Download PDF | (Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World_ 9) Christian Gastgeber, Ekaterini Mitsiou, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Vratislav Zervan - A Companion to the Patriarchate of Constantinople-Brill (2021).
333 Pages
Acknowledgments
We thank the managing editor of Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, Wolfram Brandes, who accepted to include this volume to his new series, and the authors of the individual chapters for their cooperation and patience. Unfortunately, not all invited scholars were able to contribute to this volume.
Further thanks goes to the former and current editorial staff, in particular Julian Deahl, Irini Argirouli, Alessandra Giliberto and Lloyd Cabasag, for their tireless support, and to Michael Mulryan for having copyedited all texts.
Finally, we thank the anonymous peer reviewer for his critical discussion of the contributions and a number of valuable suggestions.
Notes on Contributors
Claudia Rapp is Professor of Byzantine Studies, University of Vienna and Director of the Division of Byzantine Research of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO), Austrian Academy of Sciences (G6Aw), Vienna. Her research focuses on the social, religious and cultural history of Byzantium. Her publications include Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 2005, reprinted 2013) and Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (Oxford, 2016).
Frederick Lauritzen
read classics at New College, Oxford (1996-2000, BA, MA) and obtained a doctorate in classics from Columbia University in New York (2000-2005 MA, Mphil, PhD) with a thesis on the Chronographia of Michael Psellos (published in 2013). From 2008 to 2014 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni xx111 of Bologna where he worked on the Synods of the Orthodox Church. Since 2017 he has been historian at the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice.
Tia M. Kolbaba
is Associate Professor and former Chair in the Department of Religion, Rutgers University. Her research focuses on the history of the Byzantine Church, its relations with the Western Church, and Byzantine anti-heretical texts. Her recent publications include Inventing Latin Heretics. Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth century (Kalamazoo, 2008), and “East Roman Anti-Armenian Polemic, Ninth to Eleventh Centuries,” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 3 (2020), 121-173.
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller Ph.D. (2006), is research group leader at the Division of Byzantine Studies of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (6aw), Vienna. His latest publications include the edited volume Migration Histories of the Medieval Afroeurasian Transition Zone (Leiden, 2020).
Marie-Héléne Blanchet Ph.D. (2005), is Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Paris, Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 8167 Orient et Méditerranée. She specializes in late Byzantine history, her major publications include Georges-Gennadios Scholarios (vers 1400-vers 1472). Un intellectuel orthodoxe face a la disparition de Empire byzantin (Paris, 2008), and Théodore Agallianos, Dialogue avec un moine contre les Latins (1442). Edition critique, traduction francaise et commentaire (Paris, 2013).
Dimitris G. Apostolopoulos
Ph.D. on Political Sciences (1976) and on History of Law (1978), is Research Director Em. at the Institute of Historical Research, Section of Neohellenic Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens/Greece (EIE). He specializes in the history of law and ideology in the Greek society during the Ottoman rule and in the reception of the Enlightenment ideas in Southeast Europe (18th—19th c.). His recent publications include: (with M. Paizi-Apostolopoulou) Ox [pagers tov ITatpiapyetou KwvotavtwoundAcws. Enttouy—llapddoon—Xyodiacpyos, I. 1454-1498 | Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople. Les regestes de 1454 a 1498 (Athens, 2013), and Evyeviou tov Bovdydpews, EnirtoAceiov—Collectio Epistolica A’. Ta xeiueva tov mpwTOU TOMOU GE TUMOYPAPINKY METAYPAPH aN TO MpoTWHIX Tou yEelpdypago | Eugenios Voulgaris’ Letterbook (Epistolarion)—Collectio Epistolica I (Athens, 2020).
Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulou
Ph.D. (1993), is Research Director Em. at the Institute of Historical Research, Section of Neohellenic Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens/Greece (EIE). She specializes in the history of the Greek society under Ottoman rule, in the patriarchal chancellery (15th—17th c.), and in the institutions and the intellectual production of Greek people during this period. Her recent publications include: (with D.G. Apostolopoulos), Exionua xeiueva tou Tlatptapyetou KwvotavtivoumdAews. Ta cwloueva and tyv meptodo 1454-1498 (Official Texts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople 1454-1498) (Athens, 20, 22016) and Tewpytou Kaotpiwty, tou emtAeyouévou Sxevtepumen, Bloc xa modtteta. Mia aSyoadprty Broypapia ota eAAyvixc (George Kastriota Scanderbeg. An unknown biography in Greek) (Athens, 2018).
Klaus-Peter Todt Ph.D. (1989), is ‘Privat-Dozent’ at the University of Mainz, Germany. He specializes in the administrative and ecclesiastical history of Byzantium, Syria and the Melkite Patriarchates. His recent publications include the monograph Dukat und griechisch-orthodoxes Patriarchat von Antiocheia in mittelbyzantinischer Zeit (969-1084) (Mainz, 2020).
Mihailo St. Popovié Doz. Mag. Ph.D. (2005), is the project leader of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB) Balkans as well as of related sub-projects and scholarly co-worker at the Division of Byzantine Research of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (GAw), Vienna. His expertise includes amongst others Byzantine studies, medieval history of the Balkans, historical geography and digital humanities.
Konstantinos Vetochnikov Ph.D. in Theology (2001) and in History (2010), is ‘ingénieur d’études’ at the Byzantine Library of the Collége de France. He is specialized in byzantine church history, byzantine church diplomatic and canon law with a particular focus on the relationship between the Byzantine and the Russian church.
