“ The
Iconoclast
heresy,” he says,
already extinct.
already extinct.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
They allowed themselves to be
persuaded and, contrary to their instructions, they consented to preside
at a council which was convened at the Holy Apostles (May 861), and
pronounced the deposition of Ignatius, after suborned witnesses had been
1
Loparev, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth and ninth centuries (Vizan-
tiyski Vremennik, xvii. 1913, p. 49).
2 Vita S. Nicolai Studitae (MPG, cv. col. 863; cf. Loparev, Vizantiyski Vremennik,
XVII. p. 189).
## p. 249 (#291) ############################################
Conflict between Photius and Nicholas I
249
produced to affirm that the accused had been elected contrary to the
canons? .
But when the legates returned to Rome, loaded with presents from
Photius, the Pope received them with indignation and repudiated all
their acts. In an encyclical addressed to the three Eastern Patriarchs
he declared that the deposition of Ignatius was illegal and that Photius
improperly held the see of Constantinople. In answer to a letter from
Photius, brought by an imperial secretary, in which the Patriarch seemed
to treat with him on equal terms, the Pope reminded him that the see of
Rome was the supreme head of all the Churches. Finally, at the request
of some partisans of Ignatius, including the Archimandrite Theognostus,
who had succeeded in escaping to Rome, he called a council at the Lateran
palace (April 863), which summoned Photius to resign all his powers on
pain of excommunication; the same injunction was laid on all the bishops
consecrated by Photius? .
The dispute thus entered the domain of law, and the issue at stake
was the jurisdiction of the Pope over the Church at Constantinople.
Before taking the final step and embarking on schism, Photius seems to
have hesitated and to have adopted diplomatic means at first. He in-
duced the Emperor Michael to write a letter to the Pope, which was in
the nature of an ultimatum. The Emperor threatened to march on Rome
in the event of Nicholas refusing to revoke his sentences, and repudiated
the doctrine of the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy. Nicholas, making
the widest concessions, offered to revise the judgment of the council if
Ignatius and Photius would consent to appear before him at Rome? .
Photius, on his side, was fully posted in Western affairs, and knew that the
uncompromising character of Nicholas roused keen opposition in those
parts. He had favourably received a memorandum from the Archbishops
of Cologne and Trèves, who had been deposed by the Pope for having
consented to the divorce of Lothar II. In the course of the
year
863
Photius addressed letters to the Western clergy and to the Emperor
Louis II to demand the deposition of Nicholas by a Council of the
Church'. This was not yet rupture with the West, since by acting as he
did he hoped to find a more conciliatory Pope than Nicholas. Neverthe-
less, when he learned of the arrival of Roman legates in Bulgaria, consider-
ing their interference with this newly-founded Church as an encroachment
on the rights of the Patriarchate, he convoked a synod (867), which
formally condemned the Latin uses introduced into the Bulgarian Church,
and more particularly the double procession of the Holy Ghost. This was
the first step in an antagonism which was destined to end in schism.
1 Mansi, Concilia, xv. 179-202. Vita Ignatii 19-21 (MPG, cv. col. 488).
2 Nicolaus, Epist. 7 (Mansi, Concilia, xv. col. 178–183).
3 Nicolaus, Epist. 8 (Mansi, Concilia, xv. 187-216).
Bury, Eastern Roman Empire, p. 200. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire
byzantin, pp. 80–82.
4
CE. IX,
## p. 250 (#292) ############################################
250
The schism of Photius
Matters came rapidly to a head. In November 866 the Pope resolved
to address a final appeal to Constantinople, and despatched fresh legates
with orders to put letters into the hands of the Emperor and principal
personages of the court. Photius then took the decisive step, and it is
possible that this decision was influenced by the raising of Basil to the
imperial throne as colleague to Michael after the murder of Bardas. He
wished to confront the future Emperor, whose hostility he anticipated,
with an accomplished fact. In the course of the summer of 867 a council
presided over by the Emperor Michael pronounced the excommunication
of Pope Nicholas, declared the practices of the Roman Church to be
heretical as opposed to Greek use, and stigmatised the intervention of
that hurch in the affairs of Constantinople as unlawful. The resolutions
of the council were sent by Photius to the Eastern Patriarchs in the form
of an encyclical, in which he bitterly condemned all the peculiar usages
of the Western Churches: the addition of the Filioque to the creed,
the Saturday fast, the use of eggs in Lent, the custom of the clergy of
shaving the beard, and others. Two bishops went to take the acts of the
council to Italy. The Pope, desirous of justifying Western uses, com-
manded Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, to convoke provincial councils
in order to answer the objections of the Greeks!
