The first view was that the Ottomans were infidels, barbarians and illegitimate tyrants, a view best known from the writings of Doukas and Bessarion, Byzantine refugees who had fled to Catholic lands and hoped to inspire an anti-Ottoman crusade. The second view, promoted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, did not deny that Ottoman rule was illegitimate or tyrannical, but promoted the idea that the sultans were divinely ordained in order to punish the sins of the Byzantine populace and that they thus had to be tolerated.[3] In essence, this theological explanation for Ottoman rule painted the sultans as sent by God to safequard the people of the empire against the attempts by the Palaiologos emperors to reunify the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church.[19] The third and least widespread view among historians was an acceptance of state of affairs, viewing the Ottoman sultans as legitimate rulers and in some cases going as far as to refer to them as basileus.