Doctrinally, there was the final definition of Christological dogma, the continuing rejection of dualist heresy, and the rejection of iconoclasm.
In terms of the numbers of Christians, there were the great losses due to the expansion of Islam, offset to some extent by mission work by the Orthodox among the Bulgars and the Slavs, especially the Russians, and by the separated Eastern churches to the Far East.
Relations with the Western church were punctuated not only by Christological controversy, iconoclasm, and competition for the allegiance of converts in central Europe, but also by the Photian schism. That schism identified some of the points of estrangement between the Western and Eastern forms of Christianity that were to climax in the great schism of 1054.
I. THE AGE OF HERACLIUS AND THE MONOTHELETE CONTROVERSY#
As the years 400–600 had been in western Europe, the years 600– 800 were the time of barbarian invasion and settlement for the East. The Indo-European Slavs and the Mongol Avars and Bulgars overran the Balkans. Moreover, the Persians invaded Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.
To face this crisis, a great emperor, Heraclius (610–41), emerged. He brought military victories over the Persians in 628–29, but soon a more serious threat was to come from the Arabs.
On the theological front, Emperor Heraclius undertook again the task of reconciling the separated Christians of the East to the Byzantine version of orthodoxy. Heraclius’s goal was to preserve the doctrine of the two natures, but to find the oneness of Jesus Christ in some other aspect than person. By the seventh century the lines had hardened to the extent that theology was not the real problem in the separation of the Henophysites, but it would be cynical to say that theology was not important.
Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople (610–38), advocated the formula “one energy” (operation or activity) — employing language to be found in Cyril, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Severus—to represent the unity of the two natures in Jesus Christ. Sophronius, a Palestinian monk who in 634 became patriarch of Jerusalem, opposed the formula, saying that monenergism (“one energy”) was a covert revival of Monophysitism. He explained that there was one working agent who perfomed two operations according to the appropriate nature.
Both Sergius and Sophronius wrote to Pope Honorius (625–38), who advised against the use of “one energy,” but in his own exposition said Jesus had “one will.” Honorius presumably was speaking concretely of the act of willing, not theoretically of how many “wills” there were in Jesus, but his suggestion was taken up by Sergius in the theoretical sense.
Heraclius promulgated the Ekthesis, written by Sergius, in 638, forbidding discussion of “one energy,” but affirming “one will” (Monotheletism), the last of a series of compromises (the Henoticon, Neochalcedonianism, the Three Chapters) aimed at reconciling the Chalcedonians and the Henophysites. It failed to conciliate the Henophysites, though, and only succeeded in dividing the Chalcedonians. Pope John IV (640– 42) condemned Honorius, and the Monothelete controversy caused a schism between Rome and Constantinople between 646 and 681.
Emperor Constans II (642–68) in 648 issued the Typos, forbidding discussion of the “wills” in Jesus. The ambitious Pope Martin I (649– 55) in a synod at Rome in 649 proclaimed the doctrine of two wills in Jesus and condemned Honorius and Sergius.
Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), one of the great theologians and spiritual masters of the Greek church, was the leading advocate of the two wills in Jesus. Maximus had fled to Rome when he was banished by the eastern emperor, who also sent Pope Martin into exile in the Crimea.
Maximus’s position was that there is one who wills and he cannot perform two contrary volitions.
It is impossible that Jesus Christ’s human will, which is a truly human will, but deified like the whole of his humanity, should not agree with the divine will.
The human will does agree, freely and of spontaneous volition, with the divine will.
This theology was the basis of Maximus’s spirituality: Jesus Christ heals our freedom so that the imitation of Christ brings a voluntary submission to the will of God.
In his Mystagogy, Maximus drew a comparison between a church building, the universe, the human soul, and the liturgy.
The church building with its sanctuary set aside for priests, and nave for all the faithful, is an image of the universe, divided into an invisible spiritual world and a visible corporeal world.
It is also an image of the soul, which consists of two forces, intellect and vitality.
Each act of the liturgy, with its two parts (of the word and of the sacrament), marked by the first entrance of the priest into the building and the second or great entrance of the holy sacrament, is symbolic of some aspect of Christian faith.
The Monothelete theologians were the patriarchs Cyrus of Alexandria, Pyrrhus of Constantinople, and Macarius of Antioch.
They declared that will is a matter of person, not nature (physis).
Since Chalcedon had said Jesus Christ is “one person,” the will of that person is the will of the Logos.
The result was a theological psychology. The human nature of Christ became a merely passive instrument that the divine activity and will employs, devoid of any initiative of its own. The Monothelete view placed the principle of the Savior’s human activity in the divine Word.
Cyrus of Alexandria instituted a persecution in Egypt against the Coptic church (Henophysite in its theology) on behalf of the Melchite (imperial) cause that supported the “one will” position. That persecution was most unfortunate, for it alienated much of the Egyptian population from the emperor on the eve of the Arab conquest.
The emperor Constantine IV (668–85) tried to ease the strained relations between Rome and Constantinople. He convened the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III (680–81), also called the First Trullan Council from its meeting in the Trullos (domed room) Hall. Pope Agatho (678–81) was the new Leo behind the decisions of the council, and Maximus provided the theological basis. The Monotheletes were willing to say, instead of one will or energy, one hypostatic will and one theandric (divine-human) energy. That would have been good theology under Justinian, but it was not accepted by those committed to the language of “two wills.” So, the theology of Constantinople III was another Roman victory.