The split between the East and the West was thus effected. It is
clear that the differences in the uses quoted by Photius were not the real
cause of the schism. From the dogmatic point of view the East and the
West participated in the same faith, that of the Ecumenical Councils.
The addition of the Filioque to the creed modified in appearance the
idea which was formed of the relations between the Persons of the
Trinity, but in no respect changed the dogma itself. It was not impos-
sible, as indeed subsequent events shewed, to come to some agreement as
to Church discipline and the liturgy. At the close of the year 867 the
two apostles of the Slavs, Constantine (Cyril), a pupil of Photius, and
his brother Methodius, arrived at Rome, bringing with them the relics of
St Clement. Pope Nicholas was dead and it was his successor Hadrian II
who consecrated them bishops (5 January 868) and, by giving the name
of Cyril to Constantine, paid homage to the great Patriarch of Alex-
andria who had formerly been the connecting link between the East and
Rome. He further approved the translation of the Scriptures made by
the two apostles, as well as their liturgy in the Slavonic tongue? . No act
shews more clearly the conciliatory spirit of the two Churches in the
matter of uses. The cause of the separation cannot therefore be found
here, but must be attributed to the regard for its autonomy which inspired
1 Among the answers are quoted those of Odo, Bishop of Beauvais, and Aeneas,
Bishop of Paris. Text of the Encyclical of Photius, MPG, cii. cols. 724–731.
See Hefele, Histoire des Conciles (French translation by Leclercq, 1911), vol. iv.
Pp. 442-449.
2
Leger, Cyrille et Méthode, pp. 100-103. Cf. supra, Chapter vil(B), pp. 224-5.
## p. 251 (#293) ############################################
Deposition of Photius
251
the Church of Constantinople. Photius, by championing this cause, easily
led with him the bishops who, like himself, refused to admit the supreme
jurisdiction of the Pope in disciplinary matters. We shall further see
that even on this question the Greeks were far from being obstinate, and
admitted the intervention of the Pope when it served their interests.
Their attitude towards Rome was, in reality, always dependent on the
vicissitudes of their own disputes.
It was a palace revolution in the end which overthrew Photius and
revived relations with Rome. Some months after the council held by the
Patriarch, the murder of Michael III brought Basil the Macedonian to
the throne. The new Emperor disliked Photius, possibly because he had
been a favourite of Bardas. He saw also that the re-instatement of Ignatius,
whom the people esteemed a martyr, would conduce to his own personal
popularity. The very day after his accession (25 September 867) he had
Photius imprisoned in a monastery, and with great ceremony re-instated
Ignatius in the patriarchal chair (23 November 867). All the bishops
and archimandrites exiled by Photius were recalled.
Thus to obtain his political ends Basil formally recognised a juris-
diction in the Pope by sending him a double embassy composed of
partisans of Ignatius and of Photius, with instructions to ask him to
re-establish peace in the Church of Constantinople by calling a council
and effecting a reconciliation with the bishops consecrated by Photius.
In a synod held at St Peter's, at the close of the year 868, Pope Hadrian
II, the successor of Nicholas I, solemnly condemned the council of 867 and
convoked a council at Constantinople. Stephen, Bishop of Nepi, Donatus,
Bishop of Ostia, and a priest, Marinus, were chosen to represent him there.
After a difficult journey the legates entered Constantinople by the
Golden Gate on 29 September 869. Basil received them with the greatest
honours, and testified in their presence to his veneration for the Church
of Rome," the mother of all the other Churches. ” But it was manifest
from the very first sittings of the Council, which opened on 9 October 869
and took the title of Ecumenical, that a misunderstanding existed
between the Emperor and the legates. The Emperor, solicitous for the
interests of the State, wished first and foremost to re-establish peace in
the Church. He had been surprised to see that, differing from Nicholas I,
Pope Hadrian II had condemned Photius unheard and on the sole evidence
of the partisans of Ignatius. In order that the peace might be permanent, ,
and to prevent Photius and his followers from being able to plead an
abuse of justice, it was necessary that the Council should revise the sentence
and deliver a full and detailed judgment. This was the purport of the in-
structions given to the Patrician Baanes, president of the lay commission
which represented the Emperor at the Council. The Pope's standpoint
was quite different. His legates had only been instructed by him to
1 Vogt, Basile I, pp. 210-212. Loparev, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth
and ninth centuries (Vizantiyski Vremennik, vol. xviii. p. 61).
