The entire 17th century was one of devastating wars, and Poland, standing at the height of its power, had to face Russia, the Swedish invasion, as well as internal rebellions, the most severe of which was the Cossack uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. The Ottoman Army surrounds Vienna (by Frans Geffels, ca 1694) Hope was poured into the hearts of Europeans by the great triumph of the Holy League fleet over the Ottoman Empire during one of the bloodiest naval battles at Lepanto (1571). Waging wars against the powerful Habsburgs, he managed to force them to pay tribute, as well as renouncing (in the Turkish version of the treaty) the title of emperor, which symbolically confirmed the sultanate’s claim to universal sovereignty over Europe. Suleiman was not discouraged by the setback and continued his conquests in Asia and Europe. The monarch himself even managed to reach Vienna in 1529, but eventually backed down after a siege of several weeks. The Sultan’s state reached the height of its power under Suleiman the Magnificent in the following century, when its borders stretched around the eastern Mediterranean. Southern Italy was also threatened when Rome was targeted by the Ottomans – only the death of the brave Mehmed II in 1481 thwarted these plans. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the transformation of the famous city into the capital of the Ottoman Empire, henceforth known as Istanbul, caused dismay in European courts, but the sultanate did not stop there. The Ottoman Sultanate had been invading more countries since its establishment, conquering Byzantium, Bulgaria and Serbia, among others. The policy of the Ottoman Empire was based on aggressive expansion. The King of Poland at the time, John III Sobieski, served at that Mass. In the early morning of 12 September 1683, in the ruins of the church of St Joseph on Kahlenberg Hill near Vienna burnt by the Turks, Mark of Aviano, an Italian Capuchin sometimes referred to as the ‘spiritual father of Europe’, celebrated Mass for the success of the battle against the Ottoman Empire.
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