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Of all the roads that a historian may tread none passes through more difficult country than that of religious history. To a believer religious truths are eternal. The doctrine that he preaches and accepts gives expression to their everlasting validity. To him the historian who seeks to discover and explain why the doctrine should have appeared at a particular moment of time seems guilty of unwarranted determinism. But Revealed Religion cannot escape from the bounds of time; for the Revelation must have occurred at a particular moment. The Christian religion, above all others, is concerned with the relations of time and eternity. Its central doctrine, the Incarnation, is not only an eternal truth but an event in history; it is a bridge between the temporal and the eternal. The institutions of Christianity, however divine their inspiration, have been ordered and governed by men and are affected by the temporal processes to which man is subject. The articles of faith, whatever their transcendental validity, have been spread around the world by the agency of man, and their transmission has been affected by changes in worldly circumstances and outlook. It may be that man is continually refreshed by messages from on high. It may be that there is a divine ordering of history. But the historian himself is mortal, restricted by the limitations of temporality; and he must have the modesty to know his limitations. His business is to tell the story and to make it, as best he can, intelligible to humanity.

Nevertheless, if the story is to be intelligible, more is needed than a presentation of mundane facts. Many great and wise men have told us that history is a science and no more. It is true that in the collection of historical evidence accuracy and objectivity are required, especially when the subject concerns religion, a sphere in which judgment is too often influenced by personal conviction and prejudice. But the historian’s methods cannot be entirely empirical. Human behaviour defies scientific laws; human nature has not yet been tidily analyzed; human beliefs disregard logic and reason. The historian must attempt to add to his objective study the qualities of intuitive sympathy and imaginative perception without which he cannot hope to comprehend the fears and aspirations and convictions that have moved past generations. These qualities are, maybe, gifts of the spirit, gifts which can be experienced and felt but not explained in human terms.

For the study of the Orthodox Faith of Eastern Christendom some such intuitive gift is needed. It is a Faith which has always been suspicious of attempts to reduce religion to a near-philosophical system and which has always preferred to cling to esoteric and unwritten tradition. Its genius is apophatic, dwelling on the ignorance of man face to face with the Divine; all that we can know about God is that we know nothing; for His attributes must from their nature be outside the realm of worldly knowledge. Its theology and its practices are characterized by antinomies that are not easily resolved by a logical observer. It may well be that no one who has not been nurtured in the atmosphere of the Orthodox Church is in a position to understand it fully, still less to describe it. The objective student before he begins his study must charge himself with sympathy and must forget the taste for dialectical precision that is apt to characterize Western theology.

The effort is the greater because most Western students have been reared on stories of the passionate debates that raged amongst the Eastern Fathers of the Early Church over minutiae of doctrine. The Eastern Church is not tolerant of demonstrable error, that is to say, any doctrine that seems to impair the essential message of Christianity. Truths revealed by the Holy Scriptures and explained and defined by the action of the Holy Spirit at the Oecumenical Councils of the Church, exegesis by Fathers of the Church whose divine inspiration cannot be called into question, and tradition handed down from the apostolic age are all sacred and to be accepted; and it may be that the Holy Spirit may still deign to give us further enlightenment. But beyond that point the Church has been shy of dogmatic definitions, preferring to rely on traditions that were not written down until a need arose. The pronouncements of the Oecumenical Councils were made to counter doctrines that seemed to damage the true meaning of the Trinity or of the Incarnation. Nearly all the works of the Greek Fathers were written to answer specific questions from an anxious inquirer or from a challenging controversialist. The ancient taste of the Greeks for speculative philosophy was not extinguished. It was, rather, encouraged so long as it kept itself apart from dogma. None of the philosophers ventured to work out a complete compendium of theology. The Greek Church did not and could not produce a Thomas Aquinas. It still has no Summa Fidei.

This apophatic attitude had its strength and its weakness. It permitted a certain tolerance and elasticity. There is a word which we meet continually in Greek Church history, the word oikovohioc, ‘economy’. The word means literally the administration of the house. Greek theologians use it sometimes to denote the method of operation; the ‘economy of the Holy Spirit’ is the method in which the Holy Spirit operates on the Church. Economy is, however, more frequently used to mean a wise handling of the oecumene, the inhabited world; and in this sense it became roughly equivalent to the ‘ dispensation’ of Western theologians. In the interests of harmony and good will the Church — that is to say, the Orthodox Church — can overlook or condone minor errors in belief or liturgical practice and minor breaches in canonical correctitude; they can be covered by the grace of the Holy Spirit for the greater good of Christendom. Unlike dispensation in the West, the term, is deliberately imprecise and ungoverned by fixed rules. Western theologians, approaching the question with the legalism that is their inheritance from Scholasticism, have sought in vain for an exact definition. Even Orthodox theologians have described it in varying and often contradictory terms. Sometimes it seems to critics to be over-elastic: as when Basil declares that, while it was morally wrong for Jacob to deceive his blind father and steal the inheritance from his brother Esau, we must show economy towards his sin because it was for the ultimate benefit of mankind. But in general economy was admirable, and all the more so because it was not hedged by rules and restrictions.

The difference between the Eastern and the Western attitudes was due largely to historical developments. When the Roman Empire collapsed in the West, the Roman Church was left as the repository not only of Roman traditions and Roman law, as opposed to the customs introduced by the new barbarian rulers, but also of learning and education. In the chaos of the invasions, with the former lay governors fleeing or dispossessed, ecclesiastical officers were often called upon to take over the administration of cities and whole districts. Moreover, when orderly government was restored, there were for many centuries few literate men outside of ecclesiastical ranks. Churchmen provided the lawyers and clerks on whom the lay rulers depended. This all tended to give the Roman Church a legal outlook. The Papal chancery was obliged to fill itself with trained lawyers, whose tastes began to dominate theology. Roman theologians liked clear-cut definitions. The apophatic tradition, of which Augustine had been so eminent an advocate, tended to give way to Scholastic tastes, to the desire to turn theology into a systematized philosophy.

In the East Roman Empire lay life was never interrupted until the Turkish conquest. It survived in exile even during the half-century of the Latin occupation of Constantinople. In Constantinople the lawyers remained laymen; and there was always a highly educated laity which provided most of the philosophers and many even of the theologians. The scope of canon law was small; the Church never acquired a legalistic outlook. Nor did the ecclesiastical establishment acquire an overriding authority. In the West ‘the Church’ came in ordinary parlance to mean the hierarchy and the priesthood. In the East the Church always meant the whole body of Christians, past, present and future, including the angels in heaven. The priesthood was not a class apart. Communion in both kinds continued to be administered to the laity.

There was thus never any serious conflict in the East between the lay and ecclesiastical authorities. The Patriarch was a great personage; he was, so to speak, the keeper of the Empire’s conscience. But the Emperor was the unquestioned head of the Oecumene, God’s living viceroy on earth. The whole Eastern Church viewed with disapproval the desire felt by the Western Church in the middle ages to subordinate all lay powers to the authority of the supreme Pontiff. But the accusation of Caesaropapism often levelled against the Byzantine Church is not just, however applicable it might become to the Church in Tsarist Russia. The Orthodox believed in making the distinction between the things which are Caesar’s and the things which are God’s, though they might dispute about the exact place where the line should be drawn.

This attitude had its weakness. The reluctance to make of theology a complete philosophical system led to a reluctance to make of religion a complete guide for the conduct of life. It was for the ministers of the Church to uphold morality and to denounce sin; but the daily ordering of existence should be left to the lay authorities. As a result the hierarchy in the East could never exercise the same moral influence as the hierarchy in the West; and the attitude goes far to explain the curious dichotomy in the Byzantine character, with its intense and genuine piety and conviction that life in this world was but the prelude to the true life to come, and its practical, self-seeking, cynical and often unscrupulous handling of mundane affairs.

The weakness was enhanced by the structure of the Eastern hierarchy. In the Western Empire Rome had always been the one great metropolis. Only the African cities could rival her; and the African bishoprics never fully recovered from the Donatist schism. The impact of the barbarian invasions made it all the more necessary for the Roman bishopric to insist on her pre-eminence. She was left as the heir of the Roman Empire, sitting crowned on the ruins thereof, not a ghost, as Hobbes imagined, but a living vigorous force, the guardian not only of the Faith but of the traditions of Roman civilization. Amid the political disruption of the West it was inevitable that men should long for unity and should see in the Roman Pontiff the one power that was in a position to maintain unity. In the East there had been many great cities. Each had its church, none of which was ready to submit to the dominance of a rival. The historian Dion Cassius truly remarked that there is no equivalent in Greek to the Latin word auctoritas; and this dislike of authority characterized the churches in the Greek world. It is possible that, but for the destruction of the city in a.d. 70, the Church of Jerusalem under the vigorous leadership of James, the son of Joseph, and his successors, might have established a hegemony, though the Gentile Churches would doubtless have soon rebelled against its judaistic tendencies. As it was, each Church in the East was held to be of equal rank. The Holy Spirit had descended equally to all the Apostles at Pentecost; and their successors, the bishops, thus enjoyed charismatic equality. None could dictate to any other on matters of faith or doctrine. If such decisions were needed, then all bishops, representing all the churches, should come together, and the Holy Spirit would descend again as at Pentecost. But in time administrative needs led to the creation of an ordered hierarchy. Bishops were grouped together under metropolitans; and the bishops of the two greatest cities of the East, Alexandria and Antioch, each acquired certain disciplinary rights over a vast province; and each eventually was given the title of Patriarch. But there was a lack of uniformity. Certain Churches, such as that of Cyprus, the Church of St Barnabas, were recognized as being disciplinarily autonomous, just as certain archbishops were free of metropolitan control. In the West it was difficult to maintain in practice that all bishops were equal when the Roman Pontiff so obviously overtopped them all. Even the Easterners admitted him, as bishop of the Imperial City, to be the senior hierarch in Christendom, whose views and rulings were entitled to special respect. The position was complicated by the foundation of a new Imperial capital at Constantinople, whose bishop had, reasonably, to be raised to Patriarchal rank and given disciplinary authority over a great province. But the Patriarch of Constantinople, with his power restricted on the one side by the presence and the overriding majesty of the Emperor and on the other by the democracy of the Church and the egalitarian claims of the bishops, could never attain the status enjoyed by the Pope in the West. These restrictions, combined with the looser attitude of the Orthodox towards theology and their definite dislike of a monolithic structure, weakened the administrative cohesion and efficacy of the Church organization.

The strength and the weakness of the Byzantine Orthodox ecclesiastical organization and religious outlook were to be revealed when the Church had to undergo the cruellest fate that can befall a community: sudden subjection to an alien and infidel domination. It is the aim of this study to examine the effects of the Ottoman conquest upon Greek ecclesiastical history and religious life. But it is necessary first to give a picture of the Byzantine Church as it was during the last centuries of its independence, in order to assess the consequences of the conquest and of the long years of servitude.

The history of the Church of Constantinople can be roughly divided into four epochs up to the Turkish conquest. The first lasts from the foundation of the new capital to the Arab invasions of Syria and Egypt. Christendom was still undivided and nominally conterminous with the old Roman Empire, whose official religion it had recently become. But already divergences were appearing. Many centers, in particular the three great religious metropoles of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, were developing their own characteristic theological outlook; and the differences were enhanced and complicated by great Christological controversies. Arianism had spread through Christendom without a definite core and therefore died out, except amongst the barbarians settled in the West, where the challenge of Arianism. guided theological developments. Nestorianism, the product of the Antiochene school, failed within the Empire. The Nestorians went off to build up their remarkable missionary church under alien domination. Monophysitism, the product of the Alexandrian school, was more successful. Helped by political dissatisfaction, it resulted in the establishment of heretic churches in Syria and Egypt which drew off most of the congregations there. But its successes were local; neither it nor Nestorianism found adherents in the Western world, which was little touched by the problems that they raised. In the official Church the Roman view in general prevailed — largely, so cynical orientals thought, because the crudity of the Latin language prevented Roman theologians from appreciating the nicer points at issue and enabled them thus to provide comprehensive formulae. During these controversies the Church of Constantinople played a not very impressive part. It was something of a parvenu church, and it was seated at the seat of the secular government. Its hierarchs were too often required to express the views of the Emperor of the moment; and there was as yet no strong local tradition to counter Imperial influence. The great Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century and John Chrysostom a generation later were beginning to build up a characteristic school of thought. But it was not till we come to Maximus the Confessor at the end of the period that we begin to see a definite Constantinopolitan theology.