CH, X.
H
## p. 252 (#294) ############################################
252
Ecumenical Council (869-870)
publish the sentence against Photius, pronounced by his predecessor and
confirmed by him. They had the further duty of reconciling with the
Church those bishops, followers of Photius, who should consent to sign
the libellus satisfactionis brought by them. The jurisdiction of the Pope,
differently understood in the East and the West, was the real matter at
issue?
Baanes won an initial success by demanding that Photius and his
followers should be brought before the Council to tender their defence
there. On 20 October Photius appeared, but remained mute to all interro-
gations. His condemnation was then renewed, but the legates observed
that they were not re-trying the case but were merely publishing the
sentence already formulated. Basil accepted this compromise, which was
tantamount to a defeat for him, and came in person to preside at the
concluding sessions of the Council, which broke up on 28 February 870.
Thus the Ecumenical Council, which was intended to smooth all the
religious difficulties, only ended in increasing the distrust between Rome
and Constantinople. Basil certainly lavished friendly words and assur-
ances of orthodoxy on the legates at the ceremony which marked the
closing of the Council, but his acts discounted his speeches. Some days
previously, to gratify the old partisans of Photius who regretted having
signed the libellus satisfactionis, he had seized all the copies of that
document at the house of the legates in spite of their protests but then
consented to allow them to be deposited with Anastasius the Librarian,
ambassador of the Emperor Louis II at Constantinople. Further, this
scholar was requested by the legates to compare the Greek and Latin
texts of the acts of the Council, when he perceived with astonishment
that a letter of Pope Hadrian had been tampered with, and that the com-
pliments which he paid to the Emperor Louis II had been suppressed? .
The most grave incident occurred three days after the close of the
Council. The Bulgarians had received baptism from the Greek mis-
sionaries sent by Photius, but their Tsar Boris, whose ambition was to
see an ecclesiastical hierarchy founded in Bulgaria with a Patriarch at
its head, being unable to obtain it from Constantinople, had applied to
Rome. Nicholas I had sent a mission to Bulgaria under the direction
of Formosus, Bishop of Porto, who replaced the Greek ritual everywhere
by the Latin, and Photius had on other occasions protested against this
interference. But when Boris called upon the Pope to create Formosus
Patriarch, he met with a flat refusal. Then it was that, turning to Con-
stantinople, he sent an embassy to implore the Council to decide to which
Church Bulgaria should belong.
The Emperor assembled once more the fathers of the Council and
tried to obtain from the legates the formal recognition of the jurisdiction
of the Patriarch of Constantinople over Bulgaria. The legates protested
1 Vogt, Basile I, pp. 215–218.
2 Vogt, op. cit. pp. 218–227.
## p. 253 (#295) ############################################
Re-instatement of Photius
253
vehemently that they had not received any instructions on this point, and
that Bulgaria was besides directly amenable to the see of Rome. Hardly,
however, had the legates left when the Patriarch Ignatius consecrated an
archbishop and ten bishops for Bulgaria. Photius would not have acted
otherwise, and nothing shews more clearly than this affair the inherited
misunderstanding which separated the leaders of the two Churches? .
When the legates took leave of the Emperor, so strained were the
relations that Basil was mean enough not to make any arrangements for
facilitating their return. Their journey, which lasted nine months, was
most arduous: they were captured by Slav pirates and lost all their
archives, and only reached Rome on 22 December 870. By good fortune
Anastasius the Librarian, who had embarked for the same destination,
had safely brought the acts of the Council and the copies of the libellus
satisfactionis. Hadrian II wrote an indignant letter to Basil, in which
he complained of the manner in which his legates had been treated on
their return and also of the interference of Ignatius in Bulgaria ; but
nothing came of it, and the Bulgarian Church remained definitely attached
to Constantinople. Finally, as a mark of his dissatisfaction, the Pope
refused to pardon the followers of Photius for whom the Emperor had
interceded.