Ekaterini Mitsiou Ph.D. (2006), is researcher at University of Vienna. Her latest publications include the edited volume Women and monasticism in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean: Decoding a cultural map (Athens, 2019).
Vratislav Zervan Ph.D. (2014), is project collaborator and researcher at the Division of Byzantine Studies of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (GAW), Vienna. His latest publication is the edited volume Die Lehnwérter im Wortschatz der spdtbyzantinischen historiographischen Literatur (Berlin/Boston, 2019).
Christian Gastgeber Doz.Ph.D. (2001), is research group leader at the Division of Byzantine Studies of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (GAw), Vienna. His recent publications include a commentary on the new facsimile edition of the Greek Vienna Genesis (Luzern, 2019).
The Early Patriarchate (325-726)
Claudia Rapp
1 State of Research
The first centuries in the history of the patriarchate of Constantinople have traditionally been treated in the multiple geo-political contexts of ecclesiastical power politics against the background of larger religious and political developments. These four centuries (325-726) saw the Christianization of the Roman Empire initiated by Constantine the Great, the great Christological controversies debated at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451), and the ongoing competition for influence between the five patriarchates, that eventually boiled down to frequent periods of sparring between Rome and Constantinople. From historical hindsight, these developments appear— among later Byzantine authors as much as among modern scholars—as precedent-setting for a wide range of issues, ranging from the ideal of the ecumenicity of the Church, to the ‘parting of ways’ and, eventually, the ‘Great Schism’ between East and West. The early patriarchate is usually included in overview studies that address these larger phenomena, for example those by Joan Hussey or Hans-Georg Beck.
More focused studies, such as those by Raymond Janin and Jean Darrouzés, deal with the development of the Church of Constantinople against the background of the foundation of the city and its urban growth, and with the administrative authority of the episcopal see of Constantinople over its ecclesiastical province. The studies by Francis Dvornik and Gilbert Dagron, by contrast, are concermed with the relationship between Church and State in Byzantium, as these early centuries constitute a period of experimentation in the interaction between the emperor in Constantinople and his ecclesiastical counterpart. Entries in dictionaries and prosopographies (e.g. the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire) assemble biographical data from different sources for some, but not all of the patriarchs of this period.
There are, however, no comprehensive, stand-alone studies of the early patriarchate of Constantinople that address both the internal developments of the see and its larger role in the different contexts of urban, regional, and empire-wide religious and political developments. The following pages represent a first, very brief attempt.
2 Periodization
The bookends for the early patriarchate are the foundation of Constantinople, on the one hand, and the beginning of Iconoclasm on the other. Scholarship has traditionally subdivided this period in different ways, depending on focus. From the viewpoint of the development of theological doctrine, the 4th century is dominated by the Arian controversy, while the Chalcedonian conflict determined much of the 5th century. The following centuries were occupied by attempts to mend the schism that the Council of Chalcedon had brought to Christendom: the neo-Chalcedonian debate in the 6th century and the debate over Monoenergism and Monotheletism in the 7th century. From the viewpoint of the expansion of the radius of influence of the see of Constantinople, our period can be subdivided into three phases: 1.
from the foundation of Constantinople until 381; 2. from the Council of Constantinople in 381 to the Council of Chalcedon; and 3. from 451 to the beginning of Iconoclasm.' In the first phase, the Church in Constantinople rose from the obscurity of a simple episcopal see to the prominence accorded an imperial capital on the same footing as Rome itself. During the second phase, the bishops of Constantinople intervened actively in the appointments and ordinations of the dioceses that were placed under their control: Thrace with its metropolis Herakleia, Asia with its metropolis Ephesos, and Pontos with its metropolis Kaisareia. With the Council of Chalcedon, which initiates the third phase, the authority of the bishop of Constantinople over the metropolitans and bishops in the three nearest dioceses, already declared in 381, was affirmed. Effectively, this placed the Church of Constantinople at the head of its former rivals within the East, and on a par with Rome. The long third phase, that begins in 451, also saw the reign of the Emperor Justinian, who, like no emperor before him, took it as his responsibility to regulate all aspects of the Church, whether administrative or theological. This was followed a century later by a new model of religious and political collaboration between the Emperor Herakleios and Patriarch Sergios at a time of dire external threat.
A final milestone was the Council in Trullo (692), whose canons reflect a political and religious culture steeped in Christianity. Both the doctrinal-theological and the institutionalpolitical developments that are at the basis of these two chronological models, however, occur on the basis of internal developments within the episcopal see of Constantinople. These form the basis of its rise to prominence in the life of the empire, and will therefore also be included in the following discussion.
3 The Growth of the Church in the Mediterranean Context
It is important to recall that at the beginning of our period, Christianity was a minority religion, followed, at a generous estimate, by only 10 per cent of the population. People largely converted to Christianity as adults. Imperial legislation officially ended public temple worship in the 390s, but still in the 6th century, prominent men followed the ancient religion and its cultural values. Greco-Roman ritual practices were outlawed for the last time at the Council in Trullo in 692.2
Against this background of slow, but steady growth in numbers, the administrative organization of the Church underwent significant development. The hierarchy of offices and grades of consecration that culminated in the position of the bishop (episkopos) was well established already by the end of the 2nd century. But it was only after the Emperor Constantine (306-37) had legitimized the Christian religion, granted favors to the Christian bishops, and affirmed their competence to exercise limited responsibility in some of the public affairs of their cities, that the Church gained traction as an institution. The territorial administration of the Church mirrored the regional divisions of the later Roman Empire. Every large city had a bishop, while the bishop of the largest city in each province had the administrative rank of metropolitan.