The second period lasts from the Arab invasions of the seventh century to the Turkish invasions of the eleventh. Alexandria and Antioch have now passed under infidel rule and will never again play a leading part in Church history. Rome has her own troubles and is only fitfully concerned with the East. Constantinople is now the unquestioned capital of Christian civilization. The bounds of its Patriarchate are roughly those of the Empire, making of it a national church, the church of the Empire, the oecumene, as the Byzantines now, with philological inaccuracy, called the dominions subject to the Emperor. The proximity of the Imperial government was still an occasional cause of embarrassment to the Church authorities. The long and bitter quarrels over Iconoclasm, when a succession of Emperors tried to force a controversial doctrine on a mainly unwilling people, had to be resolved before Church and State could settle down together in a relationship that remained undefined but, apart from minor disturbances, was generally accepted and understood. With the close of the controversy Byzantine theology can be said to have taken on its lasting characteristics. The Liturgy and the practices of the Church were established in forms that have scarcely been altered since that day. There were no fundamental theological disputes for some centuries. The Church shared in the prosperity of the Empire and worked together with the State on great missionary enterprises. Among the most splendid achievements of the period were the conversion of the Balkan Slavs to Orthodox Christianity in the ninth century and the conversion of the Russians at the end of the tenth.

The period that followed was one of decadence and transition. The Turkish invasions, though they were stemmed, resulted in the loss to the Empire of most of Anatolia, its chief granary and source of manpower. The Church suffered along with the State. The Christian life of Anatolia came almost to a halt. Many Christians fled to the coastlands or to greater safety beyond the sea. Others allowed themselves to be converted to the conquering faith of Islam. The rest remained as Christian enclaves in partibus infidelium, impoverished and half-isolated. At the same time the Empire had to face Norman invasions from the West and the loss of Byzantine Italy, and the claims of the reformed Hildebrandine Papacy. All these factors led to the movement which we call the Crusades; from which at first Byzantium gained certain material advantages, but which led to worsening relations between Eastern and Western Christendom. Early in the period there had been a bitter quarrel between the Churches of Constantinople and Rome; and before the period was over political misunderstandings combined with religious rivalry to produce enmity and open schism, till the climax was reached of the Fourth Crusade.

The Latin conquest, temporary though it proved to be, ushered in the final period of Byzantine political and ecclesiastical history. The religious life of Byzantium and its whole moral and intellectual atmosphere during the last two centuries before the fall of Constantinople were fundamentally affected by the disruption and shock of the Latin conquest, by the courageous revival of the Greeks and by the disintegration and decay that followed ironically soon after their recovery of Constantinople. It is necessary to remember this political background. The Crusaders failed in their attempt to annex the whole Empire. They, jointly with the Venetians, held Constantinople for half a century. Frankish lordships in Greece itself and in the islands lasted for some two centuries; and the Venetians acquired some islands and ports of strategic and commercial value. But Byzantium lasted on in exile, based round the ancient city of Nicaea. The Nicaean Empire provides one of the most admirable episodes in Byzantine history.

It was ably ruled, first by Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of one of the last Emperors, and then by his son-in-law John Vatatzes, an even more remarkable man. Though there had been other Greek succession states, the Despotate of the Angeli in Epirus and the Empire of the Grand Comnenus at Trebizond, the Nicaean Empire was soon recognized by most Greeks as the legitimate Empire. The Despotate of Epirus faded out about the end of the thirteenth century; and, though the Empire of Trebizond was to outlive the Empire of Constantinople and remained a commercial and intellectual center of some importance, it played only a minor part in international history. It was with the efficient Empire of the Nicaeans that the future seemed to lie. John Vatatzes’s son, Theodore II, was a man of high intellectual tastes but no politician. On his death in 1258 the throne was seized by an ambitious noble, Michael Palaeologus, founder of the last Byzantine dynasty. He not only began the reconquest of the Greek peninsula, but in 1261 his troops entered Constantinople, and extinguished the Latin Empire.

For Byzantium, religiously as well as politically, the recovery of the capital was a moral triumph and a triumph of prestige. But it created new difficulties. To rehabilitate Constantinople was costly. An alliance had been made with the Genoese, in order to counter the Venetians; and the Genoese had to be paid with concessions that virtually gave them control of the Empire’s commerce. The West burned for revenge; and Michael could only protect himself by an expensive foreign policy and by promises of union with Rome which offended most of his ecclesiastics, who were already hostile to him owing to the unscrupulous circumstances of his usurpation. The treasure accumulated by the thrifty Nicaean Emperors was spent. Unwise economies were made over the defense of the eastern frontier. There seemed to be no immediate danger there; whereas in the Balkans the Bulgarian Empire of the Asen dynasty had been a potential threat, and now the Serbian Empire of the Urós dynasty was growing ominously powerful.

Michael’s European policy was effective. There was no apparent challenge from the West during the reign of his son, Andronicus II, who was therefore able to make peace with his Church by jettisoning his father’s ecclesiastical schemes. But Serbian power was increasing; and the weakened eastern frontier was threatened by a vigorous Turkish emir called Osman, whose people, known from his name as the Osmanlis or Ottomans, began to encroach into the Empire. The Emperor was short of soldiers and rashly hired a mercenary band of Catalans. The Catalan company turned against its employer, blockaded Constantinople for two years, ravaged all the provinces and introduced the Turks into Europe, before retiring to establish itself at Athens. Andronicus II’s reign ended in revolt; he was dethroned by his grandson, Andronicus III, in 1328.

Decay continued under the new Emperor. The Serbs were at their zenith under the great king Stephen Dusan, and seemed for a time likely to absorb the whole of Byzantium. The Ottoman advance continued. Brusa had fallen in 1326. Nicaea fell in 1329 and Nicomedia in 1337; and soon almost the whole of Byzantine Asia was lost. When Andronicus III died in 1341 his son, John V, was a child. He was to reign for fifty years, during which he was driven from power first by his father-in-law, John VI Cantacuzenus, from 1347 to 1355, then, from 1376 to 1379, by his son Andronicus IV, and lastly, for a while in 1390, by his grandson John VII. The civil war with John Cantacuzenus was particularly bitter and harmful. Religious as well as political issues were involved. In the midst of it there was a disastrous visitation of the Black Death, in which about a third of the Empire’s population seems to have perished. Both sides called in Ottoman aid, with the result that the Ottoman Sultan was able to establish himself irremovably in Europe. By the time of John V’s death in 1391 the Ottoman Empire had annexed Bulgaria and most of Serbia and stretched to the Danube, with its capital at Adrianople, in Thrace. The Emperor’s dominions were restricted to the cities and environs of Constantinople and Thessalonica (though that was temporarily in Turkish hands), to a few coastal cities in Thrace, and to most of the Peloponnese, where a cadet of the Imperial house was Despot.

John V’s ultimate successor, his younger son Manuel II, was unable to stem the decay. It seemed clear that the Empire was doomed to fall into the hands of the Turks unless help came; and only the powers of Western Europe were in a position to provide help. But their price was religious union, a price which most Byzantines were not prepared to pay. John V had gone to Italy to seek for allies and had personally submitted to the Pope at Rome. But he could not carry his people with him, and he ended his Italian tour detained for debt at Venice. Manuel II traveled as far as Paris and London in his search for aid, but avoided committing himself to Church union. One Western army came to fight the Turks but was crushed by them at Nicopolis in 1396. There was a respite next year when the Turks, who had just begun to lay siege to Constantinople, were forced to withdraw to face the armies of Timur the Tartar. Their defeat by Timur led to civil wars, in which Manuel managed to recover a little territory. But they soon recovered. In 1422 they were again before Constantinople, only retiring because of plots within the Ottoman dynasty. In 1423 the governor of Thessalonica, despairing of the future, sold his city to the Venetians; but the Ottoman Sultan took it from them seven years later.

Manuel II died in 1425. His eldest son, John VIII, less prudent and more desperate than his father, journeyed to Italy and pledged his Empire to union with Rome at the Council of Florence in X439- The union was bitterly opposed at Constantinople. Had it resulted in effective aid, the opposition might have been silenced; but the one ensuing Western expedition was annihilated by the Turks at Varna in 1444. John died at the end of 1448, in an atmosphere of bitterness and gloom. His successor, his brother Constantine XI, was a brave and capable man; but there was nothing that he could do. In 1451 the Ottoman throne passed to a young man of high brilliance and ruthless ambition, Mehmet II, who was to be surnamed the Conqueror. Early in April, 1453, he laid siege to Constantinople. After a heroic defense lasting for six weeks it fell to him on 29 May 1453. In 1460 his troops overran the Peloponnese. In 1461 they extinguished the Empire of Trebizond. Greek independence was ended.

It was in this atmosphere of gathering gloom that the Byzantines lived during the last two centuries of their Empire. The disillusion was all the more bitter because the period of the Nicaean Emperors had been one of regeneration and hope, and the recovery of Constantinople had seemed to open a new era of glory. There was always an element of pessimism in Byzantium. Even in its most splendid days men had whispered of prophecies foretelling that the Empire would perish. On stones in the city and in the books of such great seers and magicians as Apollonius of Tyana and the Emperor Leo the Wise the lists of all the Emperors had been given, and the names were drawing to an end. It was natural that in the deepening darkness many of the Byzantines should seek refuge in mysticism and should emphasize the other-worldly side of their faith. Yet, paradoxically, the cultural life of Byzantium was never so brilliant as in the two centuries before its fall. The art of the period was perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most human that Byzantium ever produced; and it was produced so long as there was money to pay for it. The intellectual brilliance lasted on to the end, led by scholars whose vigour and originality were as fine as any of their forefathers’ and whose renown spread to foreign lands. Many of these scholars hoped that regeneration might still be achieved, even though it might involve integration with the West and an abandonment of ancient traditions. But others believed that there could be no escape from the coming political doom and that the only task to be performed was to see that the Faith and all that it meant did not perish in the holocaust. This conflict, complicated by crosscurrents, gave a bitter intensity to the religious life of the dying Empire, adding to the problems that faced the harassed Church.

These problems can be roughly grouped under five headings. First, there was the problem of the organization of the Church; how could the machine be kept adaptable enough to meet the needs of the changing political world? Secondly, there was the problem of the relations between Church and State, which needed adjustment, now that the Emperor ruled effectively over a small and dwindling proportion of the Orthodox congregations. Thirdly, what was the relationship of the Byzantine Church to be with other Churches, in particular the great Church of the West, now that Western Europe was, materially and culturally, taking the lead in Christendom? Fourthly, what were the duties of the Church towards education, especially now that the secular State was collapsing? Fifthly, new controversies over theology had arisen, touching especially on the deep and delicate question of mysticism; and their repercussions had not been stilled.

All these problems were intertwined; and they had not been resolved when the infidel conquerors came, bringing in their train problems for which it would be even harder to find a solution.

2. The Structure of the Church.

The Hierarchy.

