—–
Dr. Kolbaba is a secular historian for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. I relied in large part and on whose work on the background to the 1054 dispute in drafting my article on Patriarch Michael Cerularius.
In her lead presentation at the conference, “The Tenth Century: Orthodox Constructions of the West in the Golden Age of Byzantium”, she set out to explain not so much why the schism occurred, but why it occurred when it did in the latter half of the 11th century. Specifically, she sought to answer this question in such a way as to avoid a deterministic view of history which treats critical events in retrospect as if they were somehow inevitable. What made the timing of the schism so difficult to explain, in her view, was that it followed on a long period of generally good relations between East and West. The 9th century dust-up between Rome on one hand, and Constantinople in the person of Photius on the other was widely seen in retrospect in the 10th century as an aberration.
Nevertheless, Dr. Kolbaba noted that this earlier dispute had not occurred in a vacuum.
All the factors that were later offered up to justify the schism (the papal claims, the filioque, as well as liturgical and disciplinary differences) were of long standing and were known in the 10th century, though they were not yet seen at the time as obstacles to communion. Both East and West had gone through a period of missionary expansion early in the 10th century with their evangelization efforts overlapping notably in Moravia and Bulgaria. Differences in ritual practice had been noted in these shared missionary areas, but without the “other side” necessarily being seen as “wrong” as a result. Differing liturgical practices had also been a minor factor in the political and ecclesial rivalry between the Lombard duchies and the Byzantine empire in Southern Italy, though not one that had attracted much notice in Constantinople prior to the 11th century.
In essence, Rome was still viewed positively in the 10th century for its earlier role in resisting iconoclasm, and the West was correspondingly not then perceived as a source of heresy. Despite the 9th century controversy over the filioque, Dr. Kolbaba noted that a comprehensive review of extant documents has yielded not a single Greek treatise against the interpolation that can be traced unambiguously to the 10th century, a lacuna all the more remarkable as one would in later times be expected (she observed half jokingly) to write at least two before being taken seriously as an Orthodox theologian. Furthermore, works condemning typically Western liturgical practices which would characterize Orthodox polemics in later centuries had yet to be written. So what changed in the 11th century?
Some early developments in the West were to have a latent impact on relations and on the way in which it would be perceived in the East. Dr. Kolbaba noted, for example, to the differing way in which Rome and the Frankish court were to receive the decisions of the 7th ecumenical council (albeit the Frankish reaction being based on a seriously flawed translation of the canons). The Gregorian reforms in the 11th century were to usher in a harder Western line on clerical celibacy and independence from secular authorities, as well as on the Papal claims; but Dr. Kolbaba argued that it was the East rather than the West that was ultimately to pick fault with the other, and that it was in the East that we should look for the key developments that would leading to a change in attitude that in turn would make the schism possible. Specifically and perhaps surprisingly she pointed to the substantial improvement in the Byzantine military situation along the empire’s eastern and southeastern frontier in the late 10th and early 11th centuries as the key underlying game changer.
Territorial contraction in earlier centuries and the struggle against iconoclasm had resulted in a more homogenous Greek-speaking and liturgically Byzantine empire. These features were to become, for courtly and religious elites based in Constantinople, the empire’s defining attributes any weakening of which could be seen as posing an existential threat to its survival. The later reestablishment of Byzantine control in Armenia and northern Syria, however, was to significantly alter the political and cultural balance of power in the empire in ways that would prove threatening to these self-described “Guardians of Orthodoxy.”
The reversal of the empire’s fortunes was to occur under a successful string of emperors from military families with allegedly non-Greek antecedents. Non-Greek populations, most notably Armenians, were resettled in the reconquered areas, forming a client and martial recruitment base for these new military elites. In order to facilitate the incorporation of populations that had largely broken with the official Church over Chalcedon, emperors such as Basil II tended to adopt a policy of de facto religious toleration that was bitterly contested by the more “purist” traditional elites in the capital. For the Guardians of Orthodoxy, the policy of tolerance pursued by emperors themselves of allegedly Armenian descent became increasingly reminiscent of the heretical proclivities of the earlier non-Greek (“Isaurian”) iconoclast emperors. This led to fears that the new military elites now based in the reconquered east were poised to link up politically with the new non-Greek “other” increasingly associated with heresy, in a way that threatened the empire’s unity, purity and thus divine protection.
The ire of these traditional elites in Constantinople came to be focused on the main distinguishing features of the Armenian liturgy, namely the use of azymes (unleavened bread) in the eucharist portrayed as a deliberate downplaying of the Resurrection and thus of Christ’s humanity, i.e. of monophysite heresy made liturgically manifest. Dr. Kolbaba concluded that it is in the context of the resulting anti-Armenian polemics (in which difference in liturgical practice was linked conceptually with religious dissent, and in which non-Greekness came to be increasingly identified with heterodoxy) that previously low-level tensions over rite and jurisdiction in Southern Italy came to be seen in Constantinople in a new light, and in which the orthodoxy of the non-Greek, “azymite” West first came to be questioned.
(sigh)
It appears that no matter how carefully I revise a text, I still can’t resist playing with it afterwards. As usual this results in broken edits. :-(
I may have gotten carried away by the subject matter and given this presentation a more lengthy treatment than I will the others. Nevertheless, I think Dr. Kolbaba was making an important observation that merits serious consideration.
I notice, however, from Dr. Gilbert’s notes that he was more interested in the discussion that followed the presentation than in the presentation itself.
Dr. Kolbaba’s observation that Byzantines in the 11th century had come to identify all non-Greeks, both inside and outside the empire, as heretics of one sort or another struck a cord with me. She took on board my suggestion that this might explain why the Maronites, who had broken with the Byzantine empire and Church on political grounds, would have been conceptually recast in Byzantine eyes as monothelites, as if latent heresy alone could explain bitter schism.
“The ire of these traditional elites in Constantinople came to be focused on the main distinguishing features of the Armenian liturgy, namely the use of azymes (unleavened bread) in the eucharist portrayed as a deliberate downplaying of the Resurrection and thus of Christ’s humanity, i.e. of monophysite heresy made liturgically manifest.”
As I recall, didn’t she say that in controverting the Armenians the “Guardians of Orthodoxy” focused in the TWO most distinctive features of the Armenian liturgy, the use of azymes and also the “unmixed chalice,” the fact that the Armenians didn’t (and don’t) add water to the wine either during the preparation of the elements or (as the Byzantines also do with hot water, the zeon) after the consecration but before communion? Of course, that latter feature had no equivalent among the Latins, so it could not be used in anti-Latin polemic.