The see of Constantinople was a latecomer to this scene. Its first historicallyattested bishop was Metrophanes 1, during whose episcopate Constantine founded the city that would bear his name: ‘Constantinople’ (‘City of Constantine’). At that time, the see of Constantinople was under the authority of the metropolitan of Thrace with his see in Herakleia; this changed with the Council of Constantinople in 381. The episcopal see of Constantinople was removed from the authority of the metropolitan of Herakleia in the diocese of Thrace and put above that of the three dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace. The bishops present at the council would have regarded this measure as a continuation of a long trajectory of regional ecclesiastical politics. From the vantage point of scholarly hindsight, however, it has been interpreted as a decisive turning point in the growth of the authority of the see of Constantinople.?
This provision was reinforced, not without protest from Rome, at the Council of Chalcedon:
The Fathers appropriately accorded privileges to the see of Senior Rome because it was the imperial city and, moved by the same intent, the 150 most God-beloved bishops assigned equal privileges to the most holy see of New Rome, rightly judging that the city which is honoured with the imperial government and the senate and enjoys equal privileges with imperial Senior Rome should be exalted like her in ecclesiastical affairs as well, being second after her, with the consequence that the metropolitans alone of the Pontic, Asian and Thracian dioceses, and also the bishops from aforesaid dioceses in barbarian lands, are to be consecrated by the aforesaid most holy see of the most holy church at Constantinople ...*
The first to sign the protocol of this session was “Anatolius bishop of Constantinople New Rome’, using his new title. Henceforth, the patriarch (as I will now call him for the sake of convenience and clarity, although there was no fixed nomenclature for the administrative ranks of bishop, metropolitan, and patriarch until the 5th century) had to approve the appointments of metropolitans in these three dioceses, and had to participate in their consecration. In cases of complaint against the clergy in these dioceses, it was the patriarch who acted as the final instance of appeal. Interestingly, Canons 9 and 17 of the Council of Chalcedon granted Constantinople appellate jurisdiction even over the provinces of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and autocephalous Cyprus, suggesting that this option extended also to all the other dioceses in the empire: “If anyone is wronged by his own metropolitan, he is to plead his case before the exarch of the diocese or the see of Constantinople.”> At the end of our period, in the 7th century, the patriarch in Constantinople was the head of 33 metropoleis, 34 autocephalous archbishoprics, and 352 episcopal sees.®
The elevation of Constantinople to a rank of honor that followed immediately after that of Rome set the Church of Constantinople on a path of rivalry with that of Rome. In 545, it was even given the force of imperial law by its insertion into Justinian’s law code as Novel 131.2.” As political circumstances permitted, the patriarch of Constantinople challenged the claim of the pope in Rome to greater authority and often met with harsh rebuttal, for instance during the papacies of Leo 1 and Gregory the Great. A constant area of contention in the rivalry between Constantinople and Rome was the diocese of Ilyricum, with its metropolitan see in the important city of Thessaloniki. The see of Constantinople made intermittent attempts to assert its authority in this region, but it was only in 732-33 that Emperor Leo 111 definitively claimed it for Constantinople, thus fueling the tensions with Rome that would worsen in the course of the Iconoclast controversy. It has been calculated that during the 464 years from 323 to 787, the Eastern Church was not in unity with the Church of Rome for 203 years.®
During the Acacian Schism that drove a rift between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople in the second half of the 5th century, Rome underscored its claim to primacy with reference to its foundation by the Apostle Peter. Constantinople responded slowly to the Western argument of priority based on apostolicity. The legend of the foundation of its Church by the Apostle Andrew, the brother of Peter, began to take definitive shape only in the late 6th and early 7th centuries.9 The legend developed that he made his disciple Stachys, for whom there is no contemporary evidence, the first bishop of the city on the Bosphorus.
By Christian tradition, the bishops of those large and influential cities that could claim their roots in the apostolic age held greater authority than their counterparts elsewhere: Jerusalem and Antioch with their New Testament credentials; Alexandria as founded by the Apostle Mark; and Rome as founded by the Apostle Peter. Constantinople joined these sees to form part of the pentarchy (‘rule of five’) of patriarchal sees that vied with each other for doctrinal and political influence, but always with the implicit understanding that they operated within the same organizational framework and had the right to intervene in each other’s affairs.!° The two most prominent instances for an appeal to Rome occurred in the early 5th and in the mid-7th century: after John Chrysostom had been deposed from the see of Constantinople and exiled, his supporters travelled to Rome in the hope of gaining support. During the Monothelete controversy of the 7th century, theologians from Palestine and Cyprus—who refused to adopt the imperially sanctioned view that the solution to the Christological debate of Chalcedon was the concept of one divine will (thelema)—flocked to Rome, where they found a warm welcome. The result was the convocation of the Lateran Synod of 649 to discuss this issue. It was attended by the eastern theologian Maximus Confessor and its meetings were conducted in Greek.
The unity of the Church throughout the empire was enacted and affirmed at the ecumenical councils. They were convened by the emperor and brought together the bishops from all the corners of Christendom (including the regions beyond his imperial control) for the discussion of doctrinal issues and to achieve consensus on matters of internal discipline. Underlining the religious unity of the pentarchy is the fact that, until the 5th century, the common language used at the ecumenical church councils was Greek, with an authoritative Latin translation being produced in Constantinople after the conclusion of each council.”