The council condemned Sergius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and Honorius. It preserved the oneness in Jesus Christ by saying that the human will submitted to the will of the Logos.
The four Christological councils may be interpreted as representing a pendulum swing between the emphases of the schools of Alexandria (the oneness of Christ) and Antioch (the twoness of Christ): an Alexandrian emphasis at Ephesus (431), Antiochian at Chalcedon (451), Alexandrian again at Constantinople II (553), and Antiocian again at Constantinople III (681).
Roman Catholics have defended Honorius’s orthodoxy (and so papal infallibility) by various explanations:
he used “one will” in a moral, not physical, sense
his was a private view not expressed ex cathedra
the council was wrong in attributing to him the same view as the others condemned, and because of his careless use of language he was condemned along with others
his name was substituted for another’s in falsified acts of the council.
The Syrian Christians of Lebanon maintained the Monothelete viewpoint and pulled away. They became known as the Maronites, named for a hermit, Maro, of the fourth–fifth century, but actually founded by St. John Maron (seventh–eighth century).
During the exile of the patriarch of Antioch to Constantinople in the first decade of the eighth century, the Lebanese Christians began the practice of electing their own patriarch. They later accepted the two-will position and since the twelfth century have been a uniate church with Rome, that is, a church preserving its own customs and liturgy, but in communion with Rome.
Many Byzantine monks and churchmen fled to the West from Islam and the Monothelete emperors and brought with them Byzantine art, monastic discipline, and liturgy. Among these was Theodore of Tarsus. Among the devotional practices that spread to the West was the veneration of the cross.
In contrast to Rome’s theological victory at Constantinople III, its sequel was a defeat for Rome, even more of a defeat than the canons on church organization of Chalcedon had been. Since neither the fifth nor sixth ecumenical councils had framed disciplinary canons, Justinian II (685–95; 704–11) called the Second Trullan Council (692), also known as the Quinisext (fifth–sixth) Council in respect to canonical legislation.
This entirely Eastern gathering, not recognized by Rome, approved 102 canons. Among the decisions that differed from Western practice were:
The renewing of the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon that gave Constantinople equal privileges to old Rome
Allowing deacons and presbyters to be married if the marriage was contracted before ordination (the requirement of celibacy for bishops meant that bishops were drawn from the monks, resulting in the monks ruling the church)
Renewing the prohibition on eating blood
Prohibiting the representation of Jesus Christ as a Lamb (demeaning to the Logos, who had become man, not an animal, and illustrating the Eastern church’s higher sacramentalism with respect to religious art)
Prohibiting fasting on Saturday in Lent except on the Great Sabbath
Rejecting from the liturgy the Theopaschite addition to the Trisagion
In establishing the disciplinary code for the Byzantine church, this council confirmed the practices that were to form a barrier to unity with the Western church.
II. PAULICIANS#
Byzantine sources say the founder of the Paulicians was a certain Constantine from Armenia in the seventh century who adopted the name of Silvanus. Those sources attribute a dualistic, Manichaean doctrine and a Docetic Christology to the Paulicians, who actually took their name from either the apostle Paul or, more likely, Paul of Samosata (third century).
Armenian sources are not so explicit on historical details but indicate the movement was active in Armenia a century before it was known to Byzantine writers. Some features of the group may have been found among Armenian Christians earlier. The Paulicians joined with the Muslims against the empire, but they were favored by the Iconoclastic emperors.
The Key of Truth, of medieval origin (perhaps seventh to ninth century), but known from an Armenian manuscript dated 1782, appears to be an authentic Paulician source and gives a different perspective on the group’s beliefs. The doctrines presented include:
The unity of God
The humanity and adoption of Jesus
The importance of baptism for Jesus and the believer (no infant baptism)
The rejection of the sacraments and hierarchy of other churches
The rejection of asceticism, cult of saints, and image worship (including even the symbolic use of the cross)
The claim that Mary did not remain a virgin
They affirmed that they were true Christians, alone possessed of the apostolic faith. Except for the doctrines of God and Christ, these positions are confirmed by the Byzantine sources.
It seems that by the ninth century there was a split in the Paulicians.
One group in Byzantium adopted a dualist-docetic position. This Western group was the one known to the Byzantine polemicists and influenced the Bogomils in the Balkans, who followed the Manichaean dualist viewpoint. The charge of Manichaeism against the Paulicians as a whole may have had special reference to Iconoclasm, because dualism was perceived to give a theoretical basis for the rejection of images.
The Key of Truth preserved the position of another group in Armenia that stayed nearer the earlier doctrines. Its close similarity to Paul of Samosata, taken with the Syrian influence in the Christianity of Armenia, does not require a direct descent from Paul of Samosata, but may suggest that the name was given from the acceptance of a similar Adoptionist Christology.
III. THE IMPACT OF ISLAM#
During the age of emperor Heraclius arose another force of world historical significance—Islam. By the time of Heraclius’s death (641), both Persia and Byzantium were severely weakened by the Muslim invasions from Arabia. In the end the church lost three patriarchates (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria), and many Christians in the East lived under Islam. Its influence is still felt in Eastern churches today and to a lesser degree its influence lingers in the West in the Iberian peninsula and hence in South America.