Yes, she did mention the chalice. I guess that using Perry’s reasoning, this made the Latins mere “moderate” Apollinarians as opposed to the real deal. ;-)
The gloss on Frankish rejection of 2nd Nicea as being the result of faulty translations is true but rather dismissive. Thomas Noble’s recent work on Frankish iconoclasm shows that they rejected iconic veneration even even when it did not entail worship in the full sense of the word. Religious art was on its own terms for them something indifferent at best making veneration idolatry.
Interesting how “identity politics’ or perhaps “identity theology” seems to be at the source of much of the differences between “East” and “West”.
As for the Franks and their reaction to iconoclasm, reading just the introduction by Noble doesn’t seem to support the contention that they rejected “iconic veneration”. If that were true, then the West would have become iconoclastic in toto, which it didn’t.
evagrius,
I’ve read the book entire. Perhaps it would be better to read it before drawing conclusions about what one has not read.
The west didn’t become completely iconoclastic for a few reasons. First, the Franks weren’t the west in its entirety. Second, they knew Rome disagreed with them and they agreed to disagree without any anathemas. Rome needed the Franks for military protection and even though Rome anathematized iconoclasm, they left the Franks mainly alone on that issue for a long time. The Franks needed Rome for theological legitimacy and they weren’t about to force the pope into a corner over it.
Perry,
The Franks did *not* break any icons, and they *had* images in their churches (which they would not have had if their attitude to images really were “indifferent at best”). They may not have been iconodules, but one has to be pretty polemically-minded to describe them as “iconoclasts.” The period you are alluding to, in any case, lasted less than a generation. I really wish Orthodox learned a bit more discretion before venting charges of heresy. It’s not a pretty reflex.
Grasping at straws, no matter how flimsy, seems to be a common method of quite a few disputants, on both sides.
Michael,
Iconoclasts in the East had images in their churches too. They just placed the too high up to preclude veneration. Even the more moderate iconoclasm in the East in the 9th century permitted images in churches and so wasn’t substantially different than the Frankish position at Frankfurt or in subsequent decades.
Second, iconoclasm came in degrees, like all other heresies.
Third, Noble and plenty of other specialists describe them as moderate iconoclasts or iconophobic. I’m just using established jargon.
Fourth, the period I am referring to is between 760 and 850. That is not a decade.
Fifth, try looking as late as the Paris Colloquy in 825 under king Louis the Pious for the same moderate iconoclasm among the Franks. It is in the main in line with Frankfurt’s dual condemnation of Hieira and 2nd Nicea. They rejected both positions and Rome rejected Frankfurt as iconoclastic. Rome was right. (How’s that for Orthodox polemicism?) Frankfurt destroyed no images but also forbid veneration. Now, is Frankfurt iconoclastic or no?
Much the same is true for Jonas of Orleans and Dungal of Pavia’s works, who were commissioned by Louis to answer Claudius of Turin’s extreme yet token iconoclasm. They are a bit softer so that it is possible to see the shifting of the Frankish position.
As for your personal remarks, I think it would be best to just stick to the issues rather than comment on alleged knee jerk reactions.
errata, “That is not a generation.”
So what does the discussion about the Franks have to do with the point of the lecture being discussed, ( which is the Greek fixation on Orthodoxy being “Greek” and nothing else)?
evagrius,
I’m not greek nor do I have a fixation with hellenism,which I take to be heterodox. I simply picked on point in Kolbaba’s lecture that I thought was a bit misleading.
It might have been a bit misleading but it wasn’t exactly the point of the paper.
Regarding the notion that the Maronites broke with Orthodoxy on political grounds, this myth of ‘the perpetual Orthodoxy of the Maronites’ has been exploded many, many times over the past hundred years. The polemics against St Maximus in early Maronite sources make this clear (see the texts discussed in the articles “The Origins of Kalam” by Michael Cook in Bullitin of the SOAS, 1980 and “An Early Syriac Life of Maximus the Confessor” in Analecta Bollandiana 1973). For a detailed study of the question, that provides evidence from Maronite liturgical manuscripts as well, consult Mattai Moosa’s “The Maronites in History”, recently republished by Gorgias Press. And at any rate, the earliest discussion of the history of the Maronites from an Orthodox source is not from Byzantium but from Fatimid Alexandria, in the History written in Arabic by the Patriarch Sa’id ibn Batriq.
Also, the Byzantine policy towards non-Greeks after their reconquest of Cilicia and the area around Antioch is rather more complicated than Dr. Kolbaba seems to have wanted to make it. While one large segment of the non-Greek population in that region (nativly or as settlers) were monophysite Syriac or Armenian-speakers, another very significant segment of the population was Orthodox Arabic, Syriac, and Georgian speakers. In fact, with a fair amount of official patronage, giant translation movements into Arabic and Georgian were undertaken in the region of Antioch and (for the Georgians) on Mt. Athos. During this period also a fair proportion of the Patriarchs of Antioch were Arab or Syriac natives of the region, such as Peter III, whose role in trying to calm the schism of 1054 I would imagine is well-known to many readers of this blog.
Also, the Jacobite church was equally engaged with polemics during this time against Armenian liturgical practice, including azymes… The Armenians weren’t accepted by the other ‘monophysite’ churches until at least the time of the Crusades on liturgical grounds.
You can find a time when virtually every Church in the East (including Constantinople) can be tarred with the monothelite brush. Even poor Honorius gets tainted. The issue however, is whether the Maronite Church consciously taught monothelitism after Constantinople III. So far as anyone can tell, it didn’t. Nor is there any evidence the Maronites broke with Constantinople over monothelitism.
As for the conflation of Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Easterners, you can blame that on the terseness of my report not on Dr. Kolbaba. She made it clear that it was the perception of the “Guardians of Orthodoxy” that all these newly incorporated populations were Nestorians, monophysites, Apollinarians or monothelites. Basil II’s religious tolerance applied more to liturgical practices than to doctrine.
The polemic against St. Maximus discussed by Cook is from the early Islamic period, very much after Constantinople III. Likewise, the Monothelite formulas in liturgical materials discussed by Moosa for the most part date from after the time that their union with Rome was supposed to have occurred and were only slowly expunged when the Maronite liturgy was (deeply, deeply) Latinized starting from the 15th century.
Another piece of evidence for Maronite monothelitism after Constantinople III is the letter of the Nestorian Catholicos Timothy (late 8th C) to the Maronite monks, trying to convince them to join his church- part of the basis being the assumption of shared dyophsite, monothelite Christology.
Contemporary to the period we’re talking about, the Kitab al-Huda (the Maronite Nomocanon), which was translated by a Maronite bishop name Dawud from Syriac into Arabic in the year 1059 (the oldest copy is a Garshuni manuscript in the Vatican library copied in 1402) is explicitly Monothelite in its doctrinal formulations.