While the reach of the patriarch’s power expanded from Constantinople to its neighboring regions and then to the entire East, his precise responsibilities beyond the borders of the empire belong to the grey zone where regional, imperial, and ecclesiastical interests converge.“ Christian missions outside the empire occurred for much of the 4th and 5th centuries not as a concerted effort spearheaded by the patriarchate of Constantinople, but at the initiative of individuals from various regions of the empire to bring their faith to their immediate neighbors. This changed with Justinian’s attempts to send his missionaries to the Kingdom of Nobatia in Lower Nubia. In later centuries, the patriarch of Constantinople’s responsibility for Christian missions would become a further indication of his position at the center of political power.
The title the patriarch assumed for himself grew in grandeur along with his position: first ‘archbishop of Constantinople’; after 448 ‘archbishop of Constantinople New Rome’; and, from the beginning of the 6th century, ‘archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and ecumenical patriarch. Long before then, in fact since the 4th century, the use of the adjective ‘ecumenical’, in conjunction with the title ‘patriarch’ as an honorific form of address, had been used occasionally by other bishops, clergy, or laymen when they addressed the bishops of Alexandria, Rome, or Constantinople.” The first bishop of Constantinople to employ the title ‘ecumenical patriarch’ in his official correspondence was John Iv the Faster. His successors, however, used it only rarely, even in their correspondence with Rome. It became part of the patriarch’s official titulature only in the gth century, under Photios.
By the 6th century, the Byzantines themselves had developed not only the foundation legend of their Church by the Apostle Andrew, but also a sense of historical continuity of the patriarchal see. They began to create lists of their patriarchs, which were included in manuscripts for the use of clergy. The earliest such list, claiming to be the work of Dorotheos of Tyre, was composed in the late 5th or early 6th century by the priest Prokopios.” It is no coincidence that this historicizing effort to claim an unbroken continuity since the apostolic age, became manifest at a time when the patriarchs of Constantinople had consolidated their power over the Church of the entire Greek East.
4 The Patriarch in Constantinople
At the beginning of our period, in 325, Constantinople did not yet exist under that name. It was only in 326 that the Emperor Constantine began to pour money and other resources into the ancient town of Byzantion in order to create a further imperial residence in the East, in addition to Thessaloniki and Antioch. He made provision for the construction of the first three churches in the city: Hagia Sophia (the original building of 360 was burnt in 404, its successor destroyed in 532, and replaced by Justinian’s magnificent building that is still standing today), Saint Irene (which also formed part of the patriarchal building complex), and the Church of the Holy Apostles that was to serve as the emperor's burial place. In the course of the next centuries, the ecclesiastical landscape of Constantinople expanded dramatically, the 5th century being the period of greatest growth in the construction of churches and the foundation of monasteries, here as elsewhere.
By the time of Justinian, Constantinople had grown into the largest city along the Mediterranean rim, with c.400,000 inhabitants and 76 monasteries. Its many churches and chapels began to be filled with saints’ relics. Harbors and market squares contributed to its role as a hub for trade and commerce. The imperial palace, immediately to the south of Hagia Sophia, was an agglomeration of structures that included private residences as well as reception halls designed to impress locals and visitors alike. While the city of Rome experienced contraction and decline as a result of raids, invasions, and political upheavals, Constantinople could claim to be not only New Rome, but also a New Jerusalem, a magnet for Christian visitors and pilgrims from all over the oikoumene (literally ‘the inhabited world’). The epidemics of the 6th century and the warfare against the Sassanians, and soon thereafter against the Arabs in the 7th century, brought this period of growth to a dramatic halt. The population declined in number and building patronage became scarce.
With the growth of Constantinople, the role of its bishop within the city also gained in importance.!® According to tradition, bishops were elected by the clergy and people of the city where their see was located, along with the bishops of their province. Increasingly since the late 5th century, however, the voice of the people was limited to the vote of the leading citizens (archontes), part of a general tendency towards the domination of local politics by a small elite. From the late 4th century, as the court ceased to be itinerant and Constantinople became its permanent residence, the emperor also began to play a larger role in Church matters and the appointment of the patriarch. Soon, it was he who made the final selection of the future bishop of his capital city, from a slate of three candidates presented to him by the metropolitans of the sees that belonged to Constantinople and who were represented in the synodos endemousa. It was also within the emperor’s power to appoint a different candidate of his own choice. The procedure for the consecration (i.e, the liturgical affirmation of the selection process) of the patriarch, as determined in Canon 4 of the Council of Nicaea, was essentially the same as for that of other bishops, at least at the beginning of our period: the imposition of hands by at least three other bishops. If the patriarch-elect did not yet hold episcopal rank, his ordination to the episcopate was performed by the Metropolitan of Herakleia, a bow to the latter's historical position as the highest-ranking bishop of the diocese to which Constantinople belonged. The newly-consecrated patriarch honored the bishops and clergy involved in his appointment with financial donations. Although they were not technically bribes, these payments, which were customary at any episcopal appointment, must have been significant. Justinian limited them to 20 pounds of gold or less, depending on the wealth of the see.!”
There is no evidence in our period for the ritual installation of the patriarch by the emperor, analogous to the description given by Pseudo-Kodinos for the 14th century. The patriarch’s liturgical vestments in our period were still those of a bishop; in addition to the priestly garments (sticharion, epitrachelion, phelonion), he also wore the episcopal omophorion, a wide stole decorated with crosses that fell over the front and back of his left shoulder. There was at this time no distinctive headgear.!®
Once installed, the patriarch had to contend with the forces in Constantinople: population, monks, and clergy. As the monasteries in Constantinople grew in number, monastic leaders often had their own loyal following of supporters whom they were able to mobilize in a confrontation. If the patriarch encountered the resistance or the anger of the population, this could easily lead to unrest in the city and might even cost him his see. Several patriarchs were faced with strong and vociferous criticism, some for their doctrinal stance, others for their administration, yet others for their excessively lavish lifestyle.