A. Muhammad and His Christian Background#
The Henophysite (Syria) and “Nestorian” (Persia) forms of Christianity were alienated from the Byzantine Orthodox and often swung the balance in favor of the Islamic conquest in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia.
Many of the Arab peoples had remained pagan, and Muhammad set about to convert them.
Muhammad (570–632) married a wealthy widow who died in 595, leaving only daughters. He worked on camel caravans and thus came into contact with Jews and Christians. In 622 he moved from Mecca to Medina. This move, the Hegira, marks year 1 in the Muslim calendar.
The Koran shows some knowledge of Christian customs and beliefs.
Some are disapproved, such as religious pictures and monasticism (the Koran knows mainly monasteries and not churches).
Some are misunderstood, such as the Trinity consisting of the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Son
“Believed” meant “submission,” which is the meaning of “Islam,” and “Muslim” is “one who submits.”
According to Muhammad, strict monotheism allowed for no “Son” or “Spirit.” The angel Gabriel supposedly gave the Koran to Muhammad, who is “the apostle” or “prophet” of Allah. The Koran in time was supplemented by tradition (Hadith), custom (Sunna), and consensus (Ijma). The Old and New Testaments had their place, and so Jews and Christians as “people of the book” were more highly regarded than pagans. Jesus was considered an earlier prophet, but the understanding of him was quite Docetic.
Islam’s radical monotheism, strict morality, simplified list of duties (daily prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca), and fanatical zeal appealed to many.
B. Muslim Expansion#
After the battle of Yarmuk, 636, the Muslims marched into Jerusalem. The city’s patriarch showed Mount Moriah (as the scene of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Isaac) to the conquerors, who were considered by many as liberators from Byzantine rule.
Antioch fell in 638. Alexandria was somewhat harder to take, falling in 641, after the Arabs had taken Babylon in the East. Armenia was conquered in 654, and the region of Georgia voluntarily submitted to Arab rule. Carthage, the last vestige of Byzantine resistance in Africa, fell in 697 and by 709 all of North Africa was in Muslim hands.
Unlike the situation in the countries of the Middle East, Christianity completely disappeared in North Africa. Several factors may have been at work:
Similarities of culture between the Muslims and the Punic and Berber populations of North Africa
The social and economic differences between the Romano-Byzantine peoples and the native population
The major split between the Donatists and the Catholics
The Vandal view of Christ as a deified chieftain that offered no strong alternative to the Muslim view of Muhammad
From North Africa the Muslims spread into Spain, controlling most of the peninsula by 711 and taking Toledo in 712. Expansion north of the Pyrenees was checked by Charles Martel’s defeat of the invaders between Tours and Poitiers in 733 (traditionally dated 732).
The century of greatest Muslim expansion is neatly bracketed by the death of Muhammad in 632 and the defeat at Tours in 733.
The rapid expansion of Islam in the lands where Christianity had first taken root (Palestine, Syria, Egypt) demonstrates how superficial the Christianization had become. The people had been harassed by doctrinal controversies and sectarianism. Many persons’ Christianity was bound up with former pagan beliefs and practices, prayers to the saints, reverence for Mary, and use of amulets and other features of magic.
When the Muslims came saying Muhammad was the last of the prophets, many people accepted the new religion. The purified ethical monotheism, and opposition to superstitious practices and pictorial representations, seemed to represent a higher religious ideal.
Islam initially made no effort to convert non-Arab Christians, and there is no evidence of destruction of church buildings until the ninth century. The conquerors did destroy images in the churches. As the bureaucracy of the Arab rulers developed, taxes and indemnities were imposed on Christians. In addition to the financial burdens, Christians could not hold certain offices in the government.
The education and experience of many Christians, however, made them indispensable to the new rulers. This was especially so in Egypt, but also in Baghdad, where “Nestorian” scholars who had mastered Greek, Syriac, and Arabic translated Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic.
Nonetheless, the popular support for Christianity began to disappear. Only one-half of the churches in some areas of the East were in use. By the early eighth century there was great pressure on the churches in the Near East. Some pockets of Christianity left in the East, however, have endured until today.
C. The Christian Response to Islam#
When Christian apologists began to respond to Islam, they offered three not mutually exclusive explanations for the phenomenal expansion of this new religion.
1. Islam was a Christian heresy
There were enough points in common with its belief structure—monotheism, prophetic revelation, judgment, and afterlife—to make this plausible.
2. Islam was God’s judgment on the shortcomings of the church
There are always enough deficiencies in the Christian life of believers to make this a possible explanation for misfortunes.
3. Islam was a demonic imitation of the true religion
The early Christian apologists had used this argument to account for similarities between Christianity and pagan mystery religions.
We can trace three stages in the Christian response to Islam.
The first response was to see Islam as a chastisement for Christians’ sins and to say that if enough Christians would repent the plague would go away.
The second response (beginning in the late seventh century) was to advance an apocalyptic interpretation of Islam. Its coming preceded the end of the world, and soon the Muslims would experience worse afflictions than they inflicted.
Only about a hundred years after the rise of Islam did Christian writers begin to engage in serious polemics against Islam (the third response to Islam)
The first writer to articulate the Christian case in Arabic was Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 745–c. 825), whose work was more designed to keep Christians from being influenced by Islam than to try to convert Muslims.