A little later, the Crusader-chronicler William of Tyre (late 12th C) chronicles a group of forty thousand Maronites renouncing Monothelitism in order to unite with Rome.
In Pope Innocent III’s letter bidding farewell to the Maronite patriarch Irmia al-Amshiti, who had come to Rome during the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), admonishes the Maronites for continuing in Monothelitism even after having submitted to Rome.
There is no credible scholar out there in the past couple-odd decades who would claim that the Maronites were ever anything but Monothelites until the late Middle Ages, despite what some Maronite apologists, following tendentious arguments by some of their 19th century clerics, might think.
It’s going to take more than that to convince me. It’s the same old charges warmed over. You are pointing to the works of isolated individuals, possibly taken out of their hermeneutic context. We can perhaps take it for granted that there may at one time have been some unwittingly monothelite Maronites, but you need more than that before you can write off a whole Church as heretical. We now know, for example, that there may never have been any “real” monophysites, merely miaphysites who appeared monophysite because of linguistic differences.
William of Tyre certainly thought the Maronites were monothelites, but he had it not from the Maronites themselves, but on the authority of his Byzantine contacts. That 40,000 Maronites (which at the time must have been most of the community) “renounced” monothelitism so easily at his request is strong evidence that they weren’t (or at least didn’t consider themselves) monothelites to begin with. Why would they have nursed theological differences with the Byzantines for over 300 years only to change their minds and come around at the first sight of a Latin miter?
Keep in mind that the Maronites were the only Aramaic-speaking Chalcedonian community, out of communion with their miaphysite Syriac neighbours, out of contact with Rome, and anathemized by the Antiochan Melkites who had orchestrated ethnic cleansing campaigns against them. It’s not like they were in a position to be up on all the latest Greek or Latin orthodox terminological nuances. Anyone can draw monothelite inferences from liturgical texts in an obscure language and tradition, if they are determined enough to find them.
All we have is largely hostile neighbours *assuming* that the Maronites are monothelites. What we would need short of an explicit monothelite confession of faith in Aramaic is evidence that the Maronites venerated Sergius of Constantinople or Cyrus of Alexandria, or somehow held the Synod of Garin in high regard, or used the Ecthesis as a doctrinal standard. I don’t think there is evidence for any of this.
Michaël– sorry I have to continue down here, there wasn’t a ‘reply’ link up earlier.
I am just conveying the scholarly consensus here. With the exception of the polemic by the 11th century Orthodox bishop Sulayman al-Ghazzi, who accuses the Maronites of just weirdness and in Gaza of his time probably hadn’t actually met a Maronite, all textual evidence we have, starting with the Jacobite Dionysius of Tell Mahre in the 7th century and going on to pope Innocent III in the 13th century speaks of the Maronites as Monothelites. Additionally, the few Maronite doctrinal and liturgical texts we have from this period all espouse monothelitism. There is no textual evidence available to us that would give evidence for dyothelitism among Maronites prior to their contact with the Latins during the Crusades. In terms of the standards of evidence ordinarily used when doing history, this is more than overwhelming. The only arguments for some kind of ur-orthodoxy among Maronites comes from 19th century Maronite clerics like Sim’an al-Duwayhi, who could bring forward no positive evidence for early dyothelitism but only tendentious and convoluted niggles against the available textual evidence to the contrary (such as the idea that William of Tyre depended on ‘Byzantine sources’ for events that were going on in his own Latin diocese). Consult Moosa’s book in this respect, as it summarizes basically everything everyone’s ever said on the topic.
As for the idea that the Maronites were the only Aramaic-speaking Chalcedonians, this is patently ridiculous. If we leave aside the history of use of Palestinian Aramaic among the Orthodox which is continuous from Christ’s time (surviving, of course, in Ma’lula in Syria to this day), Syriac was used liturgically by the Orthodox in Lebanon and Northern Syria through at least the 16th century and variations on the West Syriac rite were used by Orthodox until the Crusader period. (This is born out also by Crusader accounts, who refer to the Syriac-speaking Orthodox as Syri, as opposed to the Jacobitae and Graeci). I would refer you to the work of Fr. Elia Khalife and his Antioch Centre for evidence about the use of Syriac language and liturgical customs among the Orthodox of greater Syria. Even in my own (almost daily) use of medieval Orthodox manuscripts in Arabic, Syriac glosses and notes are quite common in margins in manuscripts through the 13th century, as Syriac was the main spoken language of the Orthodox in quite a few regions through that time.
We seem to be talking past each other, so I will make one more try. The scholarly consensus you allude to is not only worthless, but laughably so. I say this not because I know any Maronites personally, not because I have studied the history of their liturgy, not because I am an expert on their beliefs, but because we have seen this movie many times before, and it always has the same ending.
At the risk of having annoyed and insulted you unnecessarily, and of appearing supremely arrogant and full of myself, please bear with me as I try to demonstrate why the epistemology leading to the conclusion that Maronites were monothelites is fundamentally flawed, and the conclusion itself inherently unbelievable both anthropologically and in light of recent historical experience.
Let me begin by stating up front that I am not asking you buy notions of Maronite “ur-orthodoxy” as you put it, or of their “perpetual orthodoxy,” or even that they were doctrinally committed dyaphisites prior to reunion with Rome. The discussion cannot, in any case, be usefully framed in such terms. Of all the major sees, only one (Rome) can make a credible case for perpetual orthodoxy, and even this is contested. We are not going to find this mythical status validated in a tiny ostracized community with access to such limited theological resources and scholarly capacity over such a long period of time.
Instead, my suggestion is that it would be fairer to look at the early Maronites as a community having *no* particular doctrinal commitment to any particular physis. If they ever were committed doctrinally to any position prior to reunion to Rome, they would never have denied it, as it would have been seen by members of the community as an ongoing justification for continued separation from more powerful and wealthier neighbours who themselves clearly had such a defined commitment.
If a community tells you it is not and never has been doctrinally committed to a given position, one has to be particularly pig-headed in arguing that it is mistaken. You can’t be publicly committed to something while at the same time publicly denying it.
Now you might think that scholars would be too “scholarly” to be so pig-headed, but look at the evidence. For 1,500 years the “scholarly consensus” was that the Oriental Orthodox were committed monophysites despite their consistent denials. We even had Coptic bishops coming over to Rome still denying that they, or their former co-religionists, had ever been monophysites. We had an enormous body of Coptic, Syriac and Armenian liturgical, theological and polemic works to study, and even experts familiar with their languages of composition to do the work. Yet it was not until the second half of the 20th century, after long and painstaking exchanges in a detailed theological dialogue that the “scholarly consensus” eventually came around to the fact that these denials had been both sincere and well founded: the Oriental Orthodox weren’t and never had been monophysites. Ditto with the supposedly Nestorian Assyrian Church of the East.