The patriarch played a direct role in the spiritual wellbeing of his flock. He regularly celebrated the Sunday liturgy in Hagia Sophia and preached from the ambo. Many patriarchs were admired by contemporaries and posterity alike for their rhetorical skill and their theological insight (hence the epithet ‘golden mouth’ for John Chrysostom), so that their sermons are preserved to the present day. The patriarch was also responsible for the moral conduct of his people. A law of Justinian—issued in 544 when the city was afflicted by a severe epidemic and it seemed expedient to find scapegoats—stipulated that men engaged in male-male sex should confess before the patriarch and do penance.!9
The clergy of Constantinople, just like that of the provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus after 381, were subordinate to the jurisdiction of their patriarch. Justinian distinguished three levels: the first administrative unit was the Great Church (which included Hagia Sophia, the Church of Saint Irene, the Church of the Theotokos, and the Church of Saint Theodore). The second group were “the other churches whose maintenance the Great Church undertakes”,2° but who had their own, independent clergy, often according to the wishes of their founders. And finally, there was a third group of “other churches which have their upkeep and maintenance from the most holy Great Church”!
5 Finances
The patriarch’s residence and offices were attached to the Church of Hagia Sophia where he also celebrated the liturgy.?? At the time of John Chrysostom, the pious noblewoman Olympias and the 250 women (including four in the rank of the diaconate) who were attached to her ascetic establishment, catered to the daily needs of the men in the adjacent patriarchate.?3
The patriarchate of Constantinople continuously grew in wealth, although accurate estimates were difficult to come by even at the time. Gregory of Nazianzus commented sarcastically after his resignation from the patriarchate of Constantinople:
. all were talking about the enormous wealth which the principal churches in the world had been storing up as treasure from the beginning—treasures and revenue from all over the place—and the fact that I could find no account of them in the records of my predecessors who had been in charge of that church, nor in those of the new treasurers in whose hands these matters lay.?4
Like all bishoprics, the Church in Constantinople received income from the faithful in its province. Legislation since the time of Constantine treated churches as legal entities, and thus enabled them to receive donations and bequests, preferably of income-generating properties. A further source of funds was the clergy itself, because bishops were expected to donate their private property to the church. By the late 5th century, bishops and priests exerted great pressure, even to the threat of excommunication, on the faithful to produce ‘offerings’ on a regular basis, almost like a tax, until imperial legislation intervened.” It seems that tithing was never required in Byzantium, however. The properties amassed by the Church were nonetheless considerable, and posed no small temptation for financial manipulation. Justinian reinforced legislation by his predecessors which aimed to impose greater control on the financial dealings of the patriarchate of Constantinople. He prohibited sales, mortgages, exchanges of property or leases of church property, except in special circumstances, and then only under the condition that the transaction was properly registered before an imperial financial officer in the presence of all the clergy of the relevant institution.2° However, Justinian later revoked this law, and, on another occasion, allowed the Church of Constantinople to rent out, at a reduced rate, houses in a ruinous state of preservation.2”
The patriarchate’s possessions consisted largely of income-producing properties such as land, vineyards, and mills. In Constantinople alone, this included control over 1100 workshops or small businesses. Since many of these possessions were scattered throughout the empire, this effectively extended the reach of patriarchal influence to an empire-wide scale. It also required the appointment of local administrators.?8
Other forms of wealth came in the form of donations of precious objects, especially to the patriarchal Church of Hagia Sophia. The value of the silver candelabras, revetments, and other objects must have been significant. In 621, all this church silver was melted down to raise funds for Herakleios’ campaign against the Sasanian Empire. After his victory ten years later, the emperor compensated the Church by allocating an annual subsidy to the clergy.?9
Significant expenditures were the lighting of the churches, the upkeep of buildings, and—increasingly since the 5th century—the maintenance of charitable institutions, such as hospitals, hostels for travelers, orphanages, and homes for the elderly, although many of these were also private foundations or received imperial funding.
6 Administration
The patriarch depended on a very substantial supporting staff of clergy that served the four patriarchal churches, often referred to collectively as the ‘Great Church’: Hagia Sophia, the Church of Saint Irene, the Church of the Theotokos, and the Church of Saint Theodore. By the 6th century, the number of clergy attached to the patriarchate had grown out of proportion, and paying them put such a strain on its finances that Justinian addressed this situation by limiting the clergy of the patriarchal complex. The slate was still substantial, consisting of 60 priests, 100 deacons, 4o deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 10 readers, 25 singers, and 100 doorkeepers, and this count does not even include administrative posts.3° Emperor Herakleios, confronted with a similar issue in 612, defined the patriarch’s administrative staff as follows: 2 synkelloi, 2 cancellarii, 10 ekdikoi, 12 referendarioi, 40 notarioi, and 12 skeuophylakes.*!