IV. THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY#
The Iconoclastic (“image breaking,” that is, picture destroying) controversy was sparked, in part, by response to Islam’s opposition to images.
The debate concerned the pictoriability of Jesus Christ (among other persons), especially the divine in Christ, so the Christological arguments that were employed made the whole question an epilogue to the Christological controversies.
The first phase of iconoclasm lasted from 726 to 787; the effort was revived from 815 to 843. The controversy touched the nerve of popular piety, for the most significant form of Eastern devotion had become the cult of holy images or icons (the Greek word means “pictures,” not “statues”) depicting Jesus Christ, Mary, saints, and angels.
Marks of devotion to pictures seemingly evolved from the marks of respect paid to official portraits of reigning emperors during the late empire. These portraits were considered a substitute for the emperor’s presence, so the same signs of respect due the emperor were shown to his pictures: draperies to set them off, prostration before them, burning of incense and lighting of candles beside them, carrying them in solemn processions.
The first Christian images known to have been surrounded with these marks of cult were portraits of persons venerated as holy while they were still alive. A cult of images is first attested during the fifth century and became suddenly popular during the last half of the sixth and the seventh century. The reserve that church leaders such as Epiphanius and Augustine had shown toward the first images at the end of the fourth century had now disappeared.
The pictures provided a more concrete and direct representation of the presence of spiritual powers. Prayer, faith, and hope were addressed beyond the symbol to the person or mystery represented, but the image itself became an object of veneration possessing its own power of intercession or even miraculous properties.
Leo III the Isaurian (or Syrian) (717–41) was a soldier emperor who gave himself to holding the boundaries against the military and ideological threat of Islam. One of his first achievements was to drive the Arabs back from Constantinople in 717–18, not long before Charles Martel checked their advance in the West.
In 721–22 emperor Leo III decreed the forced conversion of Jews, a decree repeated by later emperors, all unsuccessful. In 726 he issued a law code that made both parties to adultery equally culpable, made betrothal binding, and imposed mutilation as a symbolic punishment for certain crimes.
The bases of Leo’s opposition to pictures in the churches are very much disputed, and the initiative may actually have come from bishops in Asia Minor. Possible influences include
those who attributed the success of Islam to the idolatry of Christians,
those who hoped that a purified Christianity would convert Muslims and Jews,
Paulician associations in his background
Leo’s desire to control the church by weakening the powerful monasteries, where the monks made icons and sold them for a great price to pilgrims
After declaring his opposition to images in 726, Leo III issued an edict against them in 730 and deposed the patriarch Germanus for resisting his policy. Major support for the pictures came from the monks. Pope Gregory III opposed the emperor in two synods held in Rome in 731, and Leo III responded by relieving papal jurisdiction from Illyricum, south Italy, and Sicily.
Emperor Constantine V (741–75) was an opponent of the cult of saints as well as of religious pictures. He called and took an active part in a council that convened in 754 at Hiereia, an imperial palace across the Bosporus from Constantinople. The iconoclasts regarded it as the seventh ecumenical council, but Constantinople was the only patriarchate represented.
Both iconoclasts and iconodulists (those who venerated icons) agreed that the divine in Jesus Christ could not be represented in pictures, but Jesus Christ had two natures.
The iconoclasts argued that to represent the human nature was to lapse into the Nestorian heresy by dividing Christ, but to represent both natures was to go against their distinction (Monophysitism) and was to make an image of deity. To worship the pictures was to worship the human nature (Arianism).
The iconodulists replied that not to represent Jesus Christ was Monophysitism.
Against pictures of Mary and the saints, the iconoclasts reasoned that one cannot depict their virtues, so pictures were a vanity. Other arguments by the iconoclasts were that the only true image of Jesus Christ is the eucharist or a holy person, that the most perfect image was the emperor himself, saintly by office, and that the early Church Fathers such as Eusebius of Caesarea had said that it was not possible to have an image of Christ.
The supporters of the pictures used arguments that were most effectively articulated by John of Damascus (d. c. 750), an Arab Christian who wrote in Greek.
John of Damascus was the most systematic and comprehensive theologian in the Greek church since Origen. His most important work is the Fountain of Knowledge, part three of which (On the Orthodox Faith) gives an excellent summary of the teaching of the Greek Fathers on the principal Christian doctrines. He also produced homilies, hymns, and a commentary on Paul.
John of Damascus’s Three Apologies against Those Who Attack the Divine Images took a fourfold approach to the issue.
It is impossible and impious to picture God, who is pure spirit, but Jesus Christ, the virgin, saints, and angels who have appeared to human beings may be depicted. The Bible forbids idols alone.
It is permissible to make images. The Old Testament prohibition of images was not absolute, for some images are commanded there (the cherubim over the mercy seat and other adornments of the temple). Moreover, we are not under the Old Testament now; by the incarnation God has prompted us to make the image visible.
Since human beings are created as body and soul, the physical senses are important in human knowledge of the divine. There are images everywhere — human beings are images of God. The tradition of the church allows images, and this suffices without the Bible.
It is lawful to venerate the images. Matter is not evil. There are different kinds of worship: true worship belongs to God, but honor may be given to others.
Finally, there are advantages to images and their veneration. They teach and recall the divine gifts, nourish piety, and become channels of grace.