Now given these blinding “scholarly” blunders, are we really going to stick to the view that the tiny (if geographically significant) Maronite community was, either unknown to itself or mendaciously, doctrinally committed to a theologically sophisticated heresy for five centuries from 680 to 1180 based on a few liturgical scraps and the testimony of largely hostile neighbours? That this supposedly doctrinally committed community would have, at a whim, tossed away this (ascribed) commitment that would have sustained its independent existence for five centuries so as to embrace and merge with enthusiasm into a larger community with a demonstrably different doctrinal commitment? It just beggars belief at how naive supposedly intelligent scholars can be.
It was not until Dr. Kolbaba’s off-hand observation on the propensity of 11th century Byzantines to ascribe specific heresies to each of their non-Hellenic neighbouring populations, both inside and outside the shifting boundaries of the empire, that the ascription of monothelitism to Maronites on such flimsy grounds made any sense to me as a political scientistand amateur medievalist. She hadn’t explicitly pointed to the Maronites as an example, yet her observation produced one of those classic “Aha!” moments for me.
The reason 19th century Maronite denials seemed so feeble to you is that Maronite bishops simply did not have the scholarly or archival resources to demonstrate to your satisfaction, or that of other similarly minded scholars, what these bishops knew to be true: i.e. that monothelitism had never been a defining and distinguishing feature of what had historically amounted to an ethnic and liturgical, rather than doctrinal, community.
Here you are adopting an epistemology that, if followed in general, would allow no historical claims to be made whatsoever but would allow any whim to be claimed as true. If you reason like this in other matters, it’s going to be hard to make a case that any historical judgment you make can be taken seriously.
All pre-modern documentary evidence from both Maronite and non-Maronite sources makes Monothelitism the keystone of Maronite belief prior to the late middle ages. I believe I have offered ample evidence of this, the most striking is their very aggressive posture against St. Maximos, which is not found even among the Jacobites. Your only counter to it is ‘it just can’t be so because I don’t want it to be’.
With regard to Maronite identity being based on Aramaic-ness, this is more the result of a reaction to 19th Century Arab nationalism among Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics in Lebanon than any kind of early historical reality. In the period when the Maronite identity took hold, everyone in their region was Syriac-speaking. Which is why it only appears as a claim made by Maronite clerics who were in some way in competition with these two groups, anticipating the myth of the Marada that was used so much by Maronite militias during the Lebanese Civil War.
With regard to the analogy you made with the situation of the Copts, I would like to make one other methodological point. Because of the philological training involved, virtually no historical theologians have a grasp on Arabic Christian literature and Syriac has only come into vogue in the past fifteen years or so. This is disastrous in the case of the monophysite question, because it leads to a serious misapprehension of what the disagreement was over, since the bulk of interaction between the three main Christological groups took place in Arabic and Syriac. So, when the Copts and Jacobites claim they are not monophysites because they don’t believe in Eutychian monophysitism that’s all well and good and they’re obviously not Eutychians, but Eutychius’ monophysitism wasn’t the version they were accused of, but rather that of Severus and Dioscorus, whom they recognize to be the chief doctors of their church. If we read polemics against these groups written in the centuries after the Chalcedon (including, for that matter St. John of Damascus), we see that it’s not the idea of a single, divine nature that is seen as their heresy, but that of a single synthetic nature out of two natures, as well as the very idea of a ‘personal nature’ which would be disastrous for trinitarian theology. Medieval people are very often more theologically astute than we are today so far removed from the arguments.
If you read Russian, the recent works of Nikolai Seleznyov do a good job of showing how the Assyrian Church, under a similar sort of pressure as the Copts in the 20th century to be respectable to Catholics and Orthodox, minimized their historically strong veneration for Nestorius and his theology. Usually when people discover that hundreds of years of theological disagreement has been imaginary, it’s because it is in the political interest of one or both groups to ignore history.
This is as much a criticism of contemporary Orthodox scholarship as it is a criticism of some scholarship of Orthodoxy, but it’s high time that things stop being so Greek-centric. In the period after Chalcedon, a whole lot of things were going on, and not all that much of it was made with reference to cultural conflicts with Greeks. It may be hard to believe for modern people, who have such trouble having doctrinal commitments, but local theological quirks were often motivated by theological and not cultural commitments, and we do disrespect to the seriousness of a theological claim and the people who hold it.
If you really believe that my argument amounts to ‘it just can’t be so because I don’t want it to be,’ then I can’t have made myself clear.
I am putting to you an alternative historical model that not only allows for all the evidence you have cited (including polemics against St Maximos), but also helps explain the dramatic and wholesale “conversion” of the Maronites as soon as they encounter the first Christian power with which they had no polemic history. This last is a critical phenomenon for which “monothelizing” scholars offer no plausible alternative explanation, but which severely undermines the plausibility of the Maronites having *any* relevant specific doctrinal commitment, monothelite or otherwise, at least prior to reunion with Rome.
That the Maronites should have been swept up into monothelitism in the late 7th century like the rest of the East we can take for granted. Given that the Maronites ceased to be in communion with any of their neighbours just a few short years after Constantinople III, it is unreasonable to expect them to have cleansed their liturgy and writings of all possible monothelite inferences in tandem with the revised doctrinal ethos of the universal Church of which they were formally no longer a part. That *some* Maronites may have remained monothelites into later centuries can also be conceded.
The ascription of lasting monothelitism to the community as a whole, however, cannot be made on such flimsy evidence as has been alluded to. Indeed you even concede that the evidence is flimsy while nevertheless contending that it is the only evidence available. Yet you, and presumably the scholars you are relying on, seem to resist drawing the obvious conclusion: that paucity of evidence in this case should a priori be treated as indicative (albeit, not proof) of an absence of any underlying, specific, and normative Maronite doctrinal commitment.
Those arguing for a continuing monothelite Maronite identity are missing all of the following basic evidence that would not only be required to establish such a conclusion, but which one would reasonably be expected to find easily if such a conclusion were historically valid:
1. Any Maronite synodical confession committing an independent Maronite church to monothelitism, or even an allusion to such a confession;
2. Any hagiographic Maronite writings involving known non-Maronite monothelites as protagonists;
3. Any signs of active sectarian resistance from within the Maronite community to formal commitment to diaphysism requested by Rome;
4. Any indication, either in contemporary Byzantine historiography or in Maronite writings, that doctrinal differences played a motivating role in precipitating a split with other Antiochan Melkites.
One would think that historians supporting the thesis of a continuing monothelite Maronite identity would be deeply embarrassed at such lacunae.