The clergy in Constantinople also included the synodos endemousa (literally: ‘sitting synod’, also translated as ‘home synod’). It consisted of the bishops from all over Christendom who happened to be in Constantinople and who were expected to assist in ecclesiastical decisions.32 At the Council of Chalcedon, Patriarch Anatolios explained how this had developed: “The custom had prevailed from of old that, when the occasion calls for it, the most holy bishops staying in the renowned city come together about church matters that arise, decide each one, and provide plaintiffs with a response.’33 The home synod was a body with a fluctuating membership and its meetings were held as needed, at irregular intervals. One of its tasks was to assist the patriarch in the adjudication of cases of appeal. Its most influential role was the appointment of metropolitans and autocephalous archbishops throughout the empire. Probably beginning from the 7th century, it also prepared the shortlist of three candidates for a new patriarchal appointment that was presented to the emperor who then made his final selection.34
The synodos endemousa rose to importance in the last decades of the 4th century, during the same decades when Constantinople’s role as imperial capital was consolidated and its ecclesiastical supremacy over the neighboring regions was affirmed. A possible interpretation for the origin of the synodos endemousa might therefore be sought, as I would like to suggest, in the claims to ecumenicity of the patriarchate that were occasionally voiced during this period. Just like the metropolitans, as heads of ecclesiastical provinces gathered all the bishops under their authority for a provincial synod once a year, the patriarch of Constantinople gathered around him all the bishops who happened to be present in the capital, thereby affirming his primacy of honor over all of (Eastern) Christendom.
Most administrative offices on the patriarchal staff begin to be attested in the 6th century.*> A rare example already in the middle of the 4th century is Marathonios, a deacon under patriarch Makedonios, who was known as a “zealous caretaker of the poor as well as of the male and female monastic houses.”°¢ For our period, evidence consists of imperial law, acts and canons of church councils, and information about individual office holders gleaned from hagiography or historiography. In later centuries, up to 48 patriarchal offices in rank order are mentioned in official lists.
In order to understand the offices attached to the patriarchate,?” it is essential to distinguish between title, on the one hand, and office or function, on the other, a distinction that also applies to other areas of Byzantine administration. Titles could be merely honorific, without a function, while functions could be exercised by people without a title. To make matters more complex, there was no fixed correlation between title or office, on the one hand, and ecclesiastical rank, on the other. The important office of financial administrator (oikonomos) could be held by deacons or by priests; the oikonomos kept the accounts of the income from the patriarchal properties throughout the empire and in Constantinople itself. His staff consisted of 89 chartoularioi responsible for monitoring the financial transactions in the different dioceses under the patriarchate’s authority. Their appointment had to be approved by the patriarch, and their conduct was rigorously monitored to avoid any suspicion of wrongdoing. This aspect of the patriarchal administration was of such importance that the Emperor Justinian required an audit of the account books at least every two months.?* From the 7th century, the sources also refer to sakellarioi as high-ranking financial officers with extensive responsibilities.°°
The synkellos was the patriarch’s right-hand man (literally ‘cell-mate’, referring to an originally monastic context) and spiritual adviser; this could either be a deacon or a priest. Some patriarchs had two assistants with this title. This office was often the first step on the way to becoming patriarch.
The patriarchal chancery’s work in this period is largely known from the letters of the patriarch of Constantinople, such as his correspondence with the pope in Rome, or from the proceedings of the Church councils. At the second session of the Council of Chalcedon, for example, Aetios “archdeacon of imperial Constantinople” under Patriarch Anatolios, brought before the assembly a variety of documents for the purposes of further reference: the version of the Nicene creed accepted by the 150 Fathers at the Council of Constantinople in 381; letters by Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria to his fellow Patriarchs Nestorios in Constantinople and John in Antioch; and the letter of Pope Leo to Patriarch Flavian in Constantinople.*° This array of texts gives us some idea of the documentation of theological and administrative significance that was kept in the patriarch’s archive.
The chartophylax (a literal translation may be ‘guardian of paperwork’) was in charge of the patriarch’s correspondence, and thus also of the archive and the library of the see. He was one of the notaries (who usually held the rank of deacon) who together formed the patriarch’s sekreton, the chancery or administrative office. The first known officer who held this title was Kosmas, who was also a deacon and notary in 536.7! Other titles within the sekreton of the patriarchate in our period were skriniarios (secretary) and semeiographos (stenographer).*4
The legal matters of the patriarchate were the responsibility of one or several men with the title of ekdikos (defensor). Since the time of Justinian, their number seems to have been fixed at five or six, headed by the protekdikos.*8 They were probably also in charge of prisons.*4 Another legal position was that of protonotarios.
The patriarch maintained special emissaries (apokrisiarioi), either in permanent appointments or entrusted with ad hoc missions. They were charged with tasks at other patriarchal sees and also at the imperial court.4> Today, we might call them lobbyists.
The care of precious objects of gold and silver (such as patens, chalices, candlesticks, or candelabras) along with the safeguarding of important documents, was the responsibility of the skewophylax (literally ‘guardian of objects’). In the early 7th century, there were 12 men of different clerical rank who held this title.*6
The patriarchate’s charitable work in Constantinople required further administrative offices, but this was a slow development. The earliest charitable institutions in Constantinople were private foundations of pious men and women who may have entrusted their administration to clergymen. In the course of the late 4th and 5th centuries, this work was centralized in the hands of the patriarchate. The gerokomos was responsible for old peoples’ homes, the ptochotrophos for the provisioning of the poor, the xenodochos for the support of travelers and pilgrims, the orphanotrophos for orphans, and the nosokomos for the care of the sick. To what degree the patriarchate supported an existing, imperially created infrastructure of social services, or whether it generated such institutions of social support on its own account, is unclear. Hans-Georg Beck speculates that these offices may not have been strictly and exclusively attached to the patriarchate, but that they were subject to imperial jurisdiction.*’ At the time of John Chrysostom, there were two new hospitals (nosokomeia), complete with physicians and cooks, under patriarchal control.*8
7 Patriarchs in History
In the 400 years between the Council of Nicaea (325) and the beginning of Iconoclasm (726), 51 men occupied the patriarchal throne of Constantinople.
