By the later sixth century, the disaffection brought about by Constantinopolitan persecution of the Monophysites rendered a compromise formula essential for the re-incorporation of the territories which had been lost to the Persians. Under Heraclius two possible solutions were proposed. The first was known as ‘monoenergism’, whereby a single energy was postulated in which both divine and human aspects were unified. At this point, the arrival of Islam on the historical stage made the need for a compromise even more pressing. When monoenergism was rejected, an alternative doctrine - of a single will (‘monotheletism’) - while initially attracting some support, was eventually also rejected, but survived as an imperial policy, enforced by decree after Heraclius’ death in 641. By this time the Monophysite lands had been lost to the Arabs and the purpose of the compromise was lost. The government, which ruled in the name of the young emperor Constans II, was obliged to maintain the policy, and Constans himself fiercely imposed a ban on further discussion. Only in 680, some 12 years after the assassination of Constans in Sicily, was his son and successor Constantine IV able to summon a general council of the church and restore ecclesiastical unity by quietly abandoning official monotheletism.
After the middle of the seventh century, Christological issues faded into the background. Only the iconoclast controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries (which did, however, at a later stage have a Christological element) stimulated further major internal rifts, and it is by no means clear that these commanded the interest or commitment of more than a handful on either side, at least until the iconophiles rewrote the history of the period during the ninth and tenth centuries. Traditionally it has been assumed that the sources describing the mass persecution, harassment and death of many iconophiles, as well as the destruction of icons themselves, were more-or-less accurate accounts, and that the Emperor Leo III was to blame. In fact, it seems that much of the story consists of later legend and exaggeration. Leo III may have been a mild critic of the use of images (although there is no reliable evidence that he issued an edict condemning them). His son, Constantine V, while theologically more involved, only adopted a strongly iconoclastic policy after the first eight or so years of his reign. Constantine’s concern was for images to be removed from those positions in churches where they would be the object of mistaken veneration. In the mid-780s it became convenient for
Map 5.7 Church politics: heresy, schism and expansion c. 641-1060.
The Empress Eirene, acting for her young son Constantine VI, to shift her allegiance. The Ecumenical Council of 787 ‘restored’ images, but it is also clear that it was only from this time that a formal theology of images, so important for later orthodox doctrine, was first elaborated.
After a period during which the ‘restored’ cult of images flourished, the general Leo V (813-820) re-introduced imperial iconoclasm, seen as the ideological force behind the victories of Constantine V 50 years earlier. From then until 843 the iconoclastic controversy once more divided church and state, being resolved only after the death of the Emperor Theophilos in 842. Under the influence of a leading court official, the eunuch Theoktistos, the empress and regent (for the young Michael III, 842-867) agreed to the restoration of sacred images and their public display at a series of small private meetings in 842-843. The change was made public by a triumphal procession through Constantinople, an event still celebrated in the orthodox liturgical calendar.
Heresy and heterodoxy were two of the constant issues which the church, and the emperors, had to confront. The geographical and cultural variety of the Byzantine world meant that in many regions traditional, pre - or non-Christian practices could linger on unobserved for centuries, albeit in isolated and relatively limited groups. By the same token, heterodox beliefs could evolve that might, and did in some cases, evolve into major challenges to the imperial authority. The local and ecumenical councils tried to grapple with some of the causes for heresy, namely the lack of clerical discipline or supervision in far-flung regions, the ignorance of some of the lower clergy as well as of the ordinary populace, or the arrival of immigrant population groups with different views or different understanding of the basic elements of Christianity.
Occasionally state and church had to confront a major heretical movement. Such was the case, for example, with Paulicianism in eastern Asia Minor in the middle of the ninth century, named probably after one of its early exponents, Paul of Samosata. By the ninth century a mixture of dualist and neo-Manichaean elements, it became powerful in eastern Asia Minor. State persecution led to military mobilisation of the Paulicians under a series of very able commanders, an alliance with the Caliphate in the 870s, and a full scale war, waged by the Emperor Basil I, which led eventually to its destruction. The transfer of populations by the government from eastern Asia Minor to the Balkans brought also Paulicianism or beliefs influenced by it, and led directly to the development of a heretical tendency, primarily among the Slavic populations of Bulgaria and the western Balkans, known as Bogomilism.
Although fiercely persecuted by the emperors, especially by Alexios I, and eradicated from Constantinople, it spread throughout the Balkans and represented a major strand in the religious culture of the region.
By the time Leo III came to the throne in 717 an increasing alienation between Constantinople and Rome was apparent. Chiefly at issue were matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and imperial taxation policy in Italy (although in the period after 754 iconoclasm may also have contributed). Strained relations with the papacy erupted into full-scale conflict in the middle of the ninth century in the so-called ‘Photian schism’, which followed the forced resignation of the Patriarch Ignatios in 858. The appointment (preceded by a rapid ordination) as his successor of the learned layman Photios, permitted the former patriarch and his supporters to enlist the support of Pope Nicholas I, who was able to use the situation to intervene in eastern church politics and justify the papacy’s claim to a superior status within Christendom. When, on his accession in 867, the Emperor Basil I removed Photios and restored Ignatios, however, things did not improve, since Ignatios was equally hostile to papal claims. Reconciliation finally took place at the Council of Constantinople in 879.
A second, more serious break took place in the 1050s, and involved both political and doctrinal issues. At the beginning of the sixth century the word ‘filioque" was added to the Chalcedonian creed in the Frankish lands, in an attempt to clarify the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both Father and Son. Frankish churchmen used it during their efforts to convert the Bulgarians in the ninth century, and the Patriarch Photios later wrote a detailed treatise condemning it. At the Council of Constantinople in 879 the Roman legates accepted its redundancy and it was withdrawn. But by the early eleventh century it had been reintroduced, and formed the basis of disagreement. In 1054 the stubbornness of the pope’s legate, Cardinal Humbert, and of the Patriarch, Michael Keroularios, led to mutual anathemas - formal pronouncements of condemnation - being proclaimed. The two churches remained estranged thereafter, in spite of a gradual lessening of the tension during the reign of Alexios I.
Nevertheless, after the loss of the three eastern patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem to Islamic domination, the Byzantine Church was able to expand, as the conversion of, first, Bulgaria (from the 860s) and, later, the Kievan Rus’ (from the 990s) to the Byzantine form of orthodoxy led to the creation of what has been termed the ‘Byzantine commonwealth’, and a permanent feature of the cultural history of those lands (see pages 160-161).
World History