It is abundantly clear *why* the Maronites broke with the Byzantine Church: it was complicit with Justinian II and the Caliphate in the dispossession and deportation to Anatolia of 12,000 of their number. This incident is an acknowledged episode of Byzantine history, and the Maronites were not the only non-Greek rural Christians in the border area so targeted. The fact that the remainder of the community should have felt forced to flee the Orontes valley for the relative security of nearby Mt Lebanon simply testifies to their distress and sense of betrayal.
This is sufficient to explain not only a lasting split with Constantinople and the Antiochan Melkites, but also the easy embrace of the first alternative orthodoxy encountered in the form of the Latin crusaders. You don’t have to search for, or rely on, a mythical monothelite identity to explain anything.
I will grant, however, your observation that the Maronites were not the sole Aramaic Melkites prior to the split. I was mistaken on this point, though it doesn’t affect the substance of my overall argument.
The hole in your narrative is that it does not give an explanation why the Maronites were a distinct group at the period in which they may have been mass-deported. While the Church might have been complicit in the frequent Byzantine habit of mass-deportations, they were almost always deportations of heretical groups, not of Orthodox who were simply non-Greek. The Maronites were not ethnically distinct from the mainstream of rural Melkites at the time, who were all Aramaic-speakers following a West Syrian liturgy, nor from the Jacobites. The only plausible reason that the Maronites could have been singled out is doctrinal peculiarity. We can find an analogous process of doctrine determining quasi-ethnicity in the case of the Tzatoi, Armenians who accepted Chalcedon. Before contact with Western European nationalism, distinctions between Near Eastern groups in late antiquity and the Islamic period was always a matter of confession first and foremost.
The Kitab al-Huda is quite close to being a Maronite synodical document. It’s certainly the earliest book of Maronite canon law in existance and provides the only explicit Maronite creedal statement from the period prior to their union with Rome (which, by all accounts, required a renunciation of monothelitism). The official correspondence we have with Maronite hierarchs, from pope Innocent (who had just met with the patriarch and who had legates on the ground in Lebanon) and the catholicos Timothy (who did not have access to any Byzantine anything) both explicitly assume Maronite monothelitism. As I said before, there is no documentary evidence of Maronites ever holding dyothelite views. When you combine that with significant evidence of the opposite from a diversity of sources over a period of centuries, there’s only one responsible way to read the evidence.
We don’t have any evidence of Maronites recognizing non-Maronite monothelite saints simply because there’s no such thing and the Maronites, from the time of their schism were a remarkably parochial bunch. That they are the only source of polemics against St. Maximus in the period after Constantinople III is good evidence that monothelitism was an important part of their identity. Maximus simply wasn’t a live issue for any other group, and who a group sees as a heresiarch is just as valuable as who they see as a saint, to see what their doctrine is.
The Maronite’s enthusiasm for Rome in the Crusader period can be paralleled in basically every other small, heretical warrior-people in Cilicia and Syria at that time– the Cilician Armenians also united with Rome, albeit briefly, though some random Latinizations remain to this day among them. Their union with Rome does not mean that they weren’t monophysites to start with, just that especially with small, cohesive groups wedged between larger powers, sometimes political expediency trumps theology in an emergency, especially when Rome at that time as always, was quite willing to ask only for lip-service to issues of dogma in order to get a base of support in the Near East.
3:45 a.m.It may be hard to believe for modern people, who have such trouble having doctrinal commitments, but local theological quirks were often motivated by theological and not cultural commitments, and we do disrespect to the seriousness of a theological claim and the people who hold it.
4:01 p.m.Their union with Rome does not mean that they weren’t monophysites to start with, just that especially with small, cohesive groups wedged between larger powers, sometimes political expediency trumps theology in an emergency, especially when Rome at that time as always, was quite willing to ask only for lip-service to issues of dogma in order to get a base of support in the Near East.
O.k., so which is it going to be? We need to take claims of theological commitment seriously, or we should regard such claims as pretext covering over cultural/political motivations? You really cannot have it both ways, especially given that your two arguments in which these contrary positions have been advanced each depend on the sentiment expressed in their respective posts.
Meanwhile, you are offering a thousand strands of evidence to support your contention, but you are not addressing the only real point that Mr. Verteuil is making (or at least the most interesting one). Whether or not some (all?) Maronites were formal monothelites, it seems rather clear (so MdV contends) that they lacked any real conviction, given that they were willing to throw it over so casually.
I take no position one way or another in this debate, as I have not studied the matter nearly as much as either of you two. Simply as an outsider following along, however, I am waiting for you to address this point with rigor and such a rebuttal has not yet been offered.
I have said close to all I wish to say on this subject and am not prepared to pursue this side discussion indefinitely. I am also beginning to sense what I find to be an all too common Orthodox predisposition to find and identify heresy under every bush and ascribe broad stroke doctrinal laxity to Latins. If this is where you want to go, you can go there without me. I have had enough of it with Perry on another thread. If, on the other hand, I have misread, you please accept my apologies.
Specifically, in reply to your post, and then I will leave you with the last word:
“The hole in your narrative is that it does not give an explanation why the Maronites were a distinct group at the period in which they may have been mass-deported.”
They weren’t a distinct group! They were simply Aramaic Melkites peasants living south of the Orontes. It is their treatment at the hands of the Byzantine state and Church that formed them as an ethnos. The same phenomenon can be seen at work amongst the Palestinians today and in the Acadians dating from the 18th century.
“While the Church might have been complicit in the frequent Byzantine habit of mass-deportations, they were almost always deportations of heretical groups, not of Orthodox who were simply non-Greek.”
This is not the case. The Heraklians and later emperors followed a conscious policy of forcibly resettling Christian populations (orthodox or otherwise) from border areas to Anatolia to better protect their tax and recruitment base. The same policy was being pursued centuries later in response to Turkish encroachments. There was never any suggestion that this was a penal policy aimed at religious dissent. The Maronites were the only community I am aware of to have actively resisted this policy and to have fled the empire as a result. So far as I know they are also the only group to have explicitly implicated the Byzantine Church in their ordeal. For all I know the Antiochan Patriarch may have done no more than call for peaceful submission to hard imperial orders.
“The Maronites were not ethnically distinct from the mainstream of rural Melkites at the time, who were all Aramaic-speakers following a West Syrian liturgy, nor from the Jacobites.”
On this point, we agree. Though my earlier understanding had been that the remaining Aramaic Melkites under Byzantine control were rapidly Hellenized and assimilated thereafter, leaving the Maronites as ethnic orphans with only Jacobites as linguistic counterparts. You have convinced me that I was mistaken in this assumption. We can let this side issue rest.
