Download PDF | Church reform in the late Byzantine Empire A study of the patriarchate of Athanasius of Constantinople, 1289-1293, 1303-1309, Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies Thessaloniki 1983.
230 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is with sincere appreciation that 1 acknowledge the kind and generous assistance of many friends and colleagues in the research for and preparation of this text. I am especially grateful to Dr. Nicholas Itsines who gave me unselfishly of his time and knowledge of the Greek language; to Fathers Stephen Plumlee and Basil Essey who read through this work in various stages of its preparation and made valuable suggestions on style and organization; to the Reverend Dr. Demetrios Constantelos who provided constant encouragement and inspiration through his own research on social thought in the Orthodox Church.
In addition, [ would like to thank my friends at Brooklyn Tech for their encouragement and especially Victor Roth who gave me access to information otherwise unavailable to me. Dr. Alice - Mary Talbot was extremely generous in making available her manuscript of the edited version of one hundred of Athanasios’ letters. Mr. Stephen Beskid of St. Vladimir’s Seminary Library was invaluable in his ability to find the right. book in the shortest possible time.
I would also like to thank Laurice Swaya and Victoria lederoff who typed the text and my friend and sister-in-law Pamela Liapakis who generously handled my photocopying. Finally, | would like to express by thanks to Professor Christou and the staff of the Patristics Institute for their interest and encouragement.
Brooklyn, New York John Lawrence Boojamra Transfiguration, 1979
THIRTEENTH CENTURY BYZANTIUM AND THE NEED FOR CHURCH REFORM
Political and Ecclesiastical Affairs
When the twenty-two year old Andronicos Il (December 11, 1282 - May 24, 1328)! acceded to the throne of Byzantium, the empire was in a state of political, social, and ecclesiastical decline 2. In 1261 the empire had been restored to its capital, Constantinople, after fifty-seven years of Latin occupation. The city, however, had declined sadly from its former glory. The area of its effective hegemony was reduced to western Asia Minor, some islands in the Aegean Sea, Macedonia, the Morea, and Byzantine Thrace. Even this remnant was subject to continuing assaults of the Turks, the pillaging of the Catalan mercenaries turned hostile, and the economic exploitation of Genoese and Venetian merchants °.
The Byzantine Church was also in a state of moral and disciplinary decay, torn internally by the after-effects of the Union of Lyons (1274) and by persistent hostility between the followers of the deceased patriarchs Joseph and Arsenios. But in spite of the «disastrous reign» of Andronicos IL*, the Church managed to pro-duce one of its most aggressively reform-minded patriarchs in its history. This book shall examine the nature and extent of the ecclesiastical reforms of Patriarch Athanasios, who twice headed the Orthodox Church (October 14, 1289- October 16, 1293 and June 23, 1303 - September, 1309)* during this turbulent period in Bygzantine history.
Athanasios’ voluminous correspondence is invaluable for understanding not only the ecclesiastical events of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, but also the nature of Byzantine thinking on reform in a period of social decay ®. In addition, his letters show the extent of his influence over many of Andronicos’ secular and ecclesiastical policies’, his personal reactions to the decadence of the period, and his attempts to reverse the Church's decline *. Athanasios, like the prophets of the Old Testament and such great monastic leaders of earlier centuries as Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Theodore the Studite, was a man of action. He was far more dynamic and innovative than the emperor Andronicos, his partner in the symbiotic Church-State partnership. The ecclesiastical turmoil which Andronicos faced resulted from the high-handed manner in which his father, Michael VILI, dealt with the Church. Michael VIII's successes, whether domestic or diplomatic, were purchased at a price at once financial, ecclesiastical, and political. His efforts at ecclesiastical union, culminating in the Council of Lyons of 1274, produced not only great opposition among the people, but an antiunionist schism within the Church. He brutally usurped imperial power by the blinding of young John IV, scion to the Lascarid throne; the subsequent political schism had strong ecclesiastical overtones and would haunt Andronicos in the form of the Arsenite party and the proLascarid dissidents in Asia Minor °. The emperor Michael VIII died on December 11, 1282, and although, during his father’s lifetime, -Andronicos had embraced the hated Union of Lyons and had taken an oath of obedience to the pope, the death of his father, ended his sense of obligation. The Union had so agitated the internal political and ecclesiastical life of the empire that Andronicos’ first official act was to end it and restore Orthodoxy”, Wanting to please the opponents of the Union and to reestablish Orthodoxy, he agreed to deny his father a Christian funeral; Michael was buried in Thrace without any religious rites or ceremony, out of communion with the Church!!. Two weeks after Michael's death, the unionist patriarch John Beceos quietly retired from the patriarcha! office!’.