To the Byzantines, as to the Orthodox Christians of today, the distinction between the Church and the Churches was clear and emphatic. The Church is the Body of Christ, joined to Him in a unity that yet preserves the reality of their difference. As the Body of Christ it is the domain in which the Holy Spirit works; it is the life of the Holy Spirit in humanity. But it is not limited to humanity alone. The whole company of angels is part of it. It unites the living and the dead, the heavenly host and all creation. It began before the beginning of the created world and is the eternal end of creation. As such it is invisible. But it also belongs visibly to history. It reached the fullness of its existence with the Incarnation, and it was realized with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In this earthly sense it has its limits in time and space. On earth it must operate as a society, and as a society it must have its earthly structure.

There must therefore be some organization of the Church on earth; there must be the Churches, and there must be persons qualified to act as their officials and their ministers. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues’. That is to say, there must be some sort of a hierarchy. This should not impair the fundamental equality before God of all members of the Church. Earlier in the same passage Paul says: ‘ Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all’ (I Corinthians 12:4-6, 28.). According to Orthodox belief, Christ Himself laid the foundations of the hierarchy by calling the twelve Apostles by name. They were the witnesses of the Word. To them was entrusted the power to confer the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the newly baptized and to ordain others to perform priestly functions. They were, to use a favourite word of Greek theologians, χαρισματικοι, men of Grace, who both administered the Sacraments and prophesied and taught. A little below them were the seventy disciples mentioned in the Gospels and the apostles mentioned in the Acts and the Epistles, with Paul at their head, and all those that saw the risen Lord. But even Paul does not quite rank with the twelve whom the Incarnate God Himself had chosen. It was the twelve who at the beginning bestowed on believers the grace of the Spirit by the laying-on of hands; but it was soon decided that this power could be handed down by the hierarchy which was thus instituted and which derived and still derives its authority down the ages from a direct and uninterrupted succession from the Apostles. The Apostolic Succession is thus of essential importance to the Orthodox.

It is uncertain when the three hierarchical orders of bishop, priest and deacon were evolved. By the third century the pattern was in general use. Though every priest is charismatic by ordination, the bishop alone is fully charismatic. He was now the charismatic unit. In theory all bishops were equal. Each represented his local church; each was elected into his seat by the will of the clergy and congregations of the bishopric and was empowered to exercise his functions when he had received the grace conferred by consecration at the hands of an already consecrated bishop, in the Apostolic Succession. But already, with the growing number of Christian churches and congregations, a closer organization was required. It was inevitable that the bishops of the greater cities should take the lead and even acquire some sort of authority over their poorer brothers. There was justification in the Gospels for this. Though the twelve Apostles had been equal in authority yet Our Lord had from time to time picked out certain of them, notably Peter, James and John, for special distinction. There was thus a precedent for later allotting to certain of the bishops special honours and duties. This allotment was often combined with the theory that the holders of sees whose founder had been an Apostle were entitled to particular reverence and even particular authority. In the West this second theory came to overshadow the belief in the equality of bishops. The Bishop of Rome, as the heir of Peter, was considered to have an overriding authority, though in practice one may wonder whether this authority was not based originally’ on the fact that Rome was the Imperial capital. In the East the theory that an apostolic origin conferred special rights upon a see was never fully or logically developed, though it was not without its influence. The Easterners were always ready to give the see of Rome a primacy of honour, but more because of the greatness of the city than because of any prerogative inherent in the heirs of Peter. The Bishop of Alexandria, which was the greatest city in the East, was held almost from the outset to rank above his brother of Antioch, a city that was not quite so great; and yet the see of Antioch had been founded by Peter and that of Alexandria by Mark, who was not one of the Apostles. The see of Ephesus, founded by John the Divine, ranked some way below them. It is true that the bishops of Constantinople found it useful at a later date to claim that their see had been founded by Andrew; but that somewhat unhistorical claim was never pushed very far as an argument for giving the see authority. In fact, the emergence of certain sees into a position of practical authority was an administrative necessity; and of necessity it was to the bishops of the greater cities that authority was entrusted.

The ecclesiastical organization was imperfectly formed until the fourth century. But when the Empire had become Christian the Emperors wished for a Church whose organization would be roughly parallel to that of the lay government. The bishops were grouped together under the bishop of the metropolis of the province; and these metropolitans were grouped together again according to the great lay dioceses that Diocletian had instituted, under the presidency of the bishop of the capital of the diocese. When a new Imperial capital was founded at Byzantium, administrative convenience demanded that its bishop, hitherto under the Metropolitan of Heraclea in Thrace, should be raised to the first rank of bishops. He was given authority over the diocese hitherto dominated by Ephesus, together with some of the Bishop of Antioch’s diocese; and he was soon raised, against Roman protests, to rank next under the Bishop of Rome, because the new capital was officially New Rome. About the same time, though more for reasons of sentiment than of administration, the Bishop of Jerusalem, who had hitherto been under the Metropolitan of Caesarea, was raised to be head of a diocese comprising all Palestine and the lands across the Jordan, districts that had formed part of the diocese of Antioch. The Bishops of Constantinople and Jerusalem, together with those of Alexandria and Antioch, were each given the additional title of Patriarch; and they were arranged in honorary rank, first Constantinople, then Alexandria, then Antioch and finally Jerusalem, with the Bishop of Old Rome ranking above them all. The elevation of Constantinople to the second place among the five had not been achieved without protests from both Rome and Alexandria.

The rivalries of the Patriarchates during the great Christological controversies of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries do not concern us here. But it is important to remember that the Orthodox world never lost its belief in the charismatic equality of bishops. Each bishop was a guardian of the Faith; each had an equal right to pronounce on a doctrinal issue. But he was not infallible. If a point of doctrine had to be defined, then all the bishops in Christendom, as heirs of the Apostles, should meet together in a Council that the Holy Spirit would inspire. Each bishop was free to air his views, even though they might be opposed to those of the Patriarch. In practice this put the Eastern bishops at a disadvantage when arguing with Western bishops, who were more strictly disciplined and tended more and more only to express views laid down by their superior, the Pope.

A bishop attended such an Oecumenical Council not only in his charismatic quality but also as representative of his congregation. Every baptized Christian had the right to attend; for a Council should express the opinion of the whole Church on earth. In fact it was seldom that members of the laity were present; it was usually left to the bishop to speak for the people, and only he had the right to vote on an issue. When the Empire became Christian, it was for the Emperor, as chief magistrate under God, to summon the Council, on behalf of the Christian commonwealth. It was generally held that his presence, or that of his personal representatives, sufficiently expressed the participation of the laity.

The decisions of the Council were officially unanimous. In fact, unanimity was invariably reached by the drastic device of anathematizing bishops who voted with the minority, depriving them thus of episcopal rank and the right to vote. The pronouncements of the Council were issued by the senior hierarch. In the case of an Oecumenical Council this was, until the schism with the West, the Bishop of Rome. They were then promulgated throughout the Oecumene, the Christian world, by the Emperor and thus received the force of law.

Only the decisions of an Oecumenical Council were binding on the whole of Christendom. The Orthodox Eastern Churches recognized the traditional seven, from the First Council of Nicaea in 325 to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Their findings ranked next to the Holy Scriptures as being essential articles of faith. There were also local Councils, held within one Patriarchal area, to deal with local heresies or schisms. The findings of some of these Councils were accepted by other churches and attained a dogmatic value next to those of the Oecumenical Councils. The decrees of the Council of Carthage, held in 426, are considered to apply universally. The Councils of Constantinople, held in the fourteenth century to consider Palamite doctrines, were rated by the other Eastern Patriarchates to have oecumenical value, and their decrees became articles of faith among the Orthodox. Councils of this type that concerned the whole Patriarchate of Constantinople were summoned by the Emperor. There were also purely local Councils, known as ενδημουσαι, summoned by the Patriarch and attended by neighbouring metropolitans and bishops, to deal with matters of ecclesiastical legislation.

According to Byzantine theory the Church was administered, both as regards its daily needs and its larger political issues, by a vast organization at whose head was the pentarchy of Patriarchs. Just as the Roman Empire in its later days had often recognized at the same time more than one Emperor, each supreme in his sphere, and yet the Empire remained one and undivided, so the Church remained one, though it was governed by five independent Patriarchs, whose position and rank had been authorized by the Oecumenical Councils. The theory of the pentarchy was not fully promulgated till about the eighth century; but it had been the basis for Church government in the East since the end of the fourth century. The schism with the Roman Church did not in theory reduce the pentarchy to a tetrarchy. The place of Rome thenceforward was and still is vacant, until such time as her Bishop abandons the errors of his predecessors. Then she will return to her position as the senior of the five Patriarchates, prima inter pares. In the meantime the Patriarch of Constantinople enjoys the acting primacy.

From the time of the Arab conquests in the seventh century and the somewhat arbitrary redistribution of ecclesiastical provinces by the Iconoclastic Emperors in the eighth, the territory effectively governed by the Emperors lay within the sphere of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate. Only such lands as the Empire possessed west of the Adriatic and such lands as it reconquered temporarily in Syria lay outside. These extraneous territories had finally been lost during the eleventh century. But the Patriarch’s authority extended over a number of autonomous Churches. Of those that still acknowledged it in the later Byzantine period the oldest was the Caucasian Church, at whose head was the Archbishop of Iberia (or Georgia). He seems to have been appointed locally, nominally by his Church and actually by the King of Georgia, and to have been always a native Georgian, as were his bishops. He was autonomous; but his appointment was confirmed by the Patriarch, unless it was impossible to communicate with Constantinople. In general the Caucasian Orthodox, though they used their own language and liturgy, were as loyal to Constantinople as circumstances permitted.

The Balkan Churches were in a different position. Soon after the conversion of the Slavs they had been allowed to use their own language together with the liturgy that Cyril and Methodius had composed in Slavonic. Under the First Bulgarian Empire the Bulgar Tsar had insisted on appointing his own local Patriarch; but after the Byzantine reconquest the Balkan Churches, while retaining their native liturgy and priesthood, were placed under a Greek archbishop, the Archbishop of Bulgaria, who was stationed at Ochrid. In the thirteenth century the rulers of the revived Bulgarian and Serbian Empires proclaimed the autonomy of their Churches, and appointed their own Patriarchs. But the title was not considered fully canonical and was only accorded fitfully and grudgingly by Constantinople. Both Patriarchates faded out with the Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the fourteenth century; but each Church remained autocephalous, under the nominal suzerainty of Constantinople. The later Churches of Wallachia and Moldavia, though for some centuries to come they used the Slavonic liturgy, were more directly under Constantinople.

The Russian Church showed even greater differences. It employed the Slavonic liturgy; and most of its clergy had at first come from Bulgaria. But from the early eleventh century to the early fourteenth the head of the Church, the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, was a Greek, appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople. From the fourteenth century onwards a Russian was often appointed, usually alternately with a Greek. The latter would still be nominated by the Patriarch, the former by the chief Russian prince of the time and confirmed by Constantinople. The Church was autocephalous but was thus kept in close contact with Constantinople; and the connection was made closer by the many Russian pilgrims who visited the city and the many Russian monks who settled on Mount Athos.

The Orthodox Church of Cyprus, under its archbishop, enjoyed a historic claim to autonomy and independence from any Patriarchate. But in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the attempts by the Lusignan government of the island to subordinate it to the Latin Church induced the Orthodox in the island to tighten their links with the Patriarch of Constantinople, who thus obtained a vague and unofficial authority over it. The Metropolitan of Trebizond, appointed by his Emperor, the Grand Comnenus, so long as that Empire lasted, was in fact autonomous, though his appointment was supposed to be confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, whom by the terms of a concordat, dated 1260, he recognized as his superior.