“The only plausible reason that the Maronites could have been singled out is doctrinal peculiarity.”
As I indicated earlier, the resettlement policy was not penal in nature and not related to the confessional nature of the target population. So your assumption won’t stand, and you will have to consider alternatives. It is admiftedly not clear why the Maronites would have been specifically targeted. It appears that it was done at the request of the caliphate, possibly as a quid pro quo for an increase in the rather considerable tribute it was expected to pay to the empire at the time (we know that the caliphate did agree to such an increase), or possibly because of a history of ongoing conflict between the Maronites and neighbouring Muslim villages, or possibly because some Arab/Muslim merchants had been harassed while passing through Maronite villages. I’m just speculating, and perhaps a specialist in 7th century Byzantine history might be able to tell us. The only thing all the resettled populations appear to have had in common was that they were Christian, rural and from border areas.
“The Kitab al-Huda is quite close to being a Maronite synodical document. It’s certainly the earliest book of Maronite canon law in existance and provides the only explicit Maronite creedal statement from the period prior to their union with Rome (which, by all accounts, required a renunciation of monothelitism).”
The Kitab al-Huda, far from being anything like a coherent synodical document, is a florilegium probably spanning several centuries. It does include some short treatments of trinitarian theology, but it is not clear to me that any of these authoritatively commit the community to a monothelite identity. I haven’t read the text, but I can grant that there probably isn’t anything explictly diathelite in it, otherwise this controversy would have been laid to rest long ago.
No one denies that Maronites were under suspicion of monothelitism at the time. The renunciation need not be viewed, however, as some sort of acknowledgement by Maronites that the suspicions were justified. It might simply be what Maronites actually say it was, i.e. an attempt to free themselves from stygmatization.
“The official correspondence we have with Maronite hierarchs, from pope Innocent (who had just met with the patriarch and who had legates on the ground in Lebanon) and the catholicos Timothy (who did not have access to any Byzantine anything) both explicitly assume Maronite monothelitism.”
True, but that isn’t proof. There is no evidence in this correspondence that the Maronites ever admitted of a monothelite past to Innocent, Timothy or anyone else. If Innocent had proof, why is this “proof” not available in the Vatican archives?
“As I said before, there is no documentary evidence of Maronites ever holding dyothelite views. When you combine that with significant evidence of the opposite from a diversity of sources over a period of centuries, there’s only one responsible way to read the evidence.”
What is “significant evidence?” How is the evidence inconsitent with an absence of specific doctrine of any kind concerning the Divine will? To what extent is this “diversity of sources over several centuries” not self-echoing? What of your Gazan bishop who couldn’t make anything coherent out of the Maronites of his day? Does it not strike you that your dismissal of his confusion as ill-informed, despite his seeking to engage in a polemic, are too pat and conformant with your preconceptions?
“We don’t have any evidence of Maronites recognizing non-Maronite monothelite saints simply because there’s no such thing and the Maronites, from the time of their schism were a remarkably parochial bunch. That they are the only source of polemics against St. Maximus in the period after Constantinople III is good evidence that monothelitism was an important part of their identity. Maximus simply wasn’t a live issue for any other group, and who a group sees as a heresiarch is just as valuable as who they see as a saint, to see what their doctrine is.”
Ok, how many individuals are specifically associated with this polemic against St Maximus? Who are they? When did they write? Did they explicitly accuse him of being “a heresiarch” or is this just your spin?
“The Maronite’s enthusiasm for Rome in the Crusader period can be paralleled in basically every other small, heretical warrior-people in Cilicia and Syria at that time– the Cilician Armenians also united with Rome, albeit briefly, though some random Latinizations remain to this day among them. Their union with Rome does not mean that they weren’t monophysites to start with, just that especially with small, cohesive groups wedged between larger powers, sometimes political expediency trumps theology in an emergency, especially when Rome at that time as always, was quite willing to ask only for lip-service to issues of dogma in order to get a base of support in the Near East.”
This is both amazingly condescending and offensive. Is there anyone else you want to insult with base ascribed motives while you are at it?
If I may conclude, it strikes me that you are still treating acceptance of Maronite avowals of strict and unshaken diathelite orthodoxy as the only alternative to the explicitly monothelite identity you wish to establish for them. This is not what I am arguing for, is a false dichotomy, and is thus a straw man in this discussion. You are also consciously setting aside evidence that contradicts your thesis, apparently because you find it vague, confused, interested or inconclusive, yet you fail to apply the same critical standards to the evidence you do choose to consider. Pointedly, you prefer hearsay to the consistent explicit denials of the interested party. You are also working from faulty assumptions as to the nature and motivations of the forcible resettlement policy under the Heraklians. If you can’t see the thesis as “deeply flawed” (to borrow a Bushism), then nothing I might say further can convince you.
The floor is yours.
Perry,
N.B. In your original post, you did not refer to “moderate iconoclasm” but to “Frankish iconoclasm.”
In 790 the Frankish bishops wrote to the Pope acknowledging an “opportuna veneratio” to images of the saints. So much for “Frankish iconoclasm” before 790. The 794 synod of Frankfurt you allude to explicitly approved the presence of holy images in church, albeit reserving veneration to relics, the cross and the scriptures (as I acknowledged earlier, the Franks were definitely not iconodules). This is *not* iconoclasm, moderate or otherwise, and I am unaware of any papal document describing Frankfurt as “iconoclastic.”
The dispute relating to the faulty translation aside, the only point at which the Frankish bishops offered any comfort to the iconoclast position was in relation to Michael II’s letter of 824 in which he grossly misrepresented the iconodule position and sought the extradition of Byzantine monks who had fled to the West.
Louis the Pious’ response did manifest some sadly genuine confusion. He and his bishops wrote to Pope Eugene II seeking authorization for them to draft a reply for Eugene’s consideration. This was granted and the Frankish bishops gathered in Paris in 825 at which synod they tentatively offered a middle course that can be seen as leaning towards iconoclasm. Even then, however, their draft explicitly invited the Pope to correct anything he might find offensive, not presuming to dictate to the Holy See. It remained a dead letter.
I am not sure where you get the 850 date from, but in 840 Claudius of Turin does give vent to a rather bizarre and isolated fit of genuine iconoclasm, so bizarre in fact that one is left wondering whether he had become mentally unbalanced. His actions were promptly condemned by a local synod.
So to the extent that the Franks might be said to have had an “iconoclast” moment, it would have had to have been between 824 and 840, hence my “less than a generation.”
If you find my remarks personal, you might wish to consider whether we should begin referring to Orthodox as “moderate phyletists” or “monogamophobic.” You can’t hide behind “Noble and plenty of other specialists” and claim to be “using established jargon” when you can’t even be bothered to use their technical qualifiers until challenged.