But soon, by the usual reversal of Byzantine opinion, Photius, who had
been imprisoned in a monastery, succeeded in regaining the good graces
of Basil and was recalled to Constantinople? . Ignatius continued to
govern the Church, but three days after his death, which took place on
23 October 877, Photius was re-instated on the patriarchal throne, and,
according to the Vita Ignatii, he began by banishing and ill-treating the
principal adherents of Ignatius. But what was to be his attitude towards
Rome? Logically he ought to have refrained from any relations with
the Pope. He did nothing of the kind, and asked Pope John VIII to
recognise his re-instatement. The Emperor, who supported this request,
had evidently no wish for a rupture with Rome, and placed at the same
time his fleet at the disposal of the Pope to defend Italy against the
Saracens.
The circumstances were therefore favourable for the union. John VIII
consented to recognise Photius as Patriarch on condition that he should
ask pardon before a synod for his past conduct and should abstain from
any interference in Bulgaria. A council then opened at Constantinople
in November 879, but Basil, overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of his
only legitimate son, Constantine, was not present and did not even send
a representative. Photius, having thus. a free hand, easily outwitted the
legates, who were ignorant of Greek and were unaware that the Pope's
1 Vogt, op. cit. pp. 223-230.
2 According to the Vita Ignatii, 52 and Symeon Magister, vii. 752, he won the
favour of the Emperor by forging a genealogy which connected the family of Basil
with the Armenian dynasties.
CH. II.
## p. 254 (#296) ############################################
254
Disgrace and death of Photius
letter, translated into that language, had been garbled. The Patriarch
gave a lengthy defence of his conduct and was rapturously applauded
by the 383 bishops present. The question of the Bulgarian Church was
referred to the decision of the Emperor; the council refused to admit the
prohibition, desired by the Pope, of nominating laymen to the epis-
copate; finally, by pronouncing the anathema against all who should add
anything to the faith of Nicaea, it once more brought up the question
of the Filioque?
Photius had triumphed; it was only three years later, in 882, that
the Pope, thanks to an inquiry made by a new legate, Marinus, who was
sent to Constantinople, learned what had really happened at the council.
John VIII in indignation declared the legates of 879 deposed, and ex-
communicated Photius. The rupture was complete, and the two Churches
were thus separated by a new schism, which persisted under John's suc-
cessors, Marinus, Hadrian III, and Stephen V, who exchanged letters full
of recriminations with Basil.
The death of Basil in 886 was followed by an astonishing coup de
théâtre, and Photius was once more disgraced. Leo VI, the heir to the
throne, who passed for an illegitimate son of Michael III and Eudocia
Ingerina, was fired with an intense hatred of Photius. Although he had
been his pupil, he had quarrelled with him. He charged him with having
intrigued with Basil to deprive him of the throne, and there was even
talk at Byzantium that the ambitious Patriarch had contemplated either
himself assuming the imperial throne or giving it to one of his relations? .
The fact remains that Leo VI had hardly attained to power before he
pronounced the deposition of Photius. The strategus Andrew and the
superintendent of the posts, John Hagiopolites, were commanded to go
to St Sophia, where the synod had been assembled. They read out a
long recital of all the crimes of which Photius was accused; the Patri-
arch was then stripped of his episcopal vestments and conducted to a
monastery, where he lived for another five years (886-891). An assembly
of bishops elected Stephen, the Emperor's brother, as Patriarch? .
At the same time one of Photius' principal followers, Theodore
Santabarenus, was arrested in his diocese of Euchaita, conducted to Con-
stantinople, and put into solitary confinement. The Emperor tried to
induce him to accuse Photius of plotting against him, but when con-
fronted with the ex-Patriarch the abbot revealed nothing. Leo VI was
furious and ordered him to be scourged and banished first to Athens,
where his eyes were put out, and thence to the eastern frontier.
Photius thus came out of the struggle apparently defeated, and left
the Greek Church more rent asunder than at his accession. Some hagio-
graphic documents drawn up at this period throw strong light on the
i Vogt, op. cit. pp. 239-244.