These international rights and privileges added to the prestige of the Patriarch, who was at the pinnacle of the Byzantine Church organization. But basically, at least in principle, the Church was democratic. The parish priest was appointed by the local bishop, officially on the request of the congregation; and the priests of the bishopric officially elected the bishop. By an old tradition legalized by Justinian I, when a vacancy in a bishopric occurred, the priests, aided on special invitation by the leading laymen of the bishopric, met and submitted three names to the bishop whose duty it was to perform the consecration, that is to say, the metropolitan of the province, and he made his choice from among them. Occasionally, however, the Patriarch himself intervened directly to choose the candidate and perform the consecration. In the case of a metropolitan the same procedure was ordained, as he was elected as a simple bishop, though, as he was regularly consecrated by the Patriarch, the Patriarch chose between the candidates. In fact by the ninth century the metropolitan was chosen from three names submitted to the Patriarch by the synod of the province, that is to say, its suffragan bishops, the lower clergy no longer playing any direct part in the election. In all cases the election was ratified by the Patriarch, who bestowed the ωμοφοριον, or pallium, and by the civil power, the Emperor or his local representative. The Patriarch, as Bishop of Constantinople, should have been elected by the same process as any other bishop. But by the eighth century it was the metropolitans of the Patriarchate, together with the high officials of the Patriarchal Court, sitting together as the Synod of the Great Church, who selected the three candidates; and it was the Emperor who made the final choice, even substituting a candidate of his own if none of the three pleased him. All metropolitans were expected to attend the meetings at which the candidates were chosen unless they were specially excused from coming to Constantinople. By the concordat of 1260 the Metropolitan of Trebizond was permanently excused, officially because his journey might be long and dangerous but actually in recognition of his semi-autonomy.

According to the official formula the Patriarch was elected by the decree of the Holy Synod and the promotion of the Emperor. His investiture took place in the Imperial Palace in the presence of the high dignitaries of Church and State. Until 1204 the scene was the Palace of Magnaura, where the Emperior in person announced the election with the formula: ‘The Divine grace, and Our Majesty which derives from it, raises the most pious [name] to be Patriarch of Constantinople.’ After 1261 the investiture was held in the triclinium of the Palace of Blachernae; and about the same time the formula was changed. The Emperor now said: ‘The Holy Trinity, through the power that It has given Us, raises you to be Bishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Oecumenical Patriarch.’ By the beginning of the fifteenth century the formula and the setting had changed once more. The investiture now took place in a church in the presence of the Emperor; but it was a high lay official who pronounced the words: ‘Our great and holy Sovereign and the Sacred Synod call Your Holiness to the supreme throne of Patriarch of Constantinople.’ The theologian Symeon of Thessalonica, writing in about 1425, regretted the change of words as there was no mention of God, though he liked the recognition given to the Holy Synod. When the election had thus been proclaimed the Emperor gave to the Patriarch the cross, the purple soutane and the pectoral reliquary cross which symbolized his office. After this investiture the new Patriarch rode in procession through the streets of Constantinople to the church of Saint Sophia, where he was consecrated by the Metropolitan of Heraclea, in memory of the days when Byzantium had been a suffragan see under Heraclea.

As the latest formula showed, the electoral rights of the Holy Synod were recognized throughout the history of the Empire. It was for the Synod, too, to depose the Patriarch should that be thought necessary. The Emperor could legally do no more than convoke the Synod to discuss the question of deposition. Very occasionally the Synod deposed a Patriarch without consulting the Emperor, as in the case of Athanasius I, who was ejected in 1293 because he was too strict; but he was so strongly supported by the lower clergy and the people that the Emperor was able to enforce his re-election eleven years later. Strictly speaking the only ground for deposition was that the original election had been somehow uncanonical; but this could be interpreted very loosely.

A candidate for the Patriarchate, like a candidate for any bishopric, had to be over thirty-five years of age — a rule that Emperors had sometimes neglected when forcing a pet candidate upon the Synod. He must not be a civil servant or a tax-collector, unless there were a special dispensation for him. He might be a married man or a widower, so long as he had only been married once and his wife had not been previously married. If she were living she would have to consent to retire into a convent. He might be a layman; and monks who had not taken priestly orders counted as laymen. If a layman, he would be hurried through the ecclesiastical orders; but three months should elapse before he could be invested. If this interval were omitted, as in the case of the great Patriarch Photius, there were grounds for questioning the legality of the appointment. By the canons of the fourth-century Councils no bishop might be transferred from one see to another; and this rule remained officially in force till the eve of the fifteenth century. As time went on bishops were drawn more and more from the monasteries. During the last 250 years of the Empire, with very few exceptions, the Patriarchs were former monks, most of whom had already taken priestly vows. Only one complete layman was appointed, a professor called George of Cyprus, elected in 1283.

The Patriarch enjoyed high prestige; but, quite apart from limitations imposed upon him by the Emperor, his power was also limited by the Holy Synod. He was held responsible for the proper celebration of services and for religious discipline throughout the Empire, but he could only legislate on such matters through the Synod. Major religious legislation was initiated by the Emperor, as being the source of law. He did so in the form of a communication to the Patriarch, whose business it was then to inform the Church and to see that the new laws were obeyed. In the event of a scandal within the Church the Patriarch could take direct action. He could suspend a metropolitan who misbehaved; and, if a metropolitan permitted abuses within his province, he could intervene to suspend the guilty clergy. But no bishop could be deposed without the authorization of the Holy Synod.

In the great days of the Empire the Patriarch enjoyed an enormous revenue. This came partly from an annual grant from the Imperial exchequer, partly from landed property in all parts of the Empire, including valuable estates in Constantinople itself, and partly from rents paid by monasteries that had been founded by a Patriarch. Each source of revenue was earmarked for a special object. Foreign invasions and the Latin conquest had disorganized the whole system; but the Nicaean Emperors seem to have re-endowed the Patriarchate with country estates, and after the reconquest of Constantinople a third of the city’s revenues were set aside for it. In addition, a proportion of the fees paid for licences by professional fishermen and huntsmen living in or near the capital was handed to the Patriarch to defray the cost of the candles and oil needed to light the great cathedral of Saint Sophia. The Turkish advance lost to the Patriarch more and more of has country property; but he continued to receive rents from such Patriarchal monasteries as survived in the Turkish dominions. By the end of the fourteenth century his income had fallen so greatly that he could no longer fully maintain the Patriarchal palace.

This palace adjoined Saint Sophia, to which it was connected by covered passages. It included administrative offices and reception halls, among the latter the Great Secretum and the Small Secretum, in which Synods met, according to their size, as well as several oratories and a magnificent library, which seems to have survived almost intact till 1453. During the Latin occupation the Venetians had controlled it and kept it undamaged. The Patriarch’s own living-quarters were suitably modest; but he owned suburban villas to which he could retire; and he often preferred to reside in some nearby monastery.

In the old days, his chief official had been the Syncellus, who had been his political adviser and acted as liaison between the Imperial and Patriarchal courts. But this office seems to have faded out during the thirteenth century, perhaps because the intimate arrangements of the small court at Nicaea made it superfluous. The Archdeacon, who had been the Patriarch’s deputy in all liturgical matters, disappeared about the same time. But five great offices remained throughout the Byzantine period. They were headed by the Grand Economus, who was in charge of all properties and sources of revenue and who administered the Patriarchate during an interregnum; by the Grand Sacellarius, who, in spite of his title, had nothing to do with the Purse but was in charge of all the Patriarchal monasteries, assisted by his own court and a deputy known as the Archon of the Monasteries; by the Grand Skevophylax, in charge of all liturgical matters, as well as of the holy treasures and relics belonging to the Patriarchate; by the Grand Chartophylax, originally the keeper of the library but, after the disappearance of the Syncellus and the Archdeacon, the Patriarch’s Secretary of State and director of personnel; and finally by the Prefect of the Sacellion, keeper of the Patriarchal prison and in charge of the punishment of ecclesiastical offenders. These five officials were members of the Holy Synod and ranked above all metropolitans. Till 1057 they were appointed by the Emperor; but the great Patriarch Michael Cerullarius had won the right to make his own appointments, though later Emperors tried to withdraw this right from the Patriarchs. Lower in rank, below the metropolitans and not members of the Synod, were such officials as the Referendarius, who carried the Patriarch’s messages to the Emperor; the Mandaton, who arranged the daily-liturgies; a Logothete, or chief accountant; a Protonotary, who received and presented petitions; a Hieromnemon, who organized meetings of the Synod and counted the votes at them; a Hypomimnescon, who was the chief private secretary, as well as assistant secretaries and the professors attached to the Patriarchal School. There was also a Master of Ceremonies, and a number of priests appointed to assist the Patriarch in his liturgical duties. The many clergy serving in Saint Sophia counted as forming part of the Patriarchal establishment.

The metropolitans maintained similar organizations, on a smaller scale. Each had his Economus, his Skevophylax, his Sacellarius and his Chartophylax, performing equivalent functions within the metropolitan see. The bishops maintained simpler but still similar courts, though there were small local divergences. Bishops’ revenues came from estates in the diocese and from rents paid by monasteries that were neither Imperial nor Patriarchal foundations. The bishop also received the kavovikov, a tax levied on priests at the moment of their ordination. This was a tax that the civil authorities disliked and always tried to discourage the priests from paying. In 1295 the Emperor Andronicus II decreed its abolition; but in practice it was still paid, as it was difficult to punish priests who refused to ordain priests unless they received the money. The bishop could also charge a fee for registering a betrothal. The bridegroom paid one gold piece and the bride provided twelve ells of cloth.

Every bishop held a court of justice at which suits involving clerics were heard and from which appeals could be made to the Patriarchal court. The canons of the early Councils forbade clergy to appear before secular courts; and the ban was on the whole respected. The bishop was supposed to work in with the civil authorities; and if he had a strong personality he would dominate the local governor. He was, however, forbidden to touch anything that concerned military affairs. When Andronicus III reformed the system of civil justice by introducing itinerant judges to tour the provinces, the bishop was put in charge of the local tribunal which the judge from time to time visited. This was convenient as enemy invasions often now made it impossible for a civil officer to visit the frontier districts, whereas the bishop was supposed to remain at his post, even under an enemy occupation. The conquering Turks made few difficulties about this. But many bishops in fact deserted their sees. During the last decades of the Empire the Patriarch had continually to order bishops to return to their posts. In towns annexed by the Turks the bishop came to be recognized by the new masters as the magistrate in charge of the Christian population.

To supervise the rural parts of his diocese the bishop had in earlier days appointed a chorepiscopus, a ‘country bishop’, to assist him. Later he employed an exarch, or visitor. We know little about the organization of the parishes. The parish priest was a local man, recommended by the headman of the village and appointed by the bishop. He might be a married man, so long as the marriage had taken place before he reached the rank of sub-deacon, and so long as neither he nor his wife had been previously married. By the late Byzantine period he was almost invariably a married man, bachelors being considered to be less respectable; though occasionally a local monk who had taken priestly orders might be put in as a stop-gap. He lived and maintained his church off the tithes paid by the parishioners and off the patrimony of the church, usually a small glebe which he farmed himself. He was usually a man of humble birth and simple education; but his ordination by the bishop gave him sufficient grace to perform the mysteries. The parish was closely supervised by the bishop’s exarch.

On the whole the Byzantine ecclesiastical organization ran smoothly. During the later Byzantine period there were comparatively few major Church scandals. The Emperors no longer, as in earlier years, tried to make cynical and worldly appointments. Patriarchal letters continued to fulminate against absentee bishops and bishops who sold justice; but steps were always taken to end the abuses. There was always some nepotism. Bishops were permitted to provide for needy relatives out of their revenues; and they interpreted this permission rather too widely. The main problem was caused by the shrinking of the Empire and the increasing number of bishoprics passing under alien and often infidel control.