We have held discussions on a number of issues before, and you are better than this. I have not the slightest doubt that you did not seek to offend. But you have been caught doing ironically exactly what Dr. Kolbaba described 11th century Orthodox as doing, and demonstrating unwittingly precisely the lack of charity Fr. Taft referred to. It is long time we set aside facile ascriptions of heresy.
Specifically and perhaps surprisingly she pointed to the substantial improvement in the Byzantine military situation along the empire’s eastern and southeastern frontier in the late 10th and early 11th centuries as the key underlying game changer.
Verrrry interesting! Good ole Basil II strikes again. :)
DH’s thesis explored the relations between the emperors and the aristocracy during this period, focusing primarily on Basil’s creation of a new aristocracy that would presumably be more loyal to the emperors and hence less likely to assassinate, blind, or exile them. :) Of course, the newly created aristocracy quickly (within Basil’s lifetime) began morphing into an older-model hereditary aristocracy, which sought power and aggrandizement at the emperors’ expense, just as the old aristocracy had.
That’s strictly political history, but I wonder whether it correlates with what Professor Kolbaba mentions re Basil’s relative religious tolerance (part of his reform movement) vis-a-vis the fears and concerns of the old-timers… Hope I am expressing this clearly. I will have to check with DH.
Yes, I did speak about Frankish iconoclasm because that is what it was. I admit degrees of severity in the position and it seems you do not.
If you have a citation for the 790 correspondence, we can look at the text together. What text are you citing? In any case the Libiri Carolini was composed in this period and any reading of it shows how iconoclastic it is.
I already admitted that Frankfurt admitted the presence of images in churches, but so do the iconoclasts in the east in the early 9th century and they weren’t any less iconoclasts for it. This is why iconoclasm admits of degrees or a variety of forms. It seems you are drawing iconoclasm too narrowly which is rather procrustean.
Rome rejected Frankfurt out of hand and continued to maintain a full iconodule position despite Frankish consternation. This is obvious in a number of actions by Rome, not the least of which was the chastisement of the papal legates that signed off on Frankfurt.
The Franks offered comfort to iconoclasm first by holding a synod condemning 2nd Nicea, the resulting position of that was identical to the second iconoclasm in the East-Neither destroying images not permitting veneraton. It is special pleading to say that the 2nd iconoclasm in the east is iconoclasm but the identical position among the Franks isn’t iconoclasm.
The colloquy of 825 is not a synod and is not described as a synod in any of the primary sources, either Roman or Frankish. The “via media” is essentially no different in substance than the “via media” of Frankfurt. The text invited the pope for correction for a simple reason. The Franks dared not get into a full confrontation with the Pope, which is why it remained a dead letter.
If Claudius is writing in 840, that would be a neat trick since he dies by 827. This is why Jonas ceased to write his response to Claudius saying that Claudius is already dead by 827. If you think he was condemned by a synod, just name the synod and bring forward the text. The older Catholic Ency is simply wrong here as Noble demonstrates. Again, I’d refer you to his monograph on the Franks and Iconoclasm.
I am not sure why you see the need or justification to speak of phyltism or “monogamophobic” in relation to me. Such terms simply do not apply nor do they put forward a dispassionate of charitable spirit. It is anything but irenic. I didn’t think I needed to use qualifiers since I take it to be uncontroversial that iconoclasm came in degrees and that Frankfurt was iconoclast. That seems prevalent in the literature. For other authors, just start going through Noble’s bibliography who regularly use such designations if memory serves. (Chazelle, Barber, et al)
I do not know why you have to talk of me being “better than this” or other frankly silly and rhetorical remarks. They do not speak to the point and could only be meant to belittle. I’d once again suggest that you leave such personal insults aside and be irenic.
In any case, readers can pick up Noble’s work or that of Chazelle, Barber, etc. and see for themselves that the assessment given above by Kolbaba is flawed in that respect.
Enough about the Franks. The subject should be discussed elsewhere.
How about this?
http://www.orthodoxnews.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Features.one&content_id=18671&CFID=83797965&CFTOKEN=38847564
Dr. James C. Skedros, Professor of Byzantine Studies at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, followed with a paper on “Hellenism and Byzantium.” Dr. Skedros identified six uses of the Greek term “Hellene” (Ellên) and its cognates in Byzantine Greek, denoting variously: 1) geography, 2) the ancient Greeks 3) paganism 4) language 5) culture/sophistication (paideia) 6) political groupings. The Byzantines seem to have rarely identified ethnically with the ancient Greeks; we should recall here that for the majority of their history they self-identified as “Romans.” Among the Byzantines, there was a diversity of attitudes toward classical learning which ranged from enchantment to suspicion, varying by class, occupation, and historical period. The Byzantine church and state tended to view philosophical inquiry negatively when it was divorced from theology (there are 25 documented heresy trials of philosophers from the period). It is not until after the 4th Crusade that Hellenism and Orthodoxy begin to be strongly linked in Byzantine thought, when these Eastern Romans had to articulate their own identity against non-Orthodox and non-Greeks; and it is in this period that Orthodoxy begins to be associated with national.
It seems to me that here is a good difference of opinion between Professors Skedros and Kolbaba.
A recent, extensive work on the issue of Hellenism among the Byzantines is:
Kaldellis, Anthony. Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition. Cambridge UP, 2008.
I haven’t read it closely through, but it discusses the re-awakening of identification with pagan Hellenes in Byzantium starting in the 11th century…
Ok, no more about the Franks…
…except to acknowledge that Perry is right about 827, which narrows my “iconoclast” moment to a mere three years.
And, no, I do not recognize a continuum involving “degrees of heresy” as a valid concept. I also do not equate a refusal to venerate icons with iconoclasm as it need imply little more than a liturgical preference. Again, we see praxis rather than doxis being used as the standard for heresy. It gets old. But other than that, no more about the Franks. ;-)
“I do not recognize a continuum involving “degrees of heresy” as a valid concept.”
Perhaps there could be developed an equivalent to the DSM-IV ( Diagnostic and Statistical Mamual) that govern psychiatry. “Heresy” could then be classified on different levels, ( Axis 1, 2, 3, etc:), and treated accordingly.
You mean like with a 1 people won’t sit next to you in Church; with a 2 they cross the street to avoid you; with a 3 they give you the evil eye; with a 4 you become liable to excommunication; with a 5 they call for an exorcist; a 6 they start warming up the Smithfield fires; and with a 7 they determine you are a full-blown heretic and lock you up for life in a tiny cell with an Orthodox anti-ecumenist? ;-)
It gets old.
Ya think?