Despite John’s arguments, the emperors drove the iconodulists from positions of power and began a vigorous persecution. Many works of art in church buildings from before the eighth century were destroyed. Constantine V took strong measures against monks, the chief spokesmen for the pictures, secularizing their property and forcing them to marry nuns.
Many of them fled to the West.
Some of the best formulations of the independence of the church, arguing that the emperor was not the teacher of the church, were made in letters of the popes.
In the end, the iconoclasts sealed their own defeat by refusing to give to pictures of Jesus Christ a reverence they gave to pictures of the emperor.
The reaction against iconoclasm finally set in after Constantine V. First, Emperor Leo IV (775–80) was milder in his policies, and then his widow Irene brought a complete reversal.
Irene was cruel (blinding her own son, Constantine VI, in 797), but she was sincere in her veneration of the pictures. Irene was deposed in 802, but before that she held the seventh ecumenical council, Nicaea II (787), presided over by the patriarch Tarasius, which supported the iconodulist position and was confirmed by papal legates sent by Pope Hadrian I. This council declared the council of 754 heretical.
The key decree of the Second Council of Nicaea made a distinction between “honorable reverence,” which could be given to pictures, and “true devotion,” which belongs to God alone. Moreover, there was a distinction made between the image and what was worshiped. The theological defense of images, however, still left them more pregnant with the divine essence than was true for some of the idols of paganism.
The council’s rejection of the church’s aniconic past included the exclusion of the option of being Messianic Jews with its requirement (canon 8) that Jewish converts give up Jewish customs.
A later phase of the iconoclastic controversy opened in 814 when Leo V the Armenian again implemented an iconoclastic policy. Opposition to him came from Nicephorus, patriarch from 806 to 828, and Theodore (759–826), head (hegoumenos) of the monastery of Studium in Constantinople.
The second phase of the controversy brought greater erudition and philosophical depth to the debate. A council in 842 reaffirmed the decisions of Nicaea II, and this victory for the images is celebrated by the Orthodox churches on the first Sunday in Lent as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy.”
The iconoclastic controversy in the East concerned only pictures; statues were regarded as idolatrous.
In the West no such limitation was involved, although it was some time before there was extensive production of free-standing images.
The veneration of images occupied a somewhat lesser place in the Western church, for there the image was an intermediary and a modality of worship to the object depicted and so received a relative veneration
In the East the image received a direct veneration as infused with the nature of the object represented
As a result of the iconoclastic controversy, art became in the East an ecclesiastical competence and subject to dogmatic definition. The decisions of Nicaea II surrounded icons with an aura given previously to relics of the saints. Relics, however, were not neglected, for Nicaea II required that relics of saints be placed in the altar at the consecration of a church (canon 7).
In later history art had a freer development in the West than it did in the East, where it was surrounded with theological restrictions.
The victory for the icons was also a victory for the monks in the Greek church. Monasticism became the standard for what is the Christian life. The monks regarded themselves not only as those who had renounced the world, but also as those who set the norm for the church, its doctrine, and the spiritual life.
Nevertheless, the union of church and state continued to give the emperor — as theocratic representative—great influence in the church. State-church arrangements in practice characteristically give the state preeminence over the church and promote traditionalism in society.
The Orthodox Church considers as ecumenical only seven councils and so the official statements of its doctrine as closed. Tradition as enshrined in the ecumenical councils and the consensus of the early Fathers is authority for Orthodoxy, for these provide the criteria not to be deviated from in interpreting the Bible.
V. THE PHOTIAN SCHISM#
Photius was a learned scholar, skilled politician, and captivating person, who served twice as patriarch of Constantinople (858–67 and 878–86). The patriarch Ignatius either resigned or was deposed in 858, and Photius, a layman and first secretary to the emperor Michael III the Drunkard, was elected to succeed him.
The details of the situation illustrate the practical realities faced by the Byzantine church.
Ignatius had refused communion to Caesar Barda, uncle of the emperor, for his immoral life and was removed from office.
Photius was ordained by a bishop who had been suspended by Ignatius, whose followers declared Photius deprived of office and excommunicated.
The supporters of Photius responded in kind.
Pope Nicholas the Great sent legates to investigate. Exceeding their powers and passing a judgment the pope had reserved for himself, the legates confirmed the deposition of Ignatius, who refused to recognize their competence.
The pope deposed his legates and declared Photius deprived of office.
An encyclical of Photius in 867 complained of the intrusion of Roman missionaries into Bulgaria and of certain practices of the Western church: fasting on Saturday in Lent, clerical celibacy, and refusal to recognize the validity of confirmation by Greek priests (in the West confirmation was restricted to the bishop).
Photius also objected to the Western teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son as well as from the Father, thereby exposing a difference in the Latin and Greek understandings of the Trinity
For the Latins saw the principle of unity in the one divine nature common to the three persons
For the Greeks saw the unity in the one God the Father
A synod in 867 declared the pope deposed and excommunicated. Basil I seized sole power in Constantinople later in 867 and reinstated Ignatius as patriarch. A synod in Constantinople in 869–70 (counted by the Latins as the eighth ecumenical council) excommunicated Photius and over the protest of the papal legates received the Bulgarians under the jurisdiction of Constantinople.