In the list of bishoprics suffragan to Constantinople attributed to Epiphanius and actually dating from the early seventh century, that is to say, before the province of Illyricum was annexed to the Patriarchate, 524 are mentioned, of which 371 were seated in Asia. In the list known as the Taxis, published by the Patriarchate about the year 901, the total number is 505, of which 405 are Asiatic. The bulk of the Balkan peninsula was at that time in the hands of Slavs and Bulgars, only newly converted to Christianity; and their few Churches were not yet organized. Of the 505 bishops, 54 were metropolitans, each with a group of bishops under his jurisdiction; but there were 50 autocephalous archbishops, who depended directly on the Patriarch and had no suffragans. These autocephalous bishoprics gradually faded out. The metropolitanates were arranged in an order of precedence. The senior was the see of Caesarea-Mazacha. Next came Ephesus, then Heraclea in Thrace, then Ancyra. Thessalonica only appears as sixteenth in the Taxis list; and the other European sees were lower still.

The invasions of the Turks and their gradual conquest of Asia Minor altered the picture. Constantinople would not admit at first that the loss of so many Asiatic bishoprics was final. But by the end of the twelfth century it was clear that the Turks had come to stay. Many of the bishops from the occupied territories fled to Constantinople, intending to return when circumstances allowed. Some of the cities were destroyed during the wars; and there could be no returning to them. But several bishops were able to go back, even though the sees were not liberated; while a few others stayed at their posts and managed to carry out their duties. But, under a regime that was not given to urban life, a number of cities declined fairly rapidly, while others were deserted by their Christian population. Of the Christians who did not migrate many within two or three generations had passed over to the religion of their new masters. But a number of Christians remained in Turkish territory, mostly in the larger towns but a few in isolated mountain villages. In general they were allowed to practise their religion without hindrance, and their bishops were permitted to stay with them and, except in times of war, to keep in touch with Constantinople. But the former ecclesiastical divisions were becoming meaningless. The Byzantines could not bear to abandon the historic titles of their sees. It was not always necessary. Cities such as Caesarea and Ankyra retained their importance and much of their Christian population. But the Patriarchal lists show a steady diminution in the number both of metropolitan and of suffragan sees. Varying forms of readjustment were used. If the metropolitan city had dwindled away the see might be allotted to a suffragan bishop. For example, the title of Metropolitan of Sardis, a see that had ranked sixth in precedence in the old, lists, was given in the thirteenth century, when Sardis was no more than a village, to its former chief suffragan, the Bishop of Philadelphia, whose city remained free and important until the end of the fourteenth century. Similarly, the Bishop of Heraclea in Pontus acquired the title of Metropolitan of Claudiopolis. Sometimes a metropolitan see that had lost its flock or was too poor now to maintain its own organization was given, as it were, on loan to some still active neighbouring metropolitan. The phrase used was κατά λογου επιδοσεος, ‘temporary in principle’; and the temporary incumbent was called the Proedrus of the see. Sometimes, when the see had clearly been lost for ever, the title was preserved by giving it as an additional honour to a bishop who might live far away from the original see. Hyacinthus Critobulus, Metropolitan of Ouggro-Valachia, north of the Danube, in the late fourteenth century, held also the title of Metropolitan of Melitene, a city situated near the banks of the Euphrates. Eventually metropolitan titles in partibus infidelium were given to high clergy at the Patriarchal court, to raise them to episcopal rank and authority, a device that was to be followed later at Rome.

The Latin occupation of various European provinces did not have quite the same effect, as the Greek congregations there remained virtually undiminished. Sometimes the Greek bishop had been removed and replaced by a Latin. He would then retire to the Byzantine court, waiting till he could be reinstated. If he died there, a titular bishop would be appointed to succeed him. Sometimes the Greek bishop remained, side by side with a Latin bishop; and sometimes, more rarely, he was left undisturbed. In both those cases he was under pressure to acknowledge Roman authority and to defer to the upper Latin hierarchy. But he could often keep in touch with Constantinople, and there was no real interruption of tenure. Many of the sees were recovered by the Byzantines; and the bishops reverted easily and gladly to the old allegiance; or, if the bishop had been ejected, he or his successor returned from exile.

The return of the Empire to Constantinople in 1261 had been followed almost at once by the loss of most of its Asiatic provinces. In consequence the sees situated in Europe rose in importance. The historic sees of Asia kept their precedence. Caesarea and Ephesus, though the cities were in alien hands, continued to rank first and second in order. But Thessalonica rose from sixteenth to twelfth place early in the fourteenth century, and, a few years later, to fourth, just behind Heraclea in Thrace. Lists made in the latter years of the Empire show diminishing numbers as well as the changed order. The Ecthesis of Andronicus II, drawn up in I299, gives 112 metropolitans, which was twice as many as had existed a century before; but, except in Europe, hardly any of them had more than one or at most two suffragans, while those of them that had passed wholly into alien hands, with the exception of a few in the first rank, were listed in an appendix and credited with no suffragans. A taxis published in the early years of the fifteenth century gives seventy-eight metropolitan sees, calling them Eparchies, of which forty have titles which suggest that they were still active. The final position is shown in a memorandum issued in 1437 for the benefit of the Council of Basle. It gives sixty-seven metropolitans, many of whom have no suffragans. Eight were in the territory around Constantinople and seven in Greece. Thirty-six were in Turkish territory and sixteen in independent Christian lands, Wallachia, Moldavia, Russia, the Caucasus and Trebizond.

With the decline in numbers came an increase in titles. The metropolitans of the leading sees became exarchs, with the epithet of utteptiuos, ‘most honourable’. About the end of the fourteenth century the Metropolitan of Caesarea became Exarch of the East, the Metropolitan of Ephesus Exarch of Asia, the Metropolitan of Heraclea Exarch of Thrace and Macedonia, the Metropolitan of Philippopolis Exarch of Europe. Soon afterwards exarchates were allotted to nearly all the surviving metropolitans, the Metropolitan of Thessalonica, for example, becoming Exarch of Thessaly and the Metropolitan of Nicomedia Exarch of Bithynia. This was not, as some historians have thought, an attempt to compensate for lost grandeur by a pathetic use of empty titles. The exarchate represented something definite. In the civil world the exarch had been the governor of a province so far removed from the capital that he had to be given special viceregal powers. Bishops had had their exarchs to represent them in country districts which they had no time personally to supervise. The bestowal of the office on metropolitans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a recognition by the Patriarch that he could no longer administer areas under foreign control. As exarch the local metropolitan was empowered to act as his deputy.

A further complication was caused by the growing disparity in size between the Patriarchal territory and that of the dying Empire. The Emperor was still the Sacred Emperor, the head of the Christian commonwealth, whose duty it was to give the Church the backing of the State. He could no longer give such support. As the list of 1437 showed, more than three-quarters of the metropolitans had their sees in territories ruled by foreign potentates, some of whom were Christians, but not necessarily on cordial terms with Constantinople, but by far the most important of whom was an infidel Sultan. The Patriarch was thus involved in foreign politics, and his interests there were by no means identical with the Emperor’s. In Turkish lands his bishops had increasingly to be prepared to take charge of the secular as well as the religious administration of their flocks. The Church was faced by new preoccupations and new problems of which its Fathers had never dreamed. By 1453 its position was so awkward and anomalous that some reorganization was long overdue. The Turkish conquest may not have provided the happiest solution; but at least it provided a solution.

The Monasteries.

It was typical of the attitude of the Byzantines towards religion that, highly as they respected the Patriarch and the hierarchy, they were personally far more deeply influenced by individual monks and holy men. They resented any attack on the hierarchy by the lay authorities, unless the particular hierarch had made himself unpopular. But, if there were a conflict between the hierarchy and the monasteries, it was the monks who could count on the stronger popular support.

Byzantine monasticism differed greatly from that of the West. There was no fixed Rule; there were no monastic Orders. Each monastery had its own constitution, usually laid down when it was founded. These constitutions fell into two main types. One was derived straight from the early monasticism of Egypt, from the traditions of the Fathers of the Desert, those ascetes who had retired from the world into the wilderness to lead lives of holy and humble contemplation, in solitude at first, but as time went on gathering together into small groups, so as to give each other a little mutual protection and to perform mutual services and acts of charity. The group formed what came to be called a Lavra. The second type is derived from the reforms that Basil the Great introduced, in an attempt to make monastic life more orderly and more complete. He believed that the monks, the μοναχοι, or ‘solitary men’, should always be combined into communities, in which they should live lives of perfect communism under the rule of an elected head who should command perfect obedience, and that they should work as well as pray. It was from his recommendations that Benedict derived his Rule and the whole of Western monasticism grew up.

Under Justinian I laws were passed to make every monastic establishment follow the Basilian pattern. All monks were to lead a communal life and every monastery must have a communal refectory and dormitory. No separate cells were to be permitted, except for penal confinement, inside or outside of the monastic building. The monk was to have no personal property. Before taking his final vows he could dispose of his worldly goods as he wished, though, if he were married, his wife and children were entitled to the proportion of his estate that they would have received on his death. His wife must consent to his retirement; and it was usual that she should enter monastic life at the same time. He could inherit property after entering the monastery, but only if he had already made arrangements for the disposal of any such inheritance. Though early Councils had forbidden it, a monk was allowed to become the guardian of a minor and a trustee for his property. Any man or woman could take monastic vows whenever he or she pleased, with the exception of runaway slaves and of government officials whose term of office had not expired.

The noviciate lasted for three years; and during those years the novice could, if he wished or if he were considered unsuited for the life, return into the world. When his noviciate was completed he made his profession before the abbot and took the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. The abbot then tonsured him and gave him his robe, the ‘angelic habit’, and the kiss of peace.

According to Justinian’s legislation the monastery was under the absolute control of the abbot, called either the higumene, the ‘leader’, or the archimandrite, the ‘head of the flock’. He was elected by a majority vote of the monks, but he could not take office until he was blessed by the bishop of the diocese, who gave him his pastoral staff. The bishop also controlled the foundation of monasteries. At this time nearly all were founded by laymen; but building could not begin until the bishop had inspected and blessed the site, planting a cross there, and had approved the foundation deeds. Till Justinian’s time there had been a number of institutions where both sexes lived in common. This was now strictly forbidden. Women’s monasteries were organized along the same lines as the men’s, the abbess being elected and having the same absolute power as an abbot. Under the abbot was the economus, in charge of the worldly possessions of the monastery, the chartophylax, or registrar, and the bibliophylax, or librarian. A monk was not necessarily a priest, though a priest could become a monk; but there were always a few ordained monks in each establishment, in order that the church services could be performed; and if the elected abbot were not a priest it was customary for him to be ordained. For female establishments the bishop provided chaplains.

Imperial legislation did not interfere in the internal running of the monastery. Its constitution was laid down in two foundation-deeds, the brevion, which listed the endowments and gave the founder’s wishes with regard to liturgical duties, and the typicon, which regulated the rights and duties of the monks. Subject to these requirements the abbot had complete control over discipline. Monks who disobeyed the rules or otherwise misbehaved were punished by enforced fasts and other austerities and in more serious cases by being excluded from the liturgy and from receiving blessings, and, at the worst, by solitary confinement. Later Patriarchs issued codes for the punishment of monks; but the abbot could always use his discretion. He also decided upon the number and duration of church services, along the lines laid down in the brevion. The services usually consisted of psalmody throughout the Seven Canonical Hours, an hour or more of prayer before dawn, followed by the sunrise mass, the ορθρος, with all night services on the eve of the greater saints’ days and of the major feasts of the Church and such other days as the founder might have ordained.