They held office for an average of seven to eight years (Sergios 1 even for 28 years), but this is offset by the ten patriarchs who only lasted for a year or less.
Many of the patriarchs were active as preachers and theologians, and have left an ample written record in their own voice. Some took an active role in ecclesiastical politics, so that details about their lives can be gleaned from contemporary accounts by historians, hagiographers, or other men of the Church, or in the acts of church councils. About others, very little is known.
Most men acceded to the patriarchate very late in life, in their 4os, 50s, and even 60s, usually after moving up the ladder of offices in the Church, from lector to deacon to priest. Some were bishops of another city before being called to Constantinople, although such lateral appointments were officially prohibited. As Constantinople grew in political importance as an imperial capital, it became an attractive see to move to, even for the bishop of the imperial residential town of Nicomedia (Eusebios, in 339) or of the large provincial capital Antioch (Eudoxios, in 360). A famous case of lateral transfer that would later often be cited as a precedent, was the appointment of Gregory of Nazianzus from his position as bishop of Sasima in Cappadocia to the see in Constantinople in 380. Very few patriarchs were appointed directly from the lower clergy or even from the laity. Such an appointment per saltum was also prohibited and made the incumbent vulnerable to criticism. From the 5th century, some future patriarchs had gained prior ascetic credentials as monks.
Many of the patriarchs of Constantinople came from prominent and wealthy families. This means that from early youth they would have enjoyed the intellectual training and social formation that equipped them for a public role. They largely hailed from the large and prosperous cities of the later Roman Empire, especially Antioch and Alexandria, but also from Thessaloniki and, on occasion, from cities in Cappadocia. But there were exceptions of remarkable social mobility, for example John rv the Faster was raised in extreme poverty and had been a manual laborer before joining the clergy.
From the 6th century, a prior position in the ecclesiastical administration of Constantinople could pave the path to the patriarchal see, often in combination with personal patronage by the sitting patriarch. Menas, for example, had been assisting travelers as xenodochos in the Hospital of Sampson, and Sergios I had been in charge of assistance to the poor as ptochotrophos.
A few patriarchs achieved such a degree of popularity that hagiographical accounts were composed about them, a genre traditionally reserved for miracle-working holy men who boasted exceptional ascetic accomplishments. The first patriarch of Constantinople to become the protagonist of a Vita is Eutychios (BHG 657). Hagiographical accounts of other patriarchs of our period were composed with a considerable time lag: an existing Vita of Paul 1 was reworked by Symeon Metaphrastes in the 10th century (BHG 1473); an encomium on Nektarios of unknown date is preserved in a 14th-century manuscript (BHG 2284); the Vita of Gregory of Nazianzus probably dates from the 7th century (BHG 723); as does the Vita of John Chrysostom (BHG 872); and Germanos I was honored with a Vita in the uth century (BHG 697).
8 The Patriarch and the Emperor
The relationship between patriarch and emperor has been the subject of much debate. Their interaction has been interpreted as indicative of the relationship between Church and state or, more generally, of the interplay between religious and secular power, often resulting in the observation that ‘cesaropapism; i.e., the domination of religious matters by the worldly ruler, was typical of Byzantium, in contrast to the West.*® Such dichotomies are anachronistic creations of later scholarship. They obscure the issue as they are based on a false premise of antagonism. In reality, both patriarch and emperor fulfilled their roles within a conceptual framework that was steeped in Christianity, each contributing to the growth and prosperity of the empire under the grace of God. This finds expression in Novel 6 of Emperor Justinian:
The greatest blessings of mankind are the gifts of God which have been granted us by the mercy on high—the priesthood and the imperial authority. The priesthood ministers to things divine: the imperial authority is set over, and shows diligence in, things human; but both proceed from one and the same source, and both adorn the life of man. Nothing, therefore, will be a greater matter of concern to the emperor than the dignity and honor (honestas) of the clergy; the more so as they offer prayers to God without ceasing on his behalf. For if the priesthood be in all respects without blame, and full of faith before God, and if the imperial authority rightly and duly adorn the commonwealth committed to its charge, there will ensue a happy concord, which will bring forth all good things for mankind.5°
The analogous ecclesiastical perspective is encapsulated in the words of Nestorios upon his appointment as patriarch of Constantinople: “Give me the earth purified of heretics, your majesty, and I will give you heaven in return.”>! The patriarch, in other words, offered to support the emperor with his prayers, as long as the emperor fulfilled his role in maintaining public order and securing the functioning of the Church. The harmonious cooperation between patriarch and emperor, advocated by both Justinian and the patriarch Nestorios (who was later condemned as a heretic himself), was implemented during the double siege of Constantinople by the Avars and the Sasanians in 626. While Emperor Herakleios was leading the military campaign against Persia, it fell to Patriarch Sergios I to secure the protection of the city. He led a procession of the clergy and the pious city-dwellers along the walls of Constantinople during which the Holy Virgin miraculously delivered the city from danger.
Hagia Sophia was not only the patriarchal church, but also the imperial church, where the emperor and his household regularly attended the liturgy celebrated by the patriarch and his clergy. The patriarch or his clergy also officiated at the life-cycle events of the imperial family: baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The emperor’s spiritual needs, however, were not usually fulfilled by the patriarch. When an emperor required prayer assistance or absolution from his sins, he approached prominent monks or ascetic holy men, often from outside Constantinople. This was common practice also among the rest of the population who sought out the clergy for absolution from their transgressions, but turned to monastics for spiritual guidance and succor.
The success and failure of each patriarch was determined by his interaction with the emperor. Many patriarchs owed their appointment to the direct intervention of the emperor, others made an effort to build close relations. Yet others risked alienating the emperor by their adamant adherence to ecclesiastical or doctrinal stances which the latter did not endorse. This could have detrimental consequences: at least 12 of the 51 patriarchs in our period ended their term in office due to political pressure, and often as a result of direct imperial intervention. For instance, after Emperor Justinian 11 regained his throne in 705, he punished Patriarch Kallinikos 1 for his support of the opposing faction by having him blinded.52
Any regularity in the interaction between emperor and patriarch was slow to develop. Here as elsewhere, the late 4th and especially the first half of the 5th century prove to be precedent-setting. In the two generations after the ‘Constantinian turn’ supported the expansion of Christianity within the public realm, the Church in Constantinople was of little concern to the emperors whose courts were largely itinerant. When Constantine was buried with great pomp in the Church of the Holy Apostles that he had built as his mausoleum, his biographer Eusebios reports merely that, after the imperial representatives had left, “the servants of God” said some prayers.>? The emperors in our period only rarely addressed the patriarchs in their legislation. The first bishop of Constantinople to be named in imperial legislation was Nektarios in 381, who is mentioned as one of 12 bishops who represented Nicene orthodoxy.** The imperial laws of the late 4th and early 5th century that demand the expulsion of heretics from the capital were not addressed to the patriarch, but to the city prefect who would have been responsible for enacting them.*> While such exclusionary measures benefited the Church and its leader, the emperor’s overarching motivation in implementing them must have been the avoidance of civil unrest.
By the late 4th century, emperors began to take greater interest in the bishop of Constantinople. In a precedent-setting event, Theodosius I asked the bishops who had gathered for the Council of Constantinople in 381 to present him with a list of suitable candidates for the see of Constantinople, and then selected Nektarios. Henceforth, emperors would exercise their choice of a future patriarch on the basis of a shortlist presented to them by the home synod.
By the mid-5th century, the patriarch acquired the ceremonial role of conferring the coronation on the designated emperor who had been chosen, as was customary, by the army, the senate, and the people. Whether this religious element represents the constitutive act that confers imperial power, ie., whether the patriarch ‘makes’ the emperor, is subject to scholarly debate and should best be judged on a case-by-case basis. The first patriarch to become involved in an imperial accession was Anatolios, who conferred the crown on Leo I in 457, setting a precedent for ecclesiastical involvement in the accession of a new ruler that would reverberate through the Christian Middle Ages. This took place in the Hebdomon, the gathering ground for the military in a south-western suburb of Constantinople. On subsequent occasions, similar ceremonies involving the patriarch were held in the hippodrome. It was only in 641 that the Church of Hagia Sophia became the location of imperial coronations.°® New precedent was set in 490, when Patriarch Euphemios required a profession of orthodoxy from Anastasios, written in the future emperor's own hand and deposited among the valuables of the patriarchate, before he would give his approval to the imperial appointment.>”
More than any other emperor in our period, Justinian integrated the Church, including the patriarch, into his imperial plan for steering the empire. Bishops were tasked with reporting abuses of the civil administration in their provinces. The patriarch’s excessive expenditures for his ever-growing staff were curbed. Monks were asked to pray for the prosperity of emperor and empire. The canons of church councils were recognized as having the force of imperial law.
Empresses, too, interacted with the patriarch of Constantinople. They often pursued their own agenda, whether motivated by personal piety or by political concerns of their own. We are particularly well informed about the empresses of the Theodosian dynasty and about Theodora, wife of Justinian. When, after giving birth to three daughters, Aelia Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Arcadius, was pregnant with the future Emperor Theodosius 11, patriarch John Chrysostom frequently paid visits to her private quarters and reassured her with his prayers. On the occasion of the baby’s baptism in 402, the empress and the patriarch colluded in a plan to manipulate Arcadius’ imperial policy.
The cleric who carried the baby in procession was instructed to make him nod in agreement to the written petition for the closure of the Marneion in Gaza. Arcadius was furious at having his hand forced by this staged gesture, but was unable to rescind his public promise. He dispatched a band of soldiers to Palestine to assist in the dismantling of what was known to be one of the largest pagan temples of Zeus of the time. Eudoxia, at her own initiative, contributed building materials. Theodosius’ 11 oldest sister Pulcheria acted as his regent after the death of Arcadius in 410. Known for her piety, she only consented to marry the 58-year-old general Markianos on the condition that he respected her vow of virginity. Her consecration to God at the age of 15 had taken place in a lavish ceremony in Hagia Sophia, attended by all the clergy and all the (secular) officials. To commemorate this occasion and to celebrate the rule of her brother, she donated an altar decoration, “marvelous to behold” and lavishly adorned with gold and precious stones.5® A century later, Theodora, a great supporter of Monophysitism, is reputed to have secretly sheltered 500 of their clergy in the women’s quarters of the imperial palace. She successfully competed with her emperor husband Justinian over the sending of Christian missionaries to the kingdom of Nubia, ensuring that the Monophysite party arrived there first.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق