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Introduction

CHAPTER I CHURCH AND EMPIRE

1. Legislation of the empire and the Christian faith

2. Cultural pluralism

3. Emperor and Church

Chapter II. CHURCH STRUCTURE

1. Local church: bishop, clergy, laity

2. Clergy: marriage or celibacy?

3. Regional first hierarchs

4. Primacy of Rome by 451

Chapter III. SPIRITUAL LIFE: WORSHIP, MONKING, SAINTS

1. Liturgical Traditions: Unity and Diversity

2. Worship and art

3. Development of monasticism

4. Saints, relics and holy places

Chapter IV. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND MISSIONARY EXPANSION TO THE EAST

1. Syrian tradition

2. Christianity in the Asian subcontinent

3. Armenia and Georgia

4. Arab Christians

5. Egypt, Ethiopia and Nubia

6. Native Christian churches and Byzantium as the center of the Empire

CHAPTER V THE WEST IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

1. On the Danube and beyond

2. Christian Gaul: ecclesiological problems and disputes about the teachings of Bl. Augustine

3. British Isles: St. Patrick; Irish monks

4. Spain. Arians and Orthodox

5. Africa. Arian persecution

6. Saint Leo the Great and the Self-Consciousness of the Papacy

7. Successors of Leo and the Laurentian Schism

Chapter VI. THE CATHEDRAL OF CHALCEDON AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

1. Chalcedon Cathedral: doctrinal results

2. Chalcedon Cathedral: church order

3. Opposition to the cathedral in the East

4. Patriarch Akaki. Enoticon and conflicts between East and West

5. Growth of Monophysitism under Anastasia

Chapter VII. THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN

1. Union with Rome

2. Justinian and Theodora

3. Origenist controversy

4. «Three Chapters», Pope Vigilius and the Fifth Ecumenical Council

5. Legacy of Justinian

Chapter VIII. THE CHRISTIAN EAST AFTER JUSTINIAN

1. Internal splits in Monophysitism

2. Imperial policy after Justinian

3. Antioch and the Jacobites

4. Alexandria and the Copts

5. Christianity in Persia: Armenians, Jacobites and Nestorians

Chapter IX. SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT AND THE BYZANTINE PACE

1. Rome, Ravenna and Byzantium; Saint Gregory the Great

2. Lombard-Arians and the Aquileian schism

3. Mission to the Anglo-Saxons: Irish monks and St. Augustine

4. National churches in Spain and France

5. «Western patriarchy»?

Chapter X. EMPEROR HERACLIUS AND MONOTHELITISM

1. Union policy of Heraclius and Sergius: monoenergism

2. Church unions in the East and in Egypt

3. Sophronius of Jerusalem and Honorius of Rome: Monothelitism

4 Islamic Conquest: Jerusalem, Syria, Egypt

5. Saint Maximus the Confessor and Pope Martin

6. Sixth Ecumenical Council

EPILOGUE

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

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Introduction

A new systematic account of the history of Christianity, which has been preceded by so many others, can only be justified by the intention of presenting facts, events, persons and their relationships from a new angle. And the novelty lies primarily in the author’s attempt to achieve a more accurate balance between the Western and Eastern vision of the historical past than in other textbooks of church history.

Indeed, it can be said that modern historians of the late Roman Empire and the Middle Ages either confine themselves to these periods without touching on their consequences, or if they consider these consequences for the further history of Western civilization, they consider the latter in a limited way, as the history of Western Europe alone. In contrast to this Westernist historical trend, the development in this century of specifically «Byzantine» studies has led to a new recognition that the Christian Roman Empire continued to exist after the 5th century. However, until now, in most Western schools and universities, Byzantine studies have not had a significant impact either on the teaching of history or on its understanding; this was partly because Byzantine studies were considered a hard-to-reach discipline, requiring knowledge of Greek, other Middle Eastern and Slavic languages ​​and the study of a civilization that did not lead to any significant achievements for all mankind. Indeed, the modern world as we know it was not formed in Byzantium, not in the Middle East, and not in Eastern Europe; it was shaped by the Western European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Therefore, it is difficult for a modern scientist to connect the modern world with Byzantium and find relationships between them. nine0003