Justinian’s legislation was repeated and confirmed in 692 by the Quinisextine Council, the Council In Trullo, which added laws forbidding the disaffection of monasteries and the secularization of monastic property. It also fixed the minimum age for novices at ten and it added a year to the noviciate, at least for voluntary candidates. It was already customary for offenders against the State to be relegated to monasteries and to be tonsured at once. An enforced entry into monastic life remained throughout the Byzantine period the usual fate for fallen politicians and officials, from Emperors downwards.

In spite of Justinian and the Quinisextine Council it proved impossible to abolish the lavras, with their loose pre-Basilian organization. Where such communities existed and seemed to be competently run, they were left alone. They had been particularly numerous in Syria and Palestine; and when those countries were overrun by the Arabs some of them moved to Asia Minor and re-established themselves there.

The Iconoclastic Emperors of the eighth century found the monks to be their fiercest opponents and tried to curtail if not to abolish the monasteries. But their laws were repealed before the end of the century and the records destroyed. The effect of their rule had been to loosen episcopal control; and many abuses had reappeared, including monasteries of mixed sexes. The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 reaffirmed earlier legislation, though mixed monasteries were permitted so long as the sexes occupied completely separate buildings. A law issued a few years later forbade monks to act as guardians of minors, though they might still be trustees of property. More effective reforms were instituted at this time by Theodore the Studite, who reintroduced the strict Basilian rule for a group of monasteries which he dominated. He seems to have envisaged a sort of informal Order, not unlike that later founded in the West by the Cluniacs. But only a few establishments followed him.

The period that followed, up to the Latin conquest of Constantinople, was the great age of Byzantine monastic prosperity. There was very little uniformity. New monasteries were continually being founded, some by holy men who gathered disciples around them, some by rich laymen and laywomen, some by bishops, some by Patriarchs and some by Emperors. Patriarchal foundations, wherever they might be, were controlled from the Patriarchal court, by the Sacellarius. Imperial foundations were directed by the Emperor’s officials, without any ecclesiastical intermediary. A few great monasteries were proclaimed by special Imperial decree to be autodespotae, withdrawn from all jurisdiction, civil or ecclesiastical. The local bishop retained certain rights over the foundation of a new establishment. He still had to approve and bless the site, and he opened the building when completed, with a procession and a reading of the foundation-deeds. It was ordered now that the founder must arrange for at least three monks to occupy the site as soon as the bishop had planted a cross on it, and that the building must be ready within three years.

The foundation of so many new monasteries, each endowed with properties that were sometimes huge, together with endowments given by the pious to already existing establishments, began to create problems. The Imperial authorities were alarmed to see vast tracts of land passing inalienably into monastic hands. But tenth-century legislation aimed at limiting the endowments proved ineffectual and had to be abandoned. Difficulties arose for the monks also; for many of their properties were now far apart. Stewards, known as επιτροποι, had to be appointed; and it was not easy for the Economus to supervise them. Sometimes the Imperial or ecclesiastical authorities would put a foundation under a lay protector who administered its property, allowing the monastery an income adequate for its needs and keeping for himself any additional profits that he could make. Such a monastery was called a charisticum, and its protector the charisticarius. The authorities liked the system as it meant that the estates were efficiently managed; but it was liable to be abused. Many founders stipulated that their foundation should never become a charisticum.

Nearly all the monasteries were now Basilian and coenobitic, that is to say, following a communal life. In rural monasteries the monks mainly laboured in the fields, though each had a library, some of which were well kept up and might contain monks who copied manuscripts. The monks were also supposed to tend the local poor and sick. In urban monasteries, though the monks usually had gardens and orchards to maintain, there was more intellectual activity, and the social activities were wider. The monasteries provided confessors for neighbouring families and tutors for their children. They ran hostels for pilgrims, sick-wards and dispensaries, many of the establishments having social duties assigned to them by the typica given them by their founders. Nuns as well as monks did useful social work, caring for destitute children and nursing the sick, some of them having a good medical training. The influence enjoyed by the monks and nuns was principally due to their social activities. They moved amongst the people and understood their needs. The monasteries were further useful in providing places of refuge for the aged. In them you would find elderly folk who would otherwise have been a burden on their families, together with large numbers of quite well-to-do retired officials or widowed housewives, who wished to end their days in an atmosphere of sanctity. They contained manumitted slaves and penitent sinners and even a certain number of criminals hiding from justice. There was no class-consciousness in them; the retired nobleman would work and pray side by side with the retired peasant, and, in theory if not always in practice, no one might enjoy special privileges. For an ambitious boy of humble birth a monastic career provided the easiest ladder to climb, as the hierarchy recruited its staff more and more from the abler and better-trained monks. Not all the monasteries were estimable. Some were little more than comfortable residential clubs; others were filled by lazy men and women who lived by begging and who thought nothing of smuggling out and selling books and other treasures from the libraries; others, again, were animated by a narrow anti-intellectualism or by political passions and prejudices.

There were monasteries all over the Empire. Their number is impossible to estimate. The twelfth-century traveller Benjamin of Tudela said that there were as many monasteries in Constantinople alone as there were days in the year. In fact, at that time there were probably in the city and suburbs as many as 175 establishments, some, like the great monastery of Studium, containing several hundred monks, others not more than ten. A large provincial city such as Thessalonica probably housed at least twenty establishments. In addition there were monasteries for either sex all over the countryside, many of them being in groups. In the middle Byzantine period the most famous group was situated on Bithynian Olympus. It was there that Theodore the Studite started his career and planned his reforms. There was another group settled, mainly in caves, in the Cappadocian hills, given more to contemplation and less to learning and social works than the Olympian group. When the Turks overran Cappadocia many of these monks fled and established themselves on Mount Latmos, on the Aegean coast, south of Smyrna. The communities there were famed in the twelfth century for their austerities. The most famous of all groups was settled on the peninsula of Mount Athos. The Holy Mountain had been settled by hermits from early in the middle ages, and a few small lavras were soon established there. They had already organized themselves into a community under a protos, or headman, when in 963 a monk from Trebizond called Athanasius, who enjoyed the friendship of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, founded a great monastery there known as the Grand Lavra. In spite of its name it was not a lavra but followed the Studite coenobitic rule. By the end of the century five more monasteries had been founded on the Mountain, and the group had been given a constitution by the Emperor. A monastery reserved for Georgians was founded in about 979, a monastery for Russians in 1169 and one for Serbians in 1197. In the eleventh century the Amalfitans had an establishment there which followed the Latin rite; and a Seldjuk prince converted to Christianity founded a monastery early in the twelfth century. The constitution of the Mountain ordained that there should be a council or synod consisting of the heads of all the establishments, which should elect the protos and act as his advisory body. He, with its advice, judged disputes between the monasteries and confirmed the election of abbots. The constitution was revised in 1052, when many of the smaller and older lavras had disappeared. By then the Grand Lavra contained 700 monks, and the whole population of the peninsula approached 10,000. There were no establishments for women. Indeed, no female creature was officially allowed on the mountain, though the ban could not be extended to birds of the air and in time hens were grudgingly admitted, and, later still, female cats, as mice and snakes would not obey the rules and were breeding too plentifully. The ban in theory was not made to ensure chastity but to show respect to the Patroness of the Mountain, the Holy Virgin, who should have no rivals. Great austerity was demanded of the monks; but already by the end of the eleventh century they had begun to import lay brothers to help them with their flocks and gardens, and boys to wait on their persons; and some scandals ensued, especially when the shepherds tried to smuggle in their womenfolk. Each monastery kept boats for fishing, for obtaining supplies for the mainland and for marketing its timber; and most of them acquired estates on the mainland, with which they had to keep in touch. Stewards had to be appointed for those distant properties; and the Grand Lavra kept a steward at Constantinople, to act as a diplomatic and financial agent there. By the end of the twelfth century the monasteries on Olympus were in decay; they had never fully recovered from the Turkish invasions of the previous century; and Mount Latmos was dangerously close to the frontier. Athos emerged as by far the most important monastic settlement. The history of later Greek monasticism is largely a history of Mount Athos.

By that time the lavra type of monastery had virtually disappeared. But the disadvantage of coenobitic life of the Basilian or Studite type was that the absence of solitude made holy contemplation difficult; it was not easy to be a mystic in such an establishment. In earlier days a would-be contemplative would set himself up as a hermit in some remote cave or on top of a pillar, where he would mortify his flesh. If his retreat were sufficiently remote he might be left in peace. But, if it were accessible, the fame of his holiness would spread, and a stream of pilgrims of all sorts would come to him for advice, political as well as spiritual. A saint such as Symeon Stylites was a real power in the State. But in the course of the middle Byzantine period these individualistic holy men grew rarer. The last recorded Stylite, called Luke, lived in the tenth century. His slightly younger contemporary, also called Luke, was one of the last solitary hermits to wield a political influence. Provincial governors in Greece would come to his hermitage in Styris to consult him; and his fame reached the Imperial court owing to his successful prophecy about the Byzantine reconquest of Crete from the Saracens. When he died, his dwelling-place was turned by Imperial decree into a monastery. But by the end of the tenth century a hermit would usually retire to some spot like Mount Athos where he would be out of reach of the world but yet have spiritual comforts at hand. This was due to an ever-increasing devotion to the Liturgy among the Byzantines. Even a holy man could not bear to deprive himself of taking part in the Mysteries.

To accommodate solitaries and mystics who yet wished to be part of a monastic group there were regulations permitting a monk to obtain his abbot’s permission to leave his monastery for an establishment that allowed greater solitude, or even for a hermit’s cell. But it was more usual for such a monk to be given a separate cell within the monastery or close by and a dispensation from certain labours. As a rule a monastery was allowed to have only five of these solitaries, or kelliots. The Church authorities inclined to believe that mystics should keep to the coenobitic life until they were sure of their vocation. Symeon the New Theologian, the eleventh-century founder of later Byzantine mysticism, spent most of his career in an active coenobitic monastery in Constantinople and only retired to the country when he was exiled as the result of a monastic intrigue; and even in the country he directed a small monastic community.

The Latin conquest interrupted Byzantine monastic life. In the territories conquered by the Latins many monasteries were pillaged and ruined, particularly during the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Others were occupied by Latin Orders, such as Daphne, near Athens, which for two centuries housed Cistercian monks. Those that were left to the Greeks were deprived of endowments. The Athonite establishments lost most of their mainland estates, though they soon recovered them when the Nicaean Emperors acquired control of Macedonia. The Nicaean court was too thrifty to found monasteries. The only important foundation of the period was one at Ephesus, Saint Gregory the Thaumaturge, the creation of the scholar Nicephorus Blemmydas, who attached an excellent school to it. A few monasteries were founded by the Despots of Epirus; and in the Empire of Trebizond monastic life was uninterrupted. The great monastery of Sumela, founded in the fifth century and continually re-endowed by the Grand Comnenus, was in the later middle ages the richest monastic establishment in the East.

When Michael VIII recaptured Constantinople he found its monasteries impoverished and decaying. Some had disappeared; others had lost their endowments. With the approval of the Church authorities he ordered the amalgamation of smaller and poorer houses into workable units. Neither he nor his successors made new foundations, preferring to repair and re-endow older foundations. Michael himself rebuilt and renamed the Monastery of Saint Demetrius. His daughter Maria, widow of the Mongol Ukhan Abaga, repaired the monastery later known as Mary of the Mongols. The noble Theodore Metochites restored the Monastery of the Chora and was responsible for commissioning its mosaics and frescoes, which are today perhaps the loveliest surviving works of Byzantine art. It was only in the provinces that there were new foundations, at Mistra, the capital of the Despotate of the Morea, at Megaspileon in the Peloponnese or in towns farther north such as Castoria. The strange rocks of Meteora in Thessaly, long a resort of hermits, acquired a number of monasteries early in the fourteenth century, chiefly owing to the pious generosity of Serbian kings. They formed a monastic republic, on the lines of that of Mount Athos.

