section_path: Reign as emperor/Conflict and diplomacy with the east
section_name: Conflict and diplomacy with the east
paragraph_text: Conflict and diplomacy with the east
  
  After his coronation, Charlemagne sought recognition of his imperial title from Constantinople. Several delegations were exchanged between Charlemagne and Irene in 802 and 803. According to the contemporary Byzantine chronicler Thophanes, Charlemagne made an offer of marriage to Irene which she was close to accepting. Irene was deposed and replaced by Nikephoros I, who was unwilling to recognise Charlemagne as emperor. The two empires conflicted over control of the Adriatic Sea (especially Istria and Veneto) several times during Nikephoros' reign. Charlemagne sent envoys to Constantinople in 810 to make peace, giving up his claims to Veneto. Nikephoros died in battle before the envoys could leave Constantinople but his son-in-law and successor Michael I confirmed the peace, sending his own envoys to Aachen to recognise Charlemagne as emperor. Charlemagne soon issued the first Frankish coins bearing his imperial title, although papal coins minted in Rome had used the title as early as 800.
  
  He sent envoys and initiated diplomatic contact with the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid during the 790s, due to their mutual interest in Spanish affairs. As an early sign of friendship, Charlemagne requested an elephant as a gift from Harun. Harun later provided an elephant named Abul-Abbas, which arrived at Aachen in 802. Harun also sought to undermine Charlemagne's relations with the Byzantines, with whom he was at war. As part of his outreach, Harun gave Charlemagne nominal rule of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and other gifts. According to Einhard, Charlemagne "zealously strove to make friendships with kings beyond the seas" in order "that he might get some help and relief to the Christians living under their rule." A surviving administrative document, the Basel roll, shows the work done by his agents in Palestine in furtherance of this goal.
  
  Harun's death lead to a succession crisis and, under his successors, churches and synagogues were destroyed in the caliphate. Unable to intervene directly, Charlemagne sent specially-minted coins and arms to the eastern Christians to defend and restore their churches and monasteries. The coins with their inscriptions were also an important tool of imperial propaganda. Johannes Fried writes that deteriorating relations with Baghdad after Harun's death may have been the impetus for renewed negotiations with Constantinople which led to Charlemagne's peace with Michael in 811.
  
  As emperor, Charlemagne became involved in a religious dispute between Eastern and Western Christians over the recitation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the fundamental statement of orthodox Christian belief. The original text of the creed, adopted at the Council of Constantinople, professed that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father. A tradition developed in Western Europe that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father "and the Son ", inserting the Latin term filioque into the creed. The difference did not cause significant conflict until 807, when Frankish monks in Bethlehem were denounced as heretics by a Greek monk for using the filioque form. The Frankish monks appealed the dispute to Rome, where Pope Leo affirmed the text of the creed omitting the phrase and passed the report on to Charlemagne. Charlemagne summoned a council at Aachen in 809 which defended the use of filioque, and sent the decision to Rome. Leo said that the Franks could maintain their tradition, but asserted that the canonical creed did not include filioque. He commissioned two silver shields with the creed in Latin and Greek (omitting the filioque), which he hung in St. Peter's Basilica. Another product of the 809 Aachen council was the Handbook of 809, an illustrated calendrical and astronomical compendium.