2 Vogt, op. cit. p. 249.
3 Mansi, Concilia, xviii. 201.
## p. 255 (#297) ############################################
Contemporary judgments on Photius
255
was
divided attitude of the Greek clergy towards the question of relations
with Rome. The author of the life of St Joseph the Hymn-writer,
Theophanes the Sicilian, who wrote in the last years of the ninth century,
when nearing the end of his work, prays the saint to ask Christ for
the cessation of the disputes and for the restoration of peace in the
Church, and later he vehemently urges Joseph to obtain by his prayers
the boon that orthodoxy remain inviolate! Such was indisputably the
desire of a large part of the Greek clergy, and of the monks of Studion
in particular, whose Igumen, Anthony, had passed almost the whole
patriarchate of Photius in exile.
On the other hand, the life of St Euthymius the Younger of Thessa-
lonica strikes a somewhat different note. The author, Basil, Archbishop
of Thessalonica, admittedly a supporter of Photius, gives a brief but
very partisan account of the vicissitudes of the struggle between Photius
and Ignatius, and throws all the responsibility for the schism onto the
imperial policy. If he abstains from attacking Ignatius, he none the less
considers Photius to be a saint.
“ The Iconoclast heresy,” he says,
already extinct. St Methodius after having governed the Church for five
years had returned to the Lord. Ignatius the Holy had been raised to
the episcopal throne of Constantinople. He governed it for ten years. . . .
In consequence of the persecutions of those who then reigned he left his
throne and his Church, the one voluntarily, the other under compulsion.
He retired to a monastery and published an act of abdication. . . . The
news of this forced abdication soon spread, and in consequence many
refused to take communion with the new Patriarch. The very holy
Nicholas [of Studion), not wishing to have any dealings with him, pre-
ferred to leave his monastery, the new Patriarch being orthodox and
invested with all virtues. This was the blessed Photius, the torch (TOU
owtós) whose rays illuminated the ends of the earth". Then follows a
eulogy of Photius and his incomparable life, and an account of his miracles.
This curious testimony gives us the version of the events which had
been prepared by the adherents of Photius. It shews us the deep im-
pression which this man, who had nothing of the apostle in him but was
first and foremost a politician and a diplomatist, had produced by his
intrepidity. He had posed as a champion of orthodoxy against Rome,
and had thus bequeathed to his successors a formidable weapon
which
was destined to render any new agreement between the two Churches un-
stable and precarious.
Immediately after the deposition of Photius, Leo VI had opened
negotiations with the Pope for the re-establishment of religious union,
but it was only twelve years later, in 898, that any agreement was reached.
The chief difficulty was the question of the bishops consecrated by Photius,
1 Loparov, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth and ninth centuries (Vizan-
tiyski Vremennik, vol. xviii. p. 6).
2 Ib. vol. xix. pp. 101–102.
CH, Tx.
## p. 256 (#298) ############################################
256
Restoration of communion with Rome (898)
whose powers the Popes refused to recognise. The Popes, Stephen V
(885-891), Formosus (891-896), Boniface VI, Stephen VI, Romanus,
Theodore II, all refused any concession. In the end an agreement was
reached between Pope John IX and the Patriarch Anthony Cauleas, a
former monk of Olympus in Bithynia (898). A general amnesty was pro-
claimed and concord reigned once more in the Church. Normal relations
revived between Rome and Constantinople! Important evidence on
this point is supplied by Philotheus the atriclines in the work which
he has left on the ceremonial of the imperial court under the title of
Kleterologion. He mentions the arrival at Constantinople in 898 of the
papal legates, Bishop Nicholas and Cardinal John, and he gives the
interesting detail that in the course of the ancient ceremonies they took
precedence of the first order of civil dignitaries, the magistri? . Another
passage of the same work proves that a permanent papal embassy was
re-established at Constantinople. The order of precedence at the imperial
table was fixed thus: after the magistri comes the "syncellus of Rome,”
then that of Constantinople, followed by those of the Eastern Patriarchs3.
Peace seemed therefore definitely restored, but Leo VI intended to
employ this alliance with Rome for the furtherance of his personal aims,
and thus to violate the conditions of the agreement. As had already
happened under Constantine VI, it was the private conduct of the
Emperor which stirred up new dissensions in the Church.
After divorcing Theophano in 893, Leo VI married Zoë, daughter of
Stylianus; then on the death of Zoë he married Eudocia Baiane in 889.