During the last period of Byzantine history the monasteries were, thus, fewer and poorer than before, though, with the general decline in population and wealth, the proportion of monks to laity and their proportionate wealth was probably much the same. To some extent their tribulations had been salutary. Since the Iconoclastic period the monasteries had not played a great part in intellectual or even in spiritual life. With rare exceptions, such as Theodore Studites and Symeon the New Theologian, the important religious thinkers had belonged to the hierarchy or even to the laity. From 1261 onwards the monasteries took a livelier part in religious thought. Mount Athos in particular became a center for theological discussion. But there were certain disadvantages in having the main center of monastic thought on an isolated mountain, away from the intellectual circles of Constantinople. The monks were not necessarily anti-intellectual, though many of them came from poor homes and never received more than a rudimentary education. In the greater Athonite houses the libraries were full, well tended and well used, with copyists busying themselves over secular as well as religious manuscripts. But there was an inevitable tendency towards suspicion of secular learning.

The Mountain was not without its scandals. In 1292 the Emperor Andronicus II placed its houses, which had been under a loose Imperial control, directly under the Patriarch Athanasius I, a stern disciplinarian, so as to ensure stricter discipline. Twenty years later he issued a Bull further tightening the constitution of the Mountain. In 1402 Manuel II was shocked to find how lax the monasteries had become again and legislated to enforce the old rules. Part of the trouble was that a new type of monastery had grown up on the Mountain. This was the idiorrhythmic, in which each monk had his own private cell and kept some of his private property, coming together with his fellows only for church services and for dinners on the greater feast-days. Otherwise he could keep to himself or in a small group. These groups, or ‘families’, would elect a superior who was responsible for discipline; but there was no abbot. A superior, whose term of office was limited, would act as president and represent the monastery on the Holy Synod of the Mountain. The idiorrhythmic monk did not disdain work of all sorts; but there was no one who could oblige him to work. Discipline inevitably slackened; and, though the system might be useful for contemplatives who wished to be left alone, it was far too convenient for men who wished to combine holiness with indolence. Manuel II would have liked to abolish the idiorrhythmic rule; but it was too late.

The period also saw the monks playing a larger part in Church politics. They had always formed a potential political force, which had come to the fore in Iconoclastic days as the chief opponent of Imperial policy; but it had not been greatly felt in the following centuries. But from the thirteenth century onwards there was a party in the Church, supported in general by the monasteries, which was in fairly constant opposition to the Imperial court and the upper hierarchy. The dividing line between the parties was never clear cut and the issues varied. On the whole the monastic party was both conservative and democratic. It supported tradition in religious affairs, therefore bitterly opposing any concessions to be made to achieve union with the West; and it was suspicious of philosophers who sought to pry into theology in defiance of its apophatic inheritance. At the same time it opposed the autocracy of the Emperor and disapproved of the luxury of the Court and the upper hierarchy, though it was willing to ally itself with the landed nobility, whose economic interests were often similar to those of the greater monastic establishments. As we shall see, this party warfare played an important role in all the questions that troubled the later Byzantine Church.

The whole lay population of Byzantium was involved in these ecclesiastical struggles. In Eastern Christendom the laity was far more important than in the West. In early Christian times the laity played an important role in the Church organization; and that tradition was never lost in the East, where laymen never ceased to receive communion in both kinds. The clergy, despite the respect given to them for the charismatic succession that enabled them to perform the Mysteries, could not in Eastern theory complete the sacrament alone without a congregation. To that extent the laity took part in the ministry. The laity were not devoid of charisma; baptism made them ‘a people of God, a royal priesthood’. If need be, any baptized man or woman could perform the rite of baptism. Nor was theology the monopoly of the priesthood. Any layman might be equally inspired by the Holy Spirit.

This was reasonable in view of the high standard of lay education in Byzantium. In the West the barbarian invasions had left the Church in sole charge of education. In the East lay education had never been interrupted. It is true that monks were usually employed to tutor young children, and many of the monasteries ran schools, while the Patriarchal Academy, which is the oldest school to survive to this day, provided an excellent education. But education was essentially a secular affair. The University, though its life was often interrupted, was a department of the State, not of the Church. Even clerics who entered the Church early in life had usually passed through some lay schooling; and many of the leading theologians only entered the Church late in life or remained laymen till their deaths. At the Council of Florence in 1439 the Emperor complained that his lay advisers were much more learned than his bishops. This long tradition of lay learning made it difficult for the Church to dominate religious and philosophical thought.

In Byzantine ecclesiastical party conflicts there was a natural tendency for the lay intellectuals to be allied with the court and the upper hierarchy, much of it lay-educated, against the monks and the members of the hierarchy educated at Church schools. But a controversy such as the Palamite, where a fundamental but intricate point of theology was concerned, cut across the usual dividing line. Moreover, the lay intellectuals, with their own views about theology, did not always follow the recommendations of the hierarchy or of the court. Therein the monks were stronger; for the general populace was under their influence. Not only did their charitable social work keep them in touch with the people and win them its affection; but the fact that they provided tutors and, still more, confessors and spiritual advisers, widened their moral control. It was rare for a member of the hierarchy to act as a spiritual adviser, though we have a case of a Metropolitan of Chalcedon who in about 1400 acted as spiritual adviser and confessor to a noble lady called Eudocia, and whose letters to her have survived and are admirable for their calm common sense. In general even the richest families employed monks, and could not fail to be affected to some extent by their views.

The influence of the Church was enormous but uneven. The Byzantine had deep religious feelings, particularly in two respects. He had a profound admiration for what he conceived as holiness; and he was passionately attached to his liturgy. The act of worship was the basic expression of his faith. When he attended a service in his church building he knew himself to be part of the Church of Christ; he was in touch with the Divine. The worst of punishments was to be deprived of this privilege. But services required priests; and a priest could withhold communion. Excommunication was a very rare sentence, but all the more formidable because it was seldom imposed. Moreover, without an ordained priest there could not be a celebration of the Mysteries. Even in the most backward village, where the priest was a peasant like his flock and shared most of its daily life, he was nevertheless the priest, the magician, so to speak, whose operations were necessary for the well-being of the community. He tried, as best he could, to carry out the instructions of his superiors. But they were distant, and the bishop’s exarch might not be able to pay him regular visits; and in that case he would take his troubles to the abbot of the nearest monastery. Sometimes, as in Greece under the Franks, the hierarchs might be Latins or Latinizers. In that case he sought to carry on undefiled the traditions of his forefathers; he became the little local champion of Greek Orthodoxy, a role which grew during the centuries of Turkish domination.

In the cities the faithful could go to some great cathedral whose ceremonies, conducted by bishops, were more splendid and more magical. To the last the services in Saint Sophia kept a special prestige. But in the later Byzantine period there was a tendency for smaller and smaller churches to be built; they were liked because of the more intimate atmosphere that they provided. The Byzantine revered the great tradition that was represented by the Emperor and the Patriarch. The glorious ritual of the Imperial Palace and the Great Church were part of his heritage that he would support passionately against external attack. But holiness impressed him still more deeply; and he saw holiness in terms of visible other-worldliness, in poverty and simplicity and self-denial. In older days he would listen to the stylite and the hermit rather than to the bishop. Later it was the humble parish priest and the welfare-working monk whom he saw in his daily life who had the greatest hold over him. Such men understood the populace; they shared its sentiments and guided its views. The court, the hierarchy and the intellectuals might quarrel; the Emperor might depose officials and even Patriarchs. But in every Eastern, city ultimate power has always lain with the mob, that is to say, with the demagogues who dominate the mob. In Byzantium, these demagogues — and the word need not be understood in a. pejorative sense — were the poorer priests and monks, men most of whom respected authority and education but who were swayed by an emotional and uncomplicated faith in the Holy Tradition that they had inherited. In spite of all the respect paid to the Emperor and the Patriarch, neither could count on the support of the people if he offended against their instinctive sense of right and wrong. If there seemed to be unrighteousness on high, the people would listen to the spiritual advisers whom they knew; and the discipline of the Church was not strong enough nor well enough organized to stifle opposition. The early Christian belief in religious democracy kept breaking through.

This elasticity in the organization was not altogether harmful to the Church. It might at times produce chaos and it might be injurious to the State. But it is significant that there was never in Byzantium a popular anticlerical movement; there was nothing to compare with the Waldensian or Lollard movements in the West or with Protestantism. The hierarchs might be attacked, but as persons. The lesser clergy, for all their insubordination, remained loyal to the idea of the Church. It is true that the Zealot movement in fourteenth-century Thessalonica appears at first sight to be anticlerical; for the Zealots hastened to confiscate episcopal and monastic property. But they claimed to be acting in the interests of the underpaid lesser clergy; they had no animosity against the Church but only against the disparity of its endowments. They wished to reform its details, not its structure. And their movement failed less from external pressure than from, the loss of support from the priests and monks whom they professed to benefit.

When we contrast Church and State in Byzantium we must not think solely in terms of the Imperial government and the hierarchy. There was a third party in all the disputes, the people. And, if it is true that the Voice of the People is the Voice of God, in Byzantium the Voice of God was heard through the mouths of the humbler servants of His Church.

3. Church and State.

The chief practical problem that faces any organized Church lies in its relation to the State. It may be that the only complete answer is found in a Rule of the Saints, a theocracy, whether it be a government such as that of the Anabaptists at Munster or the Plenitudo Potestatis claimed by the later medieval Papacy. But a Christian Church must always bear in mind the words of Christ distinguishing between the things which are God’s and the things which are Caesar’s. To the early Christian, before the days of Constantine, the position was fairly clear. It was his business to be a good citizen. Peter bade him: ‘Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake; whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors…’ and again: ‘Fear God. Honour the King’ (I Peter 2:13, 17). The early Christian communities did their best to be law-abiding. Difficulty only arose when Caesar claimed to be God and demanded a token sacrifice to his divinity. That the Christian could not condone; and persecution might follow. The Triumph of the Cross ended such persecution; but it created other problems. For Ceasar claimed now not to be God Himself but God’s representative on earth, a claim that was harder to refute.

In theory at least, the basic law of the Roman Empire was the lex de imperio, by which the people transferred their share of the sovereignty to the Emperor. By the days of Constantine the other partner in the sovereignty, the Senate, had for practical purposes lost its position. As representative of the people the Emperor was Pontifex Maximus; it was his duty to conduct the sacrifices to the gods in the name of the people. When the people became the Christian Oecumene he was still their representative and Pontifex Maximus. He was also the source of law. If the law had to be amended to include Christian principles no one else but he could do it. But the Church now possessed its own hierarchy, qualified to administer to its needs and preserve its discipline; and it was for a Council representing all the congregations of the Oecumene to assemble to receive divine inspiration on matters of Faith. How did a Christian Emperor fit into this? His soul was no more precious than other Christian souls. He was not a bishop nor even a priest; yet he was the trustee of the Oecumene before God and its High Priest and its law-giver. He could not be denied authority. Constantine the Great, long before he had been baptized, considered it his duty to intervene in the Church to settle the Donatist question, which was more a matter of schism than of heresy, and the Arian question, where a fundamental dogma was concerned. His attempt to deal with Donatism through a commission failed; he was obliged to summon a Council of bishops to Aries to solve the problem. Warned by that experience, he summoned a Council of bishops from all over the Oecumene to deal with Arianism. For such a Council to be summoned by the head of State was a novelty; and Constantine copied the procedure from the old procedure of the Senate. He, or his deputy, acted as princeps or consul, taking the chair and arbitrating, while the Bishop of Rome as senior bishop, or his deputy, had the right, held by the princeps senatus, of voting first. But the Emperor as chairman was not required to be neutral. He could intervene in the debates and make his views known. At this first Oecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, it was Constantine who proposed the compromise word ομοοθσιον and forced it upon the unenthusiastic bishops. Then, as head of the State, he made it his business to see that the decisions of the Council were implemented and obeyed.