The official restoration of Orthodoxy was, however, a mixed bag of liabilities and assets for Andronicos; instead of producing the ecclesiastical peace he had hoped for, it released the partisan energies of the dissident Arsenites to stir up Byzantine sociely and ecclesiastical life. The Arsenite party had come into existence when Michael VIII deposed the Patriarch Arsenius (1255 - 1259; 1260 1265) in favor of Joseph (1266 - 1275; 1282 - 1283). A group of Arsenios’ supporters maintained that he had been illegally deposed, creating a schism between the so-called Arsenites and Josephites that continued until 1310.
The Arsenite party gradually developed from a religious faction into a party of dissent and opposition to both the Palaeologan house and the «official» Church. They persisted in their loyalty not only to the long-since dead patriarch Arsenios (+1273), but also to the Lascarid house which still had strong support in Asia Minor.
When the former patriarch Joseph, so hated by the Arsenites as a usurper, was returned to the ecumenical throne on the same December day that Beccos abdicated 18, they demanded that Joseph be excommunicated, and proclaimed that under no conditions would they submit to his authority *. On March 23, 1283, when Joseph died, the Arsenites again hoped to control the succession to the patriarchal throne '°. Andronicos seeking a compromise in aman outside the partisan politics of the Church, decided upon Gregory of Cyprus, a layman and a scholar, and carefully chose hishops free froin all assuciation with the hated Union of Lyons or the Arsenite quarrel to consacrate him on March 28.
Early in 1284 Andronicos in a special effort to win back the Arsenites called a meeting at Adramyttion on the northeast of Asia Minor !®, After much fruitless discussion the Arsenites called for a miraculous intervention and devised a special «test of heaven», When it went against them, they agreed to recognize Gregory as patriarch, but soon cianged their minds and rejected him. Gregory responded by anathematizing them. When the Arsenites returned to Constantinople, Andronicos made another effort to reconcile the more moderate faction to the Church; he allowed them to bring the body of Arsenios back to the city to a shrine at the monastery of St. Andrew. Going still further, he granted the same faction, under the leadership of the monk Hyakinthos, the use of the monastery of Mosele in Constantinople. [t soon became a center of Arsenite propaganda as well as a center for political dissent, a move that Athanasios later violently condemned!’. The Arsenites continued to work for the removal of Gregory of Cyprus, who eventually had a doctrinal falling-out with some of the leading theologians of the Byzantine Church, among them Theoleptos of Philadelphia and John Chilas of Ephesus. Although the disagreement was due largely to a misunderstanding, Gregory resigned in June, 1289, and retired to the Monastery of Aristine, pathetically affirming that his only desire had been to unify the Church, but his efforts produced the opposite results }*.
Four months after Gregory resigned, Andronicos secured the election of the famous hermit, Athanasios. Athanasios’ election was not to be the occasion for peace since the Arsenites still demanded to be allowed to name the patriarch, and Athanasios’ rigorous sense of ecclesiastical and canonical good order permitted no sympathy tothe intransigent Arsenites, or to anyone who would not conform to the discipline of canonical norms.
Andronicos’ rejection of the Union of Lyons represented a reversal of imperial policy from a preoccupation with the threats of western powers to a concern for the empire’s internal stability. In Laurent’s understanding, this reorientation was a result of Andronicos’ weak and superstitious personality and the influence of «obscurantisty monks. He cynically concludes that the monks, among whom he no doubt would include Athanasios, encouraged a Byzantine chauvinism in leading the people to believe that their religion and their rites were superior to others }°.
Whatever the personal and political pressures, however, maintaining Orthodoxy and restoring the empire became synonymous. One must understand this identification in order to understand Athanasios’call for rebuilding the Byzantine ecclesiastical and social order on the basis of Christian Orthodoxy. For Athanasios, Christian fervor was the only way to save the empire from decay. Religious fervor was a new and a strong element and must be taken into account in the period.
At the turn of the fourteenth century, the mixture of religion in every aspect of Byzantine life was persistent. Athanasios’ letters illustrate the distinct increase in the religious character of court and ceremonial life. He wrote several letters, for instance, urging Andronicos and his family to participate in the numerous processions which the patriarch organized and in the celebrations of the feasts of the Theotokos *°. Giving most of his attention to liturgical occasions and ecclesiastical matters, Andronicos virtually ignored foreign and domestic affairs. One author comments that though the
Turks were advancing in Asia Minor, yet the pedant on the
throne of the Caesars seems to regard their intrusion as of
less moment to the empire than that of the filiogue clause to
the Creed 2}.
Another author mentions that «public life in Byzantium increasing- — ly showed theocratic trends»??. Andronicos seems to have decided to seek support for his reign in one party in the empire — the Church - and followed through with the logic of that decision.