This third marriage was disapproved by the clergy, since the laws against
third marriages, sanctioned even by Leo himself in his Novels, were
very strict. But the crowning scandal was when, after the death of
Eudocia in 901, it was rumoured that the Emperor proposed to take as
his fourth wife his mistress Zoë, “the black-eyed. ” So great was the
indignation that plots were hatched for dethroning the Emperor, and in
902 he narrowly escaped assassination in the church of St Mocius. The
Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus was consulted, but flatly refused his approval.
When, however, Zoë gave birth to a son, the future Constantine Por-
phyrogenitus, the Patriarch and the bishops consented to baptise the
child, if the Emperor undertook not to live any longer with the mother.
The baptism took place with much ceremony in St Sophia on 6 January
906; three days later Leo VI violated his promise and had his marriage
with Zoë celebrated by a clerk of his chapel. The bishops immediately
forbade Leo to enter the churches, and he appealed to the judgment of
the Pope and the Eastern Patriarchs.
Sergius III, who then occupied the pontifical throne, an unworthy
creature of Theophylact and of Theodora, returned a favourable answer
1 Mansi, Concilia, vol. XVIII. col. 101.
2 De Cerimoniis, 11. 52 (MPG, cxII. col. 1293–1299).
3 lb. (MPG, CXXII. col. 1341).
## p. 257 (#299) ############################################
Leo VI and Nicholas Mysticus
257
to Leo VI. On these tidings the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus, who
appeared at first to have sought some means of solving the difficulties,
openly declared against the Emperor. On Christmas Day, in the presence
of the whole court, he forbade the Emperor to enter St Sophia (25 De-
cember 906).
Leo VI lost no time in revenging himself on Nicholas Mysticus, im-
plicated in the conspiracy of Andronicus Ducas, who had fled to the
Saracens. Secret correspondence between the Patriarch and the rebel was
seized. On 6 January 907, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Patri-
arch had once more forbidden the Emperor to enter the church, Leo
yielded, but at the imperial banquet which followed the ceremony he
violently harangued Nicholas Mysticus, and in the presence of all the
metropolitans taxed him with treason. At that moment the Roman
legates arrived at Constantinople. Nicholas refused any dealings with
them, but a considerable section of the bishops abandoned him. The
synod released the Emperor from all ecclesiastical penalties, and Nicholas
Mysticus, compelled to abdicate his office, was sent to a monastery in
Asia. Euthymius was appointed Patriarch, and the rival headship divided
the Greek Church ; several bishops were banished or imprisoned. On
9 June 911 Euthymius anointed the son of Zoë, Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, Emperor.
Seized with remorse in his last moments, Leo VI reinstalled Nicholas
Mysticus on the patriarchal throne, and gave orders that Euthymius
should be deposed (911). His brother Alexander now became sole
Emperor, and chafing at the obscurity in which he had been kept, did his
best also to reverse all that had been done in the previous reign. Zoë was
driven from the palace, Euthymius struck in the face in the presence of
the Emperor, and Nicholas Mysticus solemnly re-instated. His first care
was to send to Pope Anastasius a memorandum in which he traduced the
character of Leo VI, blamed the weakness of Sergius III, whom his legates
had misled, and claimed reparation for the scandal. On the death of
Alexander, 6 June 912, the Patriarch, being marked out as head of the
council of regency for the young Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was all-
powerful for several months. In October 913 Zoë succeeded in ousting
him from the government, but could not induce Euthymius to resume
his office.
Subsequent events in which Byzantium was engrossed for seven
years, war with the Bulgarians, the revolt and coronation of Romanus
Lecapenus, caused the affair of Leo's fourth marriage to sink into the back-
ground. It was only in 920 that Nicholas Mysticus, probably instigated
by Romanus Lecapenus, petitioned Pope John X to send new legates to
Constantinople. The entente with Rome was restored. The memory of
Euthymius, who had died in the interval, was vindicated. In the presence
of the Emperors Romanus and Constantine, Nicholas Mysticus solemnly
promulgated a tomus unionis, reconciling the two parties. Leo's good
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. IX.
17
## p. 258 (#300) ############################################
258
Concord of the two Churches
name was sacrificed for this agreement; he was declared absolved on
special conditions, and the Church stigmatised in severe terms the fourth
and even the third marriage!