When Ignatius died in 877 or 878, Photius again became patriarch. Pope John VIII was willing to accept him if he would repent of his previous conduct. At a synod in 879–80 Photius again won the papal legates to his side, and when he read the papal instructions, he carefully omitted the demand for repentance. He was, however, recognized even by the pope. In 886 the new Emperor Leo VI, for political reasons and out of dislike for his former teacher, deposed Photius and placed him in a monastery.
The schism between Rome and Constantinople connected with Photius was temporary and only one of several through the early centuries, but it did bring out the issues that made certain a final break in communion.
The Greek theory of pentarchy (rule by the five patriarchs) did not imply equality of the patriarchs and was not placed in opposition to a primacy by Rome until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The so-called Photian schism was more of an internal struggle in the Byzantine church, into which Rome was drawn, than a controversy between Rome and Constantinople.
Photius drew up a law code that gave a comprehensive guide to relations between the emperor and the patriarch.
The emperor was to be responsible for the welfare of the empire, the defense of orthodox doctrine, and the interpreter of the laws.
The patriarch was to be the sole judge in regard to the canons and conciliar decrees of the church.
As a theorist of imperial power, Photius set forth the position that was to govern the relation of political power and religious affairs in the Byzantine and Slavic worlds.
VI. THE FLOWERING OF THE MIDDLE BYZANTINE CHURCH#
Byzantine culture had its second golden age (after the age of Justinian in the sixth century) in the late ninth through the eleventh centuries, associated with the Macedonian dynasty (867–1056), a time when the West was culturally still struggling in comparative darkness.
This period was highlighted by the reign of Emperor Basil II (976–1025), who revived the military power of the Byzantine empire. Evidence of this Byzantine achievement is found in the spiritual life nourished by monasticism, literary productivity, and the flowering of art.
The Sunday eucharistic liturgy remained the focal point of church life and spirituality. In addition, three movable feasts highlighted the church year: Palm Sunday, Easter, and Ascension (Pentecost). Nine fixed feasts structured the rest of the church calendar:
Annunciation to Mary
Nativity of Christ
Epiphany of Christ (his baptism)
Hypapante (the “meeting” of Simeon and Anna with Mary and the infant Jesus at the latter’s presentation in the Temple)
Transfiguration of Christ
Birth of the Virgin
Presentation of the Virgin
The Dormition of the Virgin
Exaltation of the Cross
The commemorations of the martyrs filled the remainder of the church year.
During the eighth century the type of hymn known as the Kontakion was replaced by the Kanon. The Kanon consisted of eight- or nine-verse paraphrases of the nine biblical odes that previously had a place in the liturgy. A model stanza introduced the hymn and set the melody and rhythm.
Marian piety flourished.
In the fourth century Mary became a symbol of the virginal life
In the sixth century the protectress of cities
In the ninth century she became much more human, as in the prominence in literature and art of the theme of the “Lament of the Mother of God” at the foot of the cross
Theodore of Studios developed this theme, and the sermon on the “Lament of the Virgin” by George of Nicomedia (bishop from 860) on Good Friday was influential. He was the first to develop salvation from a Mariological point of view.
The essential elements in the cult of the saints developed in the fourth and fifth centuries and so were parallel in the Eastern and Western churches. Relics as well as icons were tangible reminders of saints’ examples and powers to aid. Relics were believed to protect from enemies, to bring good harvests, to bring healing, and to work other miracles. The consecration of a new church required the placing of relics of saints in the building. Parts of a saint were placed in containers that could be displayed for veneration on the saint’s feast day, and fragmentary parts were worn in phylacteries by the clergy and laity. Hagiographers reported that on the death of a holy man crowds tried to obtain remains by cutting off part of his garment and pulling out hairs from his beard.
There were three principal types of monasticism practiced in the Byzantine world:
Large cenobite monasteries located close to cities. These were involved in the life of the city, serving as centers of worship and pilgrimage, providing hospitality for travelers and care for the sick and aged, and producing items of everyday use as well as objects of religious art.
Hermits or solitaries, who withdrew far from towns for a life of prayer and asceticism.
A small community of “hermits” living away from towns under the spiritual direction of an old man.
Since the sixth and seventh centuries a typical process had emerged of a young monk
entering a coenobion
then the head of the monastery allowing him to lead a life according to his own pattern of spirituality under the direction of an old man at a colony of hermits
then, as he became experienced in the spiritual life, his living in complete solitude.
Two strands of influence were present in Byzantine civilization: the ascetic/monastic element from Christianity and the humanistic element from classical Greece. Both influences found expression in the literature and art of the Middle Byzantine period.
A cursive, or minuscule, script began to replace the uncial script (capital letters) in the ninth century, first in religious writings, and many of the surviving Greek manuscripts of the Bible come from the ninth and tenth centuries.
Much of the literature produced, being compilations, was of a secondary nature.
In the ninth century Photius compiled notes on his wide reading, his Library, valuable for preserving the contents of many lost works.
In the tenth century Suidas compiled a lexicon of Attic Greek (the Souda), containing grammar and biography as well as definitions, still consulted by lexicographers.
Simeon Metaphrastes (fl. c. 960) made the chief collection of Byzantine hagiography, the Menologion, which recounted the lives of saints arranged by the liturgical calendar.
In the eleventh century Michael Psellus was a historian and enthusiast for the revival of classical learning, especially Platonic philosophy.