During the first half of Andronicos’ reign, the Church, though divided by schism and the bitterness surrounding the Union of L.yons, dominated the internal affairs of the empire, partially as a result of churchmen’s reaction to the blatant caesaropapism of Michael VIII's unionist policy: «All parties in the Church were determined that no emperor shonld ever be allowed to go so far» 23. Perhaps if Andronicos had been a stronger personality, less pious or less anxious about the legitimacy of his house, he might have taken a firmer stand with the Church and prevented its concerns from dominating his time and generating disturbances. His devotion to the Church was so extreme that Pachymeres, the leading historian for the period, reports, with displeasure, that on one occasion a bishop had advised the emperor that he could well overrule a patriarchal decision if he so wished. Andronicos replied that no emperor had such a right °4. With an emperor of such inclinations on the throne, the process of ecclesiastical aggrandisement was quite naturally accelerated. Athanasios was certainly one of those churchmen, in the tradition of the patriarchs Polyeuctos and Michael Cerularios, who considered the Church so central to the affairs of society that he sought the expansion of ecclesiastical influence.
The Nature of Athanasios’ Reforms
With the decentralization of what had been the brilliant Byzantine administrative system and the separatism accentuated by pronoia grants, the Church attempted to maintain in principle a strong ecclesiastical structure, with the patriarch having increased immediate control over ecclesiastical institutions. Athanasios tried to centralize the patriarchate even further by his program of ecclesiastical reform on the basis of canonical order and the freedom of the Church; this effort was perhaps most evident in his insistence on episcopal residence, especially in those territories not under imperial contro]. In his mind, the bishops were a source of unity to the faithful Orthodox, many of whom through political and military events found themselves under Latin domination in Greece and Crete, and under Turkish domination in Anatolia, and represented the possibility of Byzantine irrendentism by providing a focal point for local opposition to foreign elements.
Paralleling the general growth in the authority of the Church was a corresponding growth of monastic influence. Since the eighth century, an ascelic-monastic party, many of whose members seryed the Church as patiiarchs, had dominated ecclesiastical life; * the resignation of Gregory of Cyprus and the accession of Athanasios enhanced the influence of this party *°
Athanasios’ two patriarchates are models of the new power and authority acquired by the Church, as well as the growing predominance of monks within the Church. In the mid-fourteenth century the persons of the Hesychast patriarchs Callistos and PhiJotheos further accelerated the growth of monastic power, often enabling the Church to pursue a policy different from the emperor’s 27,
Athanasios was at Lhe watershed of the new power then moving into the hands of the Patriarchale of Constantinople.
The leading contemporary historians, George Pachymeres and Nicephoros Gregoras, and Athanasios’ letters affirm the harsh and extremely ascelic nature of Athanasios’ personality as an ecclesiastical and social reformer. Although Gregoras is more generous than Pachymeres, both present Athanasios’monastic nature as the source of his harsh and rigorous administration of the Byzantine Church. Gregoras reports that from the very beginning Athanasios, filled with divine ardor and severity threw a somber light on the life of the bishops and the clergy o1 the city 78. Banescu refers to Athanasios’ personality as «dur et impitoyable». °° Athanasios was not a pessimist making tiresome pious and moral exhortations, but a man who saw a threat to the Church and the empire. He notes in one letter: «Christianity is heing destroyed in two ways, from without by enemies, and from within by excessive injustice and depravity» *°.
His monastic vocation led him to believe himself to be the spiritual and moral guardian of Byzantine Christian society. The function of the monk from the perspective of social responsibility was always to work for the well-being of God’s people. For the monk-patriarch Athanasios, the struggle consisted of rebuilding Byzantine scciety on the pattern of monastic ideals and the social mutuality of the cenobitic community 3). Recognizing a tension between the imperfect social and ecclesiastical order, on the one hand, and the possibility of a nearly perfect life based on the pattern of the monastic community, on the other hand, he wanted to rebuild the social system and the eccle-siastical structure so that they would reflect his conception of right order and worship in the Christian world. For example, his repeated references to the discrepancy between the baptismal oath and the failure of the clergy and the people to actualize it in life were an attempt to apply monastic principles to Byzantine society as a whole 3.
Athanasios’ letters detail all of the horrors of the decline of the Orthodox commonwealth. He moans:
I hoped to be counted «among those who sleep in their Lombs» before seeing these misfortunes which have befallen the Christian people, or second best to crawl into a dark hole underground these days... rather than to manage the affairs of the Church of Christ my God 33, For Athanasios, the solution to the problems was the return to Christian morality, the abandonment of which had led to the horrors of injustice, exploitation, corruption in the Church, and indirectly to the evils which God had sent by way of chastisement. The process of ecclesiastical and social disintegration which Athanasios described was, by the very nature of his logic, inevitable and without an act of repentance inexorable. In sound prophetic style he affirmed that «if we did not sow these troubles, we would not reap their fruit»?4. With numbing repetition he called on Andronicos as the «pious ruler» to impose a return to Christian morality and repentance (2m:otpogy, xai uevavorx), the only virtues that could save the Church and empire **.
