Synodal and Patriarchal Decrees.

During the entire Byzantine period, the patriarch of Constantinople was the, de facto, head of the Eastern Church as a whole. His authority was first described as a “privilege of honour after the Bishop of Rome” (Second Ecumenical Council, Canon 3); the Fourth Council in its famous Canon 28 spoke of privileges “equal” to those of Rome and gave to the bishop of the capital a wide patriarchal jurisdiction as well as a right to receive appeals against the judgments of regional primates. These privileges and rights were based only on the prestige of the “imperial city” and never led to any notion of patriarchal infallibility. It was inevitable, however, that major doctrinal issues were solved in Constantinople by the patriarch I and the bishops who, around him, constituted a permanent synod. More ‘I| representative assemblies, sometimes presided over by the emperor and I including the other Eastern patriarchs or their delegates, met on exceptional occasions to solve the more important issues. Major decisions of this permanent magisterium are included in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, a lengthy liturgical text, which since 843 have been read in all churches on the First Sunday of Lent in commemorates the end of iconoclasm. The Synodikon (on in its various versions and the documents issued by the patriarchal synod) is primary sources for our knowledge of Byzantine ecclesiological self-understanding.

Beginning with a solemn thanksgiving for the triumph of Orthodoxy over “all heresies,” the text of the Synodikon contains a particular commemoration of the defenders of the true faith during the iconoclastic period; it adds praises for the orthodox patriarchs of the subsequent period and finally anathemas against various heretics. Since the end of the ninth century, the document has received some additions as a result of several later doctrinal disputes, which were solved by synodal decrees in Constantinople.

The listing of the patriarchs for the period between 715 and 1416 is, in itself, an important witness to the ways in which various internal and external problems are solved. The successive mention of Ignatius, Photius, Stephen, Anthony, Nicholas, and Euthymius as “orthodox patriarchs of eternal memory”¹⁰ showed that the famous schisms, which occurred in the ninth and tenth centuries between Ignatius and Photius and also between Nicholas and Euthymius, and the mutual excommunications, which ensued, were simply considered as not having taken place. But the omission among the names of the patriarchs of the late-thirteenth century of the names of Nicephorus II (1260-1261), Germanus III (1265-1267), John XI Beccos (1275-1282), Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289), and John XII Cosmas (1294-1303) reflects the rejection of the Union of Lyons (1274) and the terms of the reconciliation of the “Arsenites” with the official Church in 1310. The Arsenites had refused to recognize the deposition of Patriarch Arsenius Autoreianus in 1260 and obtained in 1310 his full rehabilitation as well as a partial damnatio memoriae for several of his successors.¹¹

The Synodikon also portrays the Byzantine magisterium in action against the Platonism of John Italos (1076-1077, 1082) as well as the Christological deviations of John’s contemporary, Nilus the Calabrian, those of Eustratius of Nicaea (1117), Soterichos Panteugenos (1155-1156), Constantine of Corfu, and John Eirenikos (1169-1170); and finally the solution was given to the great doctrinal disputes on “deification” and the “energies” in the fourteenth century. The Acts of the patriarchal synod, unfortunately, are not preserved for the entire period, but only for the last two centuries of the Byzantine Empire. They represent an inexhaustible source of information on Church-state relations, canonical procedures, and the practice of oikonomia, one of the important illustrations of the manner in which the Byzantines understood the relationship of law and grace in the Christian Church.

Nοmιa.

In both historical and theological literature, the principle of oikonomia is often referred to illustrate the particularly Byzantine ability to interpret the law arbitrarily to suit political or personal purposes. Such a use betrays an obvious misunderstanding of the term and is an injustice both to the principle itself and to its proper application. The term oikonomia does not belong originally to legal vocabulary; meaning “household management,” it designates in the New Testament the divine plan of salvation: “He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan [oikonomia] for the fullness of time, to recapitulate all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ep 1:9-10; v. also 3:2-3). But this divine plan for the management of history and of the world has been entrusted to men. For Paul, preaching of the word is an oikonomia entrusted by God (1 Co 9:17), and, therefore, we should be regarded as “servants of Christ and stewards [oikonomoi] of the mysteries of God” (1 Co 4:1). More specifically, the “management” or “stewardship” belongs to those who fulfil the ministry of leading the Church: “The Church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office [oikonomia], which was given to me for you” (Col 1:24-25). In the Pastorals, the oikonomia belongs particularly to the episkopos: “…for a bishop as God’s steward [oikonomos] must be blameless” (Tt 1:7).

Among the Greek Fathers, oikonomia has the standard meaning of “incarnation history,” especially during the Christological controversies of the fifth century. In a subsidiary way, it is also used in canonical texts and then obviously places the pastoral “management” entrusted to the Church in the context of God’s plan for the salvation of humankind. Thus in his famous Letter to Amphilochius, which became an authoritative part of the Byzantine canonical collections, Basil of Caesarea, after reaffirming the Cyprianic principle about the invalidity of baptism by heretics, continues: “If however this becomes an obstacle to [God’s] general oikonomia, one should again refer to custom and follow the Fathers who have managed [the Church].” The “custom” to which Basil refered was current “in Asia” where “the management of the multitude” had accredited the practice of accepting baptism by heretics. In any case, Basil justifies “economy” by the fear that too much austerity will be an obstacle to the salvation of some.¹² In the Latin versions of the New Testament and in later ecclesiastical vocabulary, the term oikonomia is very consistently translated by dispensatio.” In Western canon law, however, the term dispensatio acquired a very definite meaning of “exception to the law granted by the proper authority.” The text of Basil quoted above and innumerable references to oikonomia in Byzantine canonical literature clearly interpret it in a much wider sense? What is at stake is not only an exception to the law but an obligation to decide individual issues in the general context of God’s plan for the salvation of the world. Canonical strictures may sometimes be inadequate to the full reality and universality of the Gospel and do not provide themselves the assurance that in applying them one is obedient to the will of God. For the Byzantines — to use an expression of Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos (901-907, 912-925) — oikonomia is “an imitation of God’s love for man”¹³ and not simply an “exception to the rule.”

Occasionally, oikonomia becomes part of the rule itself whether the word itself is used or not. Canon 8 of Nicaea, for example, specifies that Novatian bishops are to be received as bishops whenever the local Episcopal see is vacant, but they are to be accepted as priests, chorepiskopoi, when a Catholic bishop already occupies the local see. In this case, the unity and welfare of the Church are concepts, which supersede any possible notion of the “validity” of ordination outside the canonical boundaries of the Church, and oikonomia — i.e., God’s plan for the Church — represents a living flexibility extending beyond a legalistic interpretation of sacramental validity.

Oikonomia, on the other hand, plays an important role in Byzantine marriage law. This law, as we shall see later, aims fundamentally at expressing and protecting the notion that the unique Christian marriage, a sacramental reality, is projected — “in reference to Christ and the Church” (Ep 5:32) — into the eternal Kingdom of God. Marriage therefore is not simply a contract, which is indissoluble only while both parties remain in this world but an eternal relationship not broken by death. In accordance with St. Paul (1 Co 7:8-9), second marriage is tolerated but not considered “legitimate” in itself whether it is concluded after the death of one partner or after a divorce. In both cases, it is tolerated twice only “by economy” as a lesser evil, while a fourth marriage is excluded.

Of its nature, oikonomia cannot be defined as a legal norm, and piratical misuses and abuses of it have frequently occurred. Throughout its entire history, the Byzantine Church has known a polarization between a party of “rigorists” recruited mainly in monastic circles and the generally more lenient group of Church officials supporting a wider use of oikonomia, especially in relation to the state. In fact, oikonomia since it permits various possible ways of implementing the Christian Gospel practically implies conciliation, discussion, and often unavoidably tension. By admitting representatives of the two groups in the catalogue of its saints — Theodore the Studite as well as the patriarchs Tarasius, Nicephorus, and Methodius and Ignatius as well as Photius, — the Church has given credit to them all as long as it recognized that the preservation of the orthodox faith was their common concern. In fact, no one in Byzantium ever denied the principle of oikonomia rather everyone agreed with Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria (581-607) when he wrote, “One rightly can practice oikonomia whenever pious doctrine remains unharmed.”¹⁴ In other words, oikonomia concerns the practical implications of Christian belief, but it never compromises with the truth itself.

Notes

1. De Vita Constantini, 4, 24; PG 20:1172AB.

2. Codex Justinianus I, 3, 41; English text in P. R. Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church, III (London: SPCK, 1966), no. 579, p. 1017.

3. Novella 131, 1.

4. Balsamon, Commentary on Nomocanon, I, 2; PG 104:981C.

5. Ibid.

6. See his commentary on Laodicea 58 and Quinisext 59 forbidding celebration of sacraments in private homes, but overruled by Novella 4 of Leo VI; ed. at., II, 440; See Les novelles de Uon VI, edd. P. Noailles and A. Dain (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1944), pp. 20-21.

7. Constantine Porphyrogenctos, De ceremoniis, II, 14; PG 112:1044A; Symeon of Thessalonica, De sacris ordinibus; PG 155:440D.

8. All texts and French translation in J. Darrouzes, Documents inedits d’ecclesiologie byzantine (Paris: Institut francos deludes byzantines, 1966).

9. R. Guilland, “Correspondence inedite d’Athanase, patriarche de Constantinople,” Melanges Diehl 1 (Paris, 1930), pp. 131-140; M. Banescti, “Le patriarche Athanase I ct Andronic II,*’ Acadέmie roumaine, Bulletin de la section historiquc 23 (1942), 1-28.

10. Synodikpn, ed. J. Gouillard, II, 103.

11. On the Arsenites, see I. Troitsky, Arseny i Arsenity (St. Petersburg, 1874; repr. London: Variorum, 1973 [with introduction and bibliographical updating by J. Meyen-dorff]).

12. Basil of Caesarea, Ep. ad Amphilochium\ PG 32-.669B.

13. Nicholas Mystikos, Ep. 32 (to the pope), ed. A. Mai, Spicilegium Romanum 10 (1844), 300; PG 111:213A.

14. Eulogius, quoted by Photius in Library, 227; ed. R. Henry (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1965), 4:112.

The Schism

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 488