The most creative theologian of the period and greatest of the Byzantine mystics was Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022). Lacking much acquaintance with traditional theological literature, Simeon gave priority to directly revealed inner experience. The characteristic form of his mysticism was the experience of light. On several occasions he had visions of brilliant divine light, which he recorded in his writings. Simeon’s principal teachings involved the primacy of a spiritual father in guiding the disciple to a direct experience of God and the importance, in the midst of one’s tears and grief, of feeling the divine grace.
Byzantine culture of the Macedonian period has been described as only a thin layer at the top of society, but the tenth and eleventh centuries have left us more manuscripts and mosaics than any other period. This was the flourishing period of Middle Byzantine art. Illuminated manuscripts (from Patmos, Athos, and other monastic centers), ivory carvings, and the minor arts had a magnificent development, but especially impressive is the architecture with its mosaic decoration. This Byzantine art is characterized by hieratic dignity and monumental solemnity.
Many eleventh-century church buildings are still to be seen in Athens, and others are scattered about the Greek world. These are mostly small buildings in the shape of a Greek cross (like a plus sign with arms of equal length), a dome over the crossing, a narthex on the west end, and an apse or apses on the east end. The pattern was set by the palace church of Basil I in 881, no longer extant.
Byzantine church buildings were an image of the cosmos, giving the impression of hanging from above and developing downward. The dome represented heaven, and the movement is downward toward the earth (in contrast to the basilicas of the ancient church, where the movement is forward, like time, and in contrast to the later Gothic churches of the West, where the movement is upward). Beautiful mosaics or frescoes covered the interior walls in three zones. In the dome was Christ the Pantokrator (Almighty), in the pendentives and other higher places are narrative scenes of the festival cycle of the church (representing the holy land), and on the lower walls (representing the earth) are individual representations of saints. Second in importance to the dome was the apse, and here was often depicted Mary.
Impressive examples of Middle Byzantine mosaics in Greece itself are found at Nea Moni on the island of Chios and on the mainland at Daphni near Athens and Hosios Loukas west of Delphi. Two tendencies in Byzantine art are exemplified at the latter two sites.
The mosaics and frescoes at Hosios Loukas have a hieratic style—rigid and austere scenes, frontal poses, and a limited range of colors.
The mosaics at Daphni show the influence of classical art with lifelike portrayal of figures and flowing garments.
Middle Byzantine religious art in mosaic has some of its best surviving representations at Venice and in Sicily, where the West was in contact with Byzantium and Byzantine mosaicists were employed. St. Mark’s in Venice, where Byzantine artistic influences are evident in the architecture and in the mosaics, which date from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, provides one of the best places to gain an impression of a Byzantine church.
The flourishing of Middle Byzantine civilization had a counterpart in Armenia, where the first one-third of the tenth century was an intellectual and architectural golden age under the Bagratid dynasty.
VII. MISSIONARY EXPANSION#
Of great significance for the future of the Eastern Church were the missions to central Europe that converted the Slavs and Bulgars to Orthodox Christianity.
Emperor Michael III, in response to a request from the king of the Slavs in Moravia, Rastislav, sent in 864 two brothers — Constantine, better known by the monastic name he took at the end of his life, Cyril, and Methodius — as missionaries to Moravia. Both brothers had served high officials. Out of their mission came the adaptation of the Greek alphabet for the Slavic language (the Glagolitic script that preceded the Cyrillic alphabet), perfected in Bulgaria, whence it spread among the southern Slavs. After Cyril’s early death, Methodius carried on.
The work of Cyril and Methodius is an example of what came to be the policy of the Eastern church, that is to organize churches on racial and national lines, leading to a federation of autonomous churches with different customs but one doctrine and spirit.
The Roman practice in missions was different, insisting on the same liturgical language (Latin, which persisted in all Roman Catholic churches until Vatican II’s Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, 1963) and customs.
Cyril and Methodius secured papal support for their mission. Rome won jurisdiction in the area and permitted for a time a Slavonic liturgy, which was welcomed in Bulgaria and eventually found its home in Russia. This Old Church Slavonic of the liturgy, however, became increasingly remote from the spoken language of the people.
There were Christians among the Bulgars since the seventh century, but Christianity was established in Bulgaria under King Boris (852–84). He decided for Constantinople over Rome since its patriarch would recognize a self-governing church, and in 870 a council in Constantinople put Bulgaria under its jurisdiction. His grandson, Czar Symeon, created a culture that was Slavonic in language, but Byzantine in spirit.
The first Bulgarian speaking bishop was Clement of Ochrid (893), a disciple of Methodius, who established a monastery in Ochrid (in modern Macedonia) that became an important religious center. The Bulgarian patriarchate was established in 925. The Bulgarian church thus became the first national Orthodox Church outside the empire. The Rila monastery, founded in the tenth century, became the cultural center of Bulgaria.
The Vikings or Northmen who migrated east in the eighth to tenth centuries became known as Rus. They penetrated modern Russia by following the Dnieper and Volga rivers south, opening trade routes with Baghdad and Constantinople. Some settled among the Slavic population, adopted the Slavic language, became the rulers, and gave their name to the native people, with whom they merged.
