PERSPECTIVErnThe Tower of Skullsrnby Thomas FlemingrnYou’ve never been to Nish?!” My friend was incredulous.rnHow can someone who has traveled, it sometimesrnseems, every inch of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Kosovo not havernfound the time to go to Nish? The lady is far from being a localrnchauvinist, but when I first met her and asked (as I had beenrntaught by a Belgrader) if she was “iz Nish”—leaving off the genitivernending, as they do sometimes near the Bulgarian border—rnshe exclaimed, “Oh, those people in Belgrade. They think theyrnknow everything.” In fact, as she later explained, the Nish dialectrnis a little strange. TTie accent falls forward on words, andrnmany Turkish expressions remain within the local vernacular asrna memorial to 500 years of occupation.rnWhy not go to Nish? Dr. Johnson’s observation that every humanrnlife is worth a biography applies to cities as well. This littlerncity in southeastern Serbia was a major stop on the route tornByzantiiun. Constantine’s family came from Nish (or rather,rnNaissus), and that first Christian emperor was actually bornrnthere. It was in Nish that Stefan Nemanja, the founder of thernSerbian royal dynasty of the Middle Ages, met with Barbarossa,rnwho was on his way to the Crusade. The Turks first took the cityrnin 1385 but lost it again to the Serbs and did not reconquer it forrngood until 1454. When I go, I shall be able to visit the Turkishrncitadel built on the site of a Byzantine fort. I can also see arnchurch that is not much taller than a man’s height—Islamicrnlaw forbade the erection of a Christian church higher than arnMuslim building. It is a nice memorial of the kindness andrnbenevolence of Muslims who rale over Christian subjects.rnAn even more impressive monument to the Turks is the CelernKula—the tower of skulls. In 1809, during Karageorge’s uprisingrnagainst tire Turks, the Serbs under the command of StjepanrnSindjelic made a last stand in a fortified powder magazine.rnWhen all hope was exhausted, Sindjelic let the Turks into thernfort and touched off the powder, killing himself, his men, andrnall the Turks. Tliere was no other way. In revenge, the Turksrnbuilt a tower out of the Christian skulls.rnDr. Johnson’s respect for the individual human life applies tornall human beings, but only Christians can grasp the implication.rnEach life is precious, being made in the image of the Godrnwho sent His Son as a man, to enjoy the life of this earth, resistrnits temptations, and die to give us “life and that more abundantly.”rnIn the older sections of Christendom, every spot, virtually,rnis marked by a martyr’s grave, and there is hardly a day in thernyear that does not commemorate a saint. I am beginning thisrnessay in late September, and tomorrow, for example, is the feastrnof Our Lady of Ransom, who inspired Saint Peter Nolasco inrn1223 to establish the Mercedarian Order for ransoming Christiansrnwho had fallen into the hands of the Muslims.rnIn October, the feast of Our Lady nf the Rosary recalls thernbattle of Lepanto, when the Christian naval forces of Don Johnrnof Austiia tiounced the Turks on October 7, 1571 —a victory tornset beside Marathon and Salamis, Rome’s defeat of Carthage,rnCharles Martel’s repulse of the Moors in the Pyrenees, and LeornIll’s defense of Constantinople from an almost fatal Muslim attackrnin 725. On the seventh, I board a plane for Rome, where arnfew days later I attend a celebration, organized by the CentiornCulturale Lepanto, commemorating the Christian victory.rnScattered among the prelates and scholars in the audience arerndescendants of noble Romans who took part in the battle,rnwhich took the lives of thousands of Christian soldiers andrnsailors but liberated even more thousands from slavery in Turkishrngalleys.rnChristianity is often lumped together with Islam as one of thernworld’s great monotheisms. Christians certainly believe, as theyrnwere taught by the Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers,rnthat God is one, but they have had to grapple with the problemrnof a God whose divine Son came down to earth and became arnman. The disciples of Jesus could not have stated the matterrnmore precisely than that; over the years, however, as somernheretics overemphasized Christ’s divinity and oneness with thernFather, and others focused more exclusively on his humanity,rnthe doctiine of the Holy Trinity took shape. The familiar expressionrn—three persons of one substance—may seem an aridrnformula, but it encapsulates a life-and-death stiuggle for Christianrnsanity that cost the lives of orthodox martyrs and sincerernheretics. To the extent that we are Christian, we are Trinitarian;rnto the extent that we lapse into Arianism or monophysitisin,rnwe are heretical, and if a church is willing to tolerate Unitariansrnwithin its ranks, it had best give up the pretense of Christianity,rnif only for the sake of truth in advertising.rnA series of Church councils established the position ofrncatholic orthodoxy, but no sooner had the church settled thernmajor issues of Christ’s natiire from within than the Unitarianrndemon attacked from without. When Christian theologiansrnfirst made the acquaintance of Islam, they interpreted it as arnChristian heresy. Islam is an eclectic hodgepodge (somethingrnlike Bahai or the Unification Church), and Muhammad did atrntimes try to appeal to Christians by portraying himself as a reformerrnof their religion. Tliough he lacked the intellechial rigorrnand erudition of an Arius, his rage against the Incarnationrnwas far more violent.rnMuhammad and his followers were nothing if not violentrnagainst every human pretension to be made in the image ofrnGod or to love a God who took on the image of man. Muslimsrnwere as zealous in shattering images of Christ and His saints asrnthey were in slaughtering the human beings who worshippedrnChrist as God. The infection was contagious, and it was notrnlong before the soldier-emperors (including the great Leo III)rnwho defended Christendom from Muslim armies picked uprn10/CHRONICLESrnrnrn