But can any historical balance really be established? And was the «East» just a «backwater» of European civilization, a periphery, although existing for centuries, but leading to a cultural dead end? This view, expressed by Edward Gibbon in his famous History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was indignantly rejected by the very first generations of Byzantinists. However, in our time, they are returning to it, trying to resist the other extreme — exaggerated romantic ideas that extol Byzantium as a bridge between Greek antiquity and modernity. nine0003

The author of this work believes that if we apply to Byzantium and the Christian East those cultural criteria that dominated the West in the Enlightenment, then, indeed, one can almost inevitably come to the Gibbonian conclusion that the history of Christian Byzantium is nothing more than «boring and a monotonous tale of weakness and squalor” ¹ . However, if we take a more critical look at the secular society and culture generated by the Enlightenment, if we doubt that the philosophy used by Western Christianity has always been the only true one, and the methods of preserving the Christian Gospel are correct, then turning back to history, in search of other alternatives and missed opportunities will seem quite natural, and especially the appeal to the world of Byzantium as another aspect of the Greco-Roman Christian heritage. nine0003

It is in this sense that this book will be an attempt to find a more precise balance in the historical understanding of the relationship between East and West.

I am convinced that the establishment of such a balance will be useful not only to Western historians, but also to Eastern Orthodox authors, whose works are little known in the West and who at the same time influence the self-consciousness and mentality of Eastern Christians. These authors, starting from everything Western (despite their own principled position, recognizing the existence of church unity between East and West throughout the entire first millennium of Christian history), tend to identify Orthodoxy with everything Eastern and Byzantine, not only taking into account the historical shortcomings of Byzantine Christianity. , but also genuine and truly Orthodox Western achievements. nine0003

In other words, the problem with Christian historiography, both Western and Eastern, is that authors tend to view the past through the lens of later cultural and doctrinal divisions. Thus, the desire for balance is dictated by the desire for genuine Christian catholicity; moreover, it is an attempt to meet the requirements of historical method and scientific character.

Many years of experience in teaching the history of the Church to students of European and American Orthodox theological schools suggested to me that the chronological framework of this work is the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries. These chronological boundaries require a brief explanation. After all, history is a continuous process, and the limiting limits are always chosen by the historian for a specific purpose, namely, to better represent his own understanding of events. nine0003

My task is to consider that period in the history of the Church when she — with her theology, her institutions, worship and social activities — entered the society of the Roman Empire with her political structures inherited from the ideology of Rome. This period is decisive for our understanding of the Church of today, and this applies not only to the peculiarities in the relationship between the Church and the State, but also to those decisive doctrinal choices that emerged during the schisms that divided Christians and have not yet been eliminated. The Church, inseparable from her Tradition, cannot solve today’s problems without constant reference to these defining centuries of her formation. nine0003

The chronological beginning of my work could be either the reign of Constantine (305–337), who gave Christians religious freedom, or the reign of Theodosius I (379–395), the first baptized Christian on the imperial throne, or the reign of Justinian I (527–565) , who suppressed the last remnants of paganism and established the existence of the Empire as a monolithic Christian society by law. The first two introductory chapters analyze in sufficient detail the ideological and legal principles established under Constantine and Theodosius. Without such an introduction, neither Byzantine nor Latin Christianity can be understood. However, the presentation of the history itself begins with the Council of Chalcedon (451). My choice of 451 is based on the fact that the Council of Chalcedon was in many respects the first truly «ecumenical» council, with proper representation of both East and West. The centuries-old crack in Eastern Christianity also originated from him, clearly indicating the problems that were to become decisive in the future: these are divisions as a result of Christological disputes in the East and a sharper manifestation of a new awareness in the West of Roman primacy. These problems, however, did not immediately lead to a final schism—the consciousness of unity persisted for several more centuries, until the Muslim conquest in the mid-7th century made the rupture between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian communities of the Near East irreversible. The unity between Byzantium and Rome lasted longer, but the problems that eventually led to its break become clear when studying the events to which this book is devoted. nine0003

* * *

¹

Gibbon Ed. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. New York, Random House, n. d. V. II. P. 520.

Source: Church history and Eastern Christian mysticism / Prot. John Meyendorff; Comp. and general ed. I.V. Mamaladze. Moscow: Institute DI-DIK, 2000. 578 p. / The unity of the Empire and the division of Christians. 13-276 p.

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