Although there was earlier missionary activity, the first convert from the nobility of the Rus was Queen Olga at their capital of Kiev (Ukraine). The real founder of Russian Christianity, however, was her grandson, Vladimir, himself a ruthless libertine, yet he formally embraced Orthodox Christianity.
The story is related in the Russian Primary Chronicle that Vladimir investigated Islam, Judaism (accepted by the neighboring Khazars in the eighth century), Roman Catholicism, and Greek Orthodoxy. Each of the first three had features that displeased him. His delegation to Constantinople brought back a glowing report of the splendors of Hagia Sophia and of the liturgy, in which God seemed to dwell on earth.
Vladimir was baptized on January 6, Epiphany, 988, followed by a mass baptism of the people of Kiev a few months later (either Easter or Pentecost)—events celebrated in 1988 as the thousandth anniversary of the beginnings of Russian Christianity. He instituted policies that won a majority of his people to Orthodox Christianity by his death in 1015.
One of Vladimir’s sons, Yaroslav the Wise (1019–54), advanced the independence of the Russian church from Byzantium — codifying Russian law, providing for the translation of canon law, building the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, collecting religious books, and opening schools.
The Hungarians and the western Slavs (Bohemians, Poles, Croats, and Slovenes), in contrast, came under Frankish and Roman influence.
The Jacobite church in Syria was not well located for missionary work, but the first half of the ninth century was a golden age in its production of Syriac literature.
Meanwhile the Church of the East was living up to its name by carrying the Christian message even to the Far East. From their home base in Persia these Christians were prepared to follow the trade routes that lay open to the East. The members were energetic, monks were ready for self-sacrifice as missionaries, the hierarchy was intelligent, and effective methods involving educational and medical services were employed. As new episcopal sees were established, the Church of the East also set up schools, libraries, and hospitals.
It is estimated that in the Middle Ages more Christians gave allegiance to the catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon than to either the patriarch in Constantinople or the pope in Rome. In 775 the catholicos moved his seat to Baghdad, the new capital of the Muslim ‘Abbasid dynasty (750–1258).
Much of the intellectual achievement under the ‘Abbasid caliphate of the eighth and ninth centuries was due to Dyophysite (Nestorian) Christian scholars, who had translated works of Greek science and philosophy into Syriac and then into Arabic. One of these is among the great names in the history of translation—Hunain ibn Ish10ee0q (809–73). Notable among those who held the position of catholicos were Yeshuyab II (628–43) and Timothy I (780–823).
Varying reports place the introduction of Christianity into India as early as the first and second centuries, other evidence increases the probability of Christianity there in the fourth century, and a strong presence is certain in the sixth. Large numbers of Christians existed on the southwest (Malabar) coast of India and smaller numbers in the northwest. From the earliest times their associations were with Syriac-speaking Christianity by way of Persia, and Syriac was the ecclesiastical language. During the seventh to ninth centuries the Church of the East provided episcopal leadership for the Christians in India and sent missionary monks there.
From as early as the fourth century there were Christians around the Caspian Sea and in Bactria. By the end of the fifth century East Syrian missionaries were working among the Huns. Bishoprics came to exist at the major cities along the “Silk Road” to China.
A long inscription in Chinese set up in 781 at Xi’an, the capital of the T’ang dynasty, tells of the arrival there in 635 (at the time the Irish missionary Aidan went from Iona, Scotland, to Lindisfarne, England—chapter 18) of an East Syrian missionary monk, A-lo-pen, who was favorably received by the emperor. The inscription gives an effective presentation in Chinese of the doctrines of the “Luminous” religion (Christianity).
Opposition brought physical destruction to Christian property in the early eighth century, but imperial favor was restored in 742. Another persecution in the mid-ninth century brought suppression of Christianity in China, and in 980 a Syrian Christian priest and five others who had been sent to aid the mission in China returned to Baghdad reporting that Christianity was extinct there, perhaps not totally true.
Somewhat later in the tenth to eleventh centuries Christianity was spreading by a more northerly route into Mongolia. The king of a nomad tribe, the Keraits, accepted Christianity, and there were Christians among the Mongol tribes, perhaps the grain of truth behind the western legend of a Christian king and priest called Prester John. Later, in the thirteenth century, Christians missed their opportunity to launch a major mission effort under Kublai Khan (chapter 24).
The Korean Chronicles speak of East Syrian Christians in the country during the Silla dynasty (661–932), perhaps as a result of Korean contact with Xi’an during the time of Christian favor there. Japanese sources report that in 737 an envoy to Xi’an returned with a Persian representative of “the Church of the Luminous Religion,” and there is evidence of a Christian building in Kyoto dating apparently to the seventh century.
VIII. THE COPTIC CHURCH#
The Coptic church in Egypt experienced a time of revival under the Fatimid caliphs (969–1171), its members achieving artistic excellence and filling high government positions under their Muslim masters. The period was marred by persecution at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century.
The eleventh century saw the first composition in Arabic of a grammar for the Coptic language. Coptic scholars saw a need to resist the overwhelming influence of Arabic and renewed the production of grammars and dictionaries in the thirteenth century, but this late burst of literary activity was unsuccessful in preserving Coptic as a living language outside the liturgy, where it is still used.
The patriarch Christodoulos (1047–77) transferred the seat of the patriarchate from Alexandria to Cairo. In the next century was compiled the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, a major source of Coptic church history in spite of containing much legendary material for the early centuries.