of Lapanto is considered one of the turning points of Europe against the encroaching Ottoman Empire. Although it didn't stop the threat — the Ottomans would besiege Vienna about a century later — it provided a boost to a disheartened populace, who had been losing territory steadily across the decades.

Supposedly.

The Reformation started in Europe with Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door in 1517 and didn't really end until the closing of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 when people were too fucking tired of killing each other over religion. Of course the Protestant-Catholic enmity would last for a long time — there are still prejudices to this day — but kingdoms' appetite to slaughter each other over transubstantiation had quelled significantly by the end of the 1600s. Lapanto however had happened in 1571, right in the middle of this period.

If you look at Europe geographically, you can pretty much create the Protestant-Catholic divide between the north and south (Ireland being the exception). Which is understandable; it's harder for the Catholic Church to combat Protestantism the farther you leave Rome. Also harder for them to combat ecclesiastical excesses, which is why places like Norway or Scotland were open to the Reformation since they felt the majority of the corruption. Anyway, because they were in the south, Catholics bore the brunt of Ottoman aggression. If you're based in Turkey, which would you attack first: England or Italy? Italy of course. Eventually Pope Pius V couldn't take this bullshit anymore and created the Holy League, which was a bunch of Catholic maritime states like Venice or Spain, to take on the Turks. And they did. The Battle of Lapanto was a decisive victory.

But the north's reaction is interesting. Whilst the south was celebrating, the north felt ambivalent. After all, it was a Catholic victory: those heretical papists who has the Antichrist Himself as a pope. Still, the enemy were Muslims. But these Muslims don't like idolatry, which means they're not as bad as the Catholics. These mixed emotions played out in several ways. Elizabeth I of England, for example, on several occasions tried to offer support to the Ottomans to get the Catholics off her back. James VI of Scotland wrote an epic celebrating Lapanto, but had to write a disclaimer in his preface to say he doesn't support Catholicism. The idea of "Christendom" had broken down. Even back in the old days with the East-West Schism, neither side would've asked the Muslims to take the other one out. Neither would the Gnostics. This shit was new. And it showed how fucking serious the situation was: Both sides hated the other so much, they were hesitant to celebrate a victory over Muslims because it didn't involve their own group.

I think of that now when I look at the Middle East. Even though America is the Great Satan, more Muslims have died from suicide bombings and militant slaughters than Christians ever have. Yeah, all right, there are more Muslims living there and statistically are more likely to be hit, but most of the ire seems be between the Sunni and Shiite lines. Baghdad was depopulated not due to American missiles but because of Shiite gangs threatening Sunnis. And although ISIS has committed horrific crimes upon Christians and Jews living in their territory, they still claim responsibility for countless attacks on Shiites, like that twin bombing in Beirut yesterday. Like Western Christianity in the 1500s and 1600s, Islam is fracturing violently. I really hope this doesn't culminate into their version of a Thirty Years' War because no one deserves something that terrible.