The pattern set by Constantine at Nicaea was followed in the East until the fall of Byzantium. Whenever there was disagreement within the Church over a fundamental question of dogma, it was the Emperor’s duty to convoke and preside over a Council to settle the problem and to give its decisions the force of law. It was a reasonable system, in theory and in practice. No bishop had greater charismatic authority than his fellows and none was therefore qualified to be chairman. The obvious chairman was the Emperor as representing the whole Oecumene. Moreover, as he was the source of law, the Council’s canons could not be implemented without his help. Indeed, if the Church was to be a body united in doctrine and if its doctrine was to be guaranteed by the State, it was logical and practical that the head of the State should be head of the Church. Whether Constantine himself realized this consciously or whether he was merely taking the most efficient course for restoring unity, he established a precedent that was to last for eleven centuries. Some sixty years before the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, when the Emperor’s power was dwindling into nothing, the Patriarch Antony IV wrote these words: ‘The holy Emperor has a great position in the Church... and this is because the emperors from the outset established and confirmed the true faith in all the Oecumene. They convoked the Oecumenical Councils; they confirmed the pronouncements of the divine and sacred canons concerning true doctrine and the government of Christians, and they ordered them to be accepted.’

The Patriarch Antony does not, however, specify what the ‘great position’ was. Could the Emperor pronounce on theology except before a Council? Both Zeno and Heraclius had tried to do so, from the highest motives and with the Patriarch’s consent. But both failed. J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire (1923), I, pp. 402-4. Later Emperors went no further than to tell a Council what its pronouncements ought to be. The Emperor certainly commanded supreme respect as the head of the State. In the West Imperial authority collapsed; and Augustine could therefore contrast the decadent earthly Empire with the Kingdom of God. But in the East men followed Eusebius in believing that Christianity had purified and sanctified the Empire. It was the Holy Empire. The Emperor must therefore be tinged with holiness. When Diocletian instituted a coronation ceremony it was performed by the senior lay minister; and the first Christian Emperors continued the practice. Theodosius II, for example, was crowned by the Prefect of the City of Constantinople. But at his successor Marcian’s coronation the Patriarch was present; and Marcian’s successor Leo I was certainly crowned by the Patriarch.1 The Patriarch was by now the official with the highest precedence after the Emperor; but his intervention turned the coronation into a religious ceremony. In the course of it the Emperor underwent a sort of ordination; he received charismatic powers. Henceforward the Imperial Palace was known as the Sacred Palace. Its ceremonies were liturgica ceremonies, in which he played the double role of God’s representative on earth and representative of the People before God, a symbol both of God and of the Divine Incarnation. The acclamations to which he was entitled stressed his position. On Christmas Eve he was addressed in a prayer which begged that Christ would ‘move all nations throughout the universe to offer tribute to Your Majesty, as the Magi offered presents to Christ’. The Whitsun hymns declare that the Holy Ghost descends in fiery tongues on to the Imperial head. At the same time the Emperor paid homage to God in the name of the Christian commonwealth. In the words of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus it was through the Palace ceremonies that ‘the Imperial power can be exercised with due rhythm and order and the Empire can thus represent the harmony and movement of the universe as it stems from the Creator’. The Byzantines fervently believed in this interpretation of the Emperor’s position. It did not prevent them from seeking to depose an Emperor whom they thought unworthy or ungodly. His sanctity then might not preserve him from, a violent death. It was the symbol, not necessarily the person, that they revered.

There was nevertheless a feeling that the Emperor’s power over the Church was limited, though the extent of the limitation was uncertain. It was agreed that he had the final word in appointing the Patriarch. But could he therefore control the Church? Justinian I stated that ‘the Sacerdotium and the Imperium’, placing them in that order, ‘ are the greatest gifts that man has received from God... The Sacerdotium is concerned with divine matters, the Imperium presides over mortals… But both proceed from the same Principle.’ He adds, though his actions belied his words, that the Emperor, although he is autocrat, cannot exercise a despotism over the Sacerdotium. His friend Agapetus wrote to him that ‘the Emperor is lord of all but is, like everyone else, the servant of God’, adding that it is for the Church to interpret God’s wishes. John Chrysostom, most deeply venerated of all the Byzantine Fathers, said clearly that ‘the domain of royal power is one thing and the domain of priestly power another; and the latter prevails over the former.’ When the Iconoclastic Emperor Leo III opened the introduction of his abridged law-code, the Ecloga, with the words:’ Since God in His good pleasure has handed over to Us the Imperial authority.. .and has commanded Us, as He commanded Saint Peter, head and chief of the Apostles, to feed His faithful flock...’, and when he began his Iconoclastic decree by declaring himself to be a priest, John of Damascus, writing from the safety of the Caliph’s dominions, replied in protest that ‘it is not the Emperor’s function to make laws for the Church’ and that ‘I cannot be persuaded that the Church is governed by Imperial decrees ‘. Theodore the Studite maintained that issues concerning doctrine were properly entrusted only to those to whom God had given the power to bind and loose, that is, to the Apostles and their successors, who are the Bishop of Rome and the four Patriarchs. ‘This’, says Theodore, ‘is the pentarchical authority of the Church. These are they who form the court of judgment on matters of holy doctrine. The business of kings and rulers is merely to lend aid in a joint attestation of the Faith and to reconcile differences over secular affairs.’ ‘You are concerned with politics and war’, he cried to Leo V. ‘Leave the affairs of the Church to prelates and monks.’ The Epanagoge, the law-code issued by Leo VI, says: ‘the State, like man, is formed of members, and the most important are the Emperor and the Patriarch. The peace and happiness of the Empire depends on their accord.’ It then goes so far as to say that, while the Emperor is the legal authority who must enforce and maintain true doctrine as laid down by the Scriptures and the Seven Councils, the Patriarch is ‘the living and animate image of Christ, typifying the truth by deeds and words... and alone is to interpret the canons passed’. The code also forbids the Emperor to give secular duties to the clergymen of old and the decrees enacted by the Holy Councils. But it must be remembered that the Epanagoge was drafted not by the Emperor but by the great Patriarch Photius, and that it was never implemented, but was the preface to a code which was never published.

The views of these eminent churchmen seem only to have been accepted by public opinion when, as in Iconoclastic times, an Emperor’s religious policy was rousing hot opposition. The bishops assembled at the Council in Trullo had all loyally declared: ‘We are the servants of the Emperor.’3 Indeed, had Theodore of Studium’s theory of the Pentarchy been logically pursued, the whole basis of the Oecumenical Councils would have been invalidated. By the thirteenth century when for some centuries there had been no great doctrinal issue within the Church, the general attitude was that of the late twelfth-century canonist, Theodore Balsamon. He says, when comparing the Emperor with the Patriarch, that:’ the service of the Emperors includes the enlightening and strengthening of both body and soul. The dignity of the Patriarchs is limited to the benefit of souls, and that alone.’ He adds that, though the clergy ought not to perform secular duties, the Emperor can by his Economy dispense with this ban, and can also, if need be, intervene in the elections not only of Patriarchs but of bishops as well.

Leo III was wrong in claiming to be a priest. A century earlier Maximus the Confessor had shown at length that the Emperor was not one. The coronation ceremony gave him certain priestly privileges. He could enter the sanctuary. He received communion in both kinds not by intinction, like the laity, but as priests do. On certain feasts he preached the sermon in Saint Sophia. He was acclaimed as pontifex or sacerdos or ιερευς, titles which even the Pope would give him if he considered him to be orthodox. But he was not in the full charismatic succession of the priesthood. In fact, he and the Patriarch were interdependent. He appointed the Patriarch; and the formula of appointment admitted his role as divine agent.’ I know here on earth two powers,’ said John Tzimisces, when appointing Basil the Anchorite to be Patriarch in 970, ‘the power of the priesthood and the power of the kingship, the one entrusted by the Creator with the cure of souls, the other with the government of bodies, so that neither part be lame or halt but both be preserved sound and whole.’ But, having paid that tribute to the priesthood, he continued: ‘As there is a vacancy on the Patriarchal throne I am placing there a man whom I know to be suitable.’ The Synod had merely to endorse the Emperor’s choice.

But the Emperor was crowned by the Patriarch; and it was generally held, though never legally stated, that it was the act of coronation that made him Emperor. The Patriarch received his declaration of orthodoxy and could refuse to perform the ceremony unless he amended his faith or his morals. At the last resort the Patriarch could excommunicate the Emperor, though on the rare occasions when he did so public opinion seems to have been uncomfortable. On the other hand the Emperor could and did sometimes obtain the displacement of the Patriarch. The method was either to oblige the Patriarch to abdicate of his own volition, which could usually be forced on him if there were a strong party in the Church opposed to him, or to depose him by a vote of the Holy Synod, on the ground that he had been appointed or had acted uncanonically; and, again, if he were unpopular within the Church it was easy for the Emperor to pack the Synod. But a deposition needed delicate handling. It often led to a schism within the Church, increasing rather than solving the Emperor’s problem.

The division between State law and Church law was similarly unclear. The Emperor, though he was under the law, was also the only source of law. He could and did legislate on all subjects, including ecclesiastical. He alone could give the decisions of Church Councils the force of law; and, though the Church could make its own rules, these were not legally binding unless he endorsed them. Canonists such as Balsamon and his younger contemporary, Demetrius Chomatianus, were positive about this. Chomatianus indeed held that only the Emperor could innovate ecclesiastical legislation. As we have seen, the Emperor issued such laws in the form of a communication to the Patriarch, who circulated the contents round the Church. In practice Patriarchs occasionally legislated on their own authority. A difficult point concerned marriage. By Roman law marriage was a civil contract, but to Christians it was also a religious union, a sacrament. Though the Emperor issued marriage laws, the Church performed marriages and could excommunicate those who contracted unions contrary to its laws. Imperial laws laid down the grounds for divorce; but suits for divorce were heard in ecclesiastical courts. The climax occurred in the reign of Leo VI. The Church had always disliked second marriages and positively forbade third marriages; and the Emperor had legally endorsed the ban. He then himself made not only a third but also a fourth marriage. This resulted in an excommunication of the Emperor, a dethronement of the Patriarch, a schism and eventually a compromise. The Patriarch was reinstated, fourth marriages were condemned, third marriages to be permitted only under special dispensation, but the Emperor’s child by his fourth marriage, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was legitimized and succeeded to the Empire. Thenceforward Patriarchs issued their own rules about marriages and grounds for divorce; and the Emperors did not intervene.

Just as the Byzantines disliked hard and fast doctrinal pronouncements unless a need arose or a tradition was challenged, so they avoided a precise ruling on the relations between Church and State. These were decided by a mixture of tradition, of popular sentiment and the personalities of the protagonists. There was a limit which neither side ought to overstep. The Patriarch ought not to interfere in politics. Neither Nicholas Mysticus, hot from his triumph over fourth marriages, nor Michael Cerularius, hot from his triumph in blocking the Emperor’s pro-Roman policy, could sustain an attempt to run the government. The former was displaced when he tried to act as Regent; the latter, after making and unmaking Emperors, was dethroned when he attempted to dictate purely secular policy. The Emperor could not go far against the known wishes of the Church. He was supposed to take an interest in theology. It was his duty to combat heterodoxy and to see to the punishment of incorrigible and antisocial heretics. His theological views were to be respected. When a lay courtier attempted to argue on doctrine with Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor’s biographer, John Cinnamus, was shocked. Only doctors of the Church and the Emperor should discuss theology, he thought. But Manuel’s other biographer, Nicetas Choniates, was inclined to mock at his ambition to be the new Solomon; and his bishops