Following the theme of chastisement and repentance Athanasios quoted the Prophet Jeremiah: And Jet it not be said about us, «O Lord, thou hast scourged them, but they have not grieved; thou hast punished them, but they would not receive correction». (Jeremiah 5: 3) 36 The same letter used Jonah’s warning, urging the Byzantines to reject the example of the Sodomites, who disregarded God’s warnings and were both condemned and destroyed (Genesis 19), in favor of the example of the Ninevites, who showed repentance and were saved from impending doom (Jonah 3).
But simple repentance was not sufficient for this man of action. He wrote, paraphrasing James 2: 26: «Without acts, the faith is a dead body». Ile urged Andronicos not to «confound only by words the sins of the schismatics»?7 but to use the power given to him by God, for what good is a lion which has no «teeth and claws». In another place he wrote, «Rouse yourself to provide justice for the wronged and punishment for sinners. Cleanse the Church from defilement ....»®® God, he assured the emperor, would assist the Byzantines if they would offer repentance; a perfect example would be for the emperor to force the bishops, who have betrayed God’s Church and His people, to be obedient and return cach to his proper diocese instead of staying in Constantinople and causing endless troubles #°. At the time of death «one need not show his words, but his deeds». Ile urged the emperor, «Do not shout down wickedness with words, but destroy it manfully with actions» 41. Athanasios did not stop at pious exhortations and dire prophetic warnings of the punishment of God, but went on to make concrete suggestions as to how Andronicos should govern the Empire, defend the people, and bring about a moral regeneration in the Church ?°.
In addition Athanasios responded to this period of social crises by instituting a variety of welfare programs and a policy of social restructuring. In the tradition of St. John Chrysostom, the fourth--century patriarch of Constantinople, he attacked all forms of moral corruption, especially among the wealthy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy; he sought to alleviate the oppression of the poor and in several instances cailed on the nobility of the city to house refugees and prisoners #4, The patriarch himself set up soup kitchens at key positions in the capital and distributed a gruel compounded of vegetables, oil, fish, and wheat to the poor '4. He seL up a grain commission to reinstitute stale controls over the provisioning of Constantinople and to do away with middlemen who he fell were growing rich speculating in victuals 7. Andronicos refers to Athanasios as possessing the moral virtues of John Chrysostom “6, and Athanasios in several places draws the parallel between himself and Chrysostom, his persecuted and exiled predecessor ?*. In reforming the social and ecclesiastical order, Athanasios did indeed garner personal enemies and was denounced almost as often as he denounced others. Pachymeres’ history records many attacks provoked by his rigorous asceticism and maximalist judgments *.
Among Byzantines in the post-patrislic age little attention was given to ethical or reform thinking; theological affirmations and clarifications prevailed, with theologians making no real effort to relate these creatively to the active life of the Orthodox people. Hans-Georg Beck has claimed that ethical thinking was largely foreign to this period, with the specific exceptions of Isidore Glabas of Thessalonica and Theoleptos of Philadelphia. Using the example of John Chrysostom as a paradigm, he writes:
Die christliche Unterweisung, Predigt und Katechese, bliebenim Dogmatischen stecken, ohne diese Dogmen fruchtbar zumachen, noch dazu tiberwuchert von klassizistischer Rheterik und antiken Reminiszenzen. Eine Homiletik mit den star- ken ethischen Impulsen, wie wir sie etwa bei Joannes Chrysostomos finden, liegt dieser Epoche fern, ist ihr - mit gerin-gen und Kaum noch erforschten Ausnahmen - einfach fremd *, Unfortunately, Beck compounds his inadequate understanding of the period when he caricatures the monastic mentality and its prevalence as the reason for the lack of ethical consciousness. He makes the point that the Church, being in the hands of the monks, could not produce an agressive ethical leadership, since by its nature the goal of this monastic ethos, contemplation (Ozwela), did not encourage practical teaching *°. This line of thought overlooks Athanasios, not only a recognized master of the monastic life, but perhaps one of the leading moralists and ethical thinkers of the Byzantine Church; his only limitation, apart from the universally recognized harshness of his personality, was the fact that he left no systematic presentation of his teaching. One of the objects of this work is to gather information from Athanasios’ correspondence to illustrate that he was a mature, though unsysltematic, ethical thinker with deep roots in both the Scriptures and the traditions of the Byzantine Church.
It is unfortunate that many historians dismiss Alhanasios’ reforming efforts precisely because they were motivated by an asceticrigorist tradition of Byzantine monasticism and as such were inappropriate to genuine situations of life. Even though his reforms were largely abortive efforts to redirect the empire, their success or failure must not be the issue. Athanasios’ efforts must be judged on the basis of his intentions, his keen insight into the problems afflicting the Byzantine Church and empire, and his influence on later ecclesiastical developments.
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