Peace then seemed to reign once more between Rome and Constanti-
nople, and the Greek Church had again accepted the arbitration of the
Pope. But the excessive leniency of the Court of Rome towards Leo VI
by no means increased its prestige. On the other hand the Emperor had
set an example which could not be lost on his successors. The alliance
with the Pope had only been a device for calming the agitation produced
by his fourth marriage. The same Emperor who had written letters to
Rome emphasising his zeal for the See of St Peter, had addressed to his
people veritable homilies in which he savagely attacked the doctrine of
the double Procession of the Holy Ghost, a policy hạrdly likely to con-
duce to a lasting peace. And so it turned out; the relations between
the two Churches were constantly dominated by the political affairs of
Byzantium at home and abroad.
Except for the ephemeral schism of Sergius, concord existed officially
between the two Churches for 134 years, from 920–1054. It must be
added that this concord was real. This is the impression produced, if the
official relations are neglected and only those of the ordinary members of
the two Churches are considered. It may safely be said that the large
majority of the Westerners and of the Greeks dreaded schism, and that
the two parties, far from mutual hatred and excommunication, considered
themselves members of the same Church. The influx of Eastern monks
into Rome, Italy, and the entire West at this period, episodes such as the
reception of St Nilus at Monte Cassino and his establishment at Grotta
Ferrata (1004), the numerous Western pilgrims passing through Con-
stantinople and the cordial welcome they received there, shew con-
clusively that the faithful of the two cults were animated with a true
spirit of charity one towards the other and did not attach too great im-
portance to the difference in their customs'. Neither of them desired
schism; it was their pastors and princes, not they themselves, who were
solely responsible for it.
But however favourable the circumstances were for the union, it was
during this period that the definitive separation was prepared. Not that
the causes of divergence were multiplied, but historic events modified the
situation and favoured the rupture.
First of all, there was the diminishing prestige of Rome. After the
end of the ninth century feudal anarchy attacked the Church and did not
spare even the throne of St Peter. The Papacy became a fief for which
the barons of the Roman Campagna disputed. It was the sinister epoch
1 Hergenröther, Photius, vol. 111. p. 684; Epistolae Nicolai Mystici, MPG, (XI,
col. 276.
2 Leo VI, Oratio de Spiritu Sancto, MPG, cvii. col. 131.
3 L Brehier, Le Schisme Oriental du xre siècle, pp. 18–34.
## p. 259 (#301) ############################################
Lessened prestige of Rome
259
of an Alberic, a Theodora, a Marozia, and a Crescentius. Then, dating
from the coronation of Otto (962), the Popes were creatures of the Ger-
manic Emperors. Rome became a field for intrigues, and the Byzantine
Emperors, rivals in Southern Italy of the Germanic Emperors, naturally
sought to win partisans for themselves there and to influence the election
of the Popes. The Papacy, become a tool of the temporal princes, was on
the verge of seeing the catholic character of its power disappear. It had
lost all moral authority, and events were destined to disappoint sadly
the reliance of the Studites on Roman supremacy.
At this moment, with the Papacy weakened, the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople saw his influence increase. That was the inevitable consequence
of the policy of victorious expansion which the Macedonian dynasty fol-
lowed. It was not merely the victories of Nicephorus Phocas, of John
Tzimisces, and of Basil II, but also the success of the missions to Slav
countries, and in particular the conversion of the Russians, which helped
to spread the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The
recovery of Southern Italy was followed by the reconstitution of a
Greek ecclesiastical hierarchy in Apulia and in Calabria, where colonies of
Basilian monks were founded. After the baptism of Vladímir (989), the
clerics of Constantinople had organised the Russian Church, whose
metropolitan bishop was strictly subordinated to the Patriarchate. Simi-
larly Basil II, after terminating the independence of Bulgaria (1018),
substituted an archbishop, a suffragan of Constantinople, for the Patriarch
of Ochrida. The military and diplomatic successes of the same Emperor
in Armenia, and later the annexation of that country by Constantine IX,
resulted in drawing more closely and more cordially the bonds of union
between the Greek and Armenian Churches. Finally, in Palestine the
protectorate over the holy places and the Christian inhabitants passed
at the beginning of the eleventh century from the Franks to the Byzantine
Emperors?
While the Roman Church was ravaged by schism, simony, and
nepotism, the Patriarch of Constantinople bulked more and more as
the spiritual head of the East. Although many of the Patriarchs had
been monks and some had issued even from the monastery of Studion,
they had been accustomed to despise the Papacy. Enjoying virtual auto-
nomy as regards Rome, they actually tried to obtain official recognition
of the fact.