And may I say how very unappealing this Orthodox-Convert perpetual witch-hunt is? Amidst the constant “anti” polemics, one looks in vain for any sign of Christian love.
“I also do not equate a refusal to venerate icons with iconoclasm as it need imply little more than a liturgical preference”
???
This is precisely the minimalism that has caused so much devastation to our Catholic sacred art, liturgy and praxis in the last 60 years. The non-veneration and non-use of icons (and, in the Western context, statues) may not amount to a formal declaration of heresy, but the effects are the same. (I would like to add that the non-veneration of icons leads to their non-use or expulsion from the “sacred space”, as from cause to effect.)
In the words of Msgr. Francis Mannion, one of the founders of the contemporary movement within Catholicism to recover the sense of the sacred:
“Catholic worship requires a renewal of its iconographic tradition: modern iconoclasm generates a narrowing and an impoverishment of Christian vision.
“Catholic orthodoxy (that is, right belief formed through right worship) is profoundly connected today as in the past to matters of visual representation in worship. We need only reflect on the history of the Reformation to remind us of this truth (Miles). The whole range of Christian images and iconography has never been regarded as merely decorative in function. It has been recognized, at least implicitly, that visual representations serve to establish, situate and orient the worshipping community in relation to the Trinitarian life of God and the communion of saints, as well as to symbolize and make present the eschatological and cosmic dimensions of ecclesial existence. While the Christian East has had a more stable and conscious grasp of this truth than has the West, the Catholic liturgy of the West has from the beginning depended on the iconographic as at least a tacit programmatic feature.
“Representations within the liturgical assembly of Christ, Mary, the saints and angels, as well as imaginative anticipations of the life of eternity, are critical to sustaining a strong and compelling vision of the Christian reality. These aspects of faith cannot be adequately expressed, engaged or advanced by the verbal alone. The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is eminently true of the liturgy. Sacrament, as St. Augustine pointed out, is word made visible.
“Without adequate Trinitarian, Christological, eschatological and cosmic frames of reference visually embodied in places of worship, Catholic worship easily and quickly degenerates into selfreferentiality, narcissism and introversion. Christian vision shrinks and narrows and hope becomes vague and abstract. The iconographic in worship serves to manifest the truth that the worshipping community does not live in and from itself. If Christ, Mary, the saints and angels are not visibly represented in churches, it is easy for them to be subtracted from Christian consciousness. Today more than ever, Catholics need reminders that liturgy is never the act of isolated communities in selfexpressive modality, but always the action of the whole Body of Christ whose horizon is the Kingdom of God. The ontological source of the liturgy is God the Trinity; its foundational agent is Christ the Lord, and its community is that of all redeemed humanity”
Carlos…not to worry. The lay faithful have always packed their homes with icons and statues. (You should see my house. It resembles a shrine.) And, even during the darkest days of “wreckovation,” there were always plenty of Catholic parish churches replete with sacred art. We modern Catholics have not come remotely close to genuine iconoclasm.
It’s easy to focus on the negative (the wreckovations and so on), but the positive abounds, and we will be happier and spiritually healthier if we focus more on that, IMHO.
Just my two cents’ worth. YMMV.
In any event, I am blessed to be in a solidly orthodox diocese where all the old traditions are coming back…and many never went away in the first place. (I could live without the lace vestments, though. :p)
Here is the source for the Msgr. Mannion quote:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=121
Actually what occured is the removal of some awfully bad art and its replacement has been slow since good art is always difficult to come by. I have yet to see a Catholic church that does not have statues of Mary, St Joseph and patronal saints. All have candle stands etc; and, in some places, quite a few parishioners kiss the feet of the statues etc;. Icons are also becoming prevalent.
As someone once said, “Just because it’s “sacred” art doesn’t mean it’s “good” art.”
evagrius — you have a point, and I would tend to agree. I do have a soft spot for that sappy old-fashioned religious art, though. You should see our parish’s life-size plastic statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. :) (It was a gift from a local Mexican grocery. It’s kind of grown on me.)
For the record, I have always hated those Sacred Heart pics that make Jesus look like a rosy-cheeked bearded girl.
Given the remarks about sacred art, ( I too have a soft spot for sentimental art but it still doesn’t quite do the trick, so to speak), and Maronites, ( fascinating debate- I never realized it was that complicated but then, politics does have a way of making things more difficult), does anyone have any thoughts on the actual point of the lecture?
It seems to me that it runs counter to what the chap,( Skedros), was arguing in the other seminar. Kolbaba is arguing something more intriguing. It seems to me that she’s stating that the definition of “Byzantium” as “Hellenic” ( and therefore totally, purely “Orthodox”), happened quite a bit before the Fourth Crusade, ( the event that always pops up in any debate between “East” and “West”).
If she’s correct, then there has to be a more extensive examination of what happened.
“It seems to me that she’s stating that the definition of ‘Byzantium’ as “Hellenic” ( and therefore totally, purely ‘Orthodox’), happened quite a bit before the Fourth Crusade, ( the event that always pops up in any debate between ‘East’ and ‘West’).”
Interestingly, that is one of the major contentions of a book which I’ve had for years, but only read from beginning to end last week: *The Making of Byzantium 600-1025* by Mark Whittow (1996). He argues in the last two chapters that the “geopolitical” circumstances of the Middle East from ca. 950 onwards for about a century had made it possible for the Byzantines to reconquer, had they wished to do so, all the lands lost to Islam in the Seventh Century, or at least Syria, Palestine, much of Mesopotamia and the entire area of Armenia and “Iberia” (modern Azerbaijan) — and that it is clear that from the time of Basil II’s majority ca. 985 they clearly did not wish to do so, and deliberately avoided doing so.
Why they “did not wish to do so” reflects, in his view, a persistent conflict between Constantinople and Constantinople-orientated elite social and political groups, on the one hand, and “eastern frontier families and aristocrats,” on the other, who would have profited both financially and politically from such expansion. Underlying this conflict was the fear and loathing of the former group (who might be identified broadly with those whom Prof. Kolbaba terms “the Guardians of Orthodoxy”) of the prospect that the bringing into the Empire of Muslims, Jews and even more heterodox Christians such as the Armenians, Syrian “Jacobites” and the like would imperil the purity of “the God-protected Empire of Orthodox Christians” — plus the fact that many of these “eastern frontier families” were themselves Armenian or of Armenian origin.
Whittow’s book is well worth reading, and cheap copies can be had on Abebooks.com or Amazon.com.
It seems to me that the question then revolves around ” identity theology”, ( somewhat like the “identity poltics” of recent times).
This would be a counterpart to Charlemagne’s efforts.
This is something that needs to be explored further by some competent, objective scholars.
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