The Emperors far more than the Patriarchs maintained unbroken
relations with Rome, and for them it was always political interests, internal
or external, that were at stake. Thus when Romanus Lecapenus, desirous
of placing his power on a secure basis and assuring the future of his
dynasty, undertook to raise his son Theophylact, a mere child, to the
patriarchal dignity, he applied to Rome. On their side, Pope John XI,
son of Marozia, and his brother Alberic, Prince of the Romans, sought his
1 L. Brehier, L'Église et l'Orient au moyen âge. Les Croisades, pp. 38–39.
17-2
CA. IX.
## p. 260 (#302) ############################################
260
Independence of the Greek Church
alliance. The young Theophylact, aged sixteen years, was consecrated
Patriarch on 2 February 933, in the presence of four papal legates. To
arrive at this result Romanus Lecapenus had extorted an act of abdi-
cation from the Patriarch Tryphon, but there is no indication that this
scandalous act raised the slightest protest from the clergy? Theophy-
lact, devoid of the slightest ecclesiastical vocation, led an absolutely
worldly life while filling the patriarchal chair, trafficking in dispensa-
tions and bishoprics, surrounding himself with pantomimists and dancers,
and shewing a consuming passion for horses, which he bred at great cost.
He survived the palace revolution which overthrew his father (944), and
died in 956 owing to a fall from his horse.
After the middle of the tenth century a strong current of asceticism
swept through the Greek Church. This was the epoch when St Athanasius,
the spiritual director of Nicephorus Phocas, founded the convent of St
Laura on Mount Athos (961), which was to become the most important
monastic centre of the East. All the successors of Theophylact in the
Patriarchate, Polyeuctes (956–970), Basil the Scamandrian (970–974),
Anthony of Studion (974–980), were monks of great austerity, whose
uncompromising attitude led often to conflicts with the imperial power.
It does not appear that in these disputes the Court of Rome ever tried
to arbitrate or that it was ever asked to do so. The relations between
Rome and Constantinople seem under Constantine VII, Nicephorus
Phocas, and John Tzimisces to have been exclusively political. Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, allied with King Hugh of Italy, sent a fleet to his help
to protect Provence and Central Italy against the Saracens. Under
Nicephorus Phocas, Southern Italy was the debateable point, and the
unfortunate embassy of Liudprand, Bishop of Cremona, sent by Otto I
in 968, illustrates the barrier of misunderstanding and prejudice which
separated the Greeks from the Westerners.
In purely religious questions, on the contrary, where the authority of
the Pope was concerned, the Emperors and Patriarchs took the most
important steps without paying any attention to Rome. In 964 Nice-
phorus Phocas published his celebrated Novel on the monasteries, which
aroused violent opposition amongst the clergy, without its opponents
even attempting to support their cause by calling in Rome, as the
Studites had formerly done. Similarly, without consulting the Pope,
Nicephorus Phocas altered the ecclesiastical divisions of Southern Italy
by creating the province of Otranto and by attempting to hellenise
Apulia. No protests were raised by Rome, but we have the testimony
of Liudprand to shew what dissatisfaction was caused among the Latin
clergy by this act.
The feeling which seemed to dominate more and more the Greek
i Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin, p. 221.
2 Liudprandi Legatio, 62 (MGH, Script. 111. pp. 361–63). Gay, op. cit. pp. 351-
853.
## p. 261 (#303) ############################################
Strained relations with Rome
261
Church was a certain contempt for these Latins, whom it considered
mere barbarians, while the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose authority
had been founded by the Ecumenical Councils, had been able to keep
inviolate the orthodox faith entrusted to him. This is shewn by the
curious conversation which the Patriarch Polyeuctes held with Liud-
prand at the imperial table on 6 July 968, and by the contemptuous
tone in which he questioned him on the number of councils held in the
West. He spoke scoffingly of the Saxon Council, “ too young yet to
figure in the canonical collections. ”ı
Nothing, however, shews more clearly the way in which the authority
of the Papacy was despised than the incident caused by the arrival of
the legates, whom Pope John XIII had sent to support the negotia-
tions of Liudprand with a view to an alliance between the two Empires
(19 August 968). Nicephorus Phocas had just started for the army in
Asia, but when his cabinet dealt with the Pope's letter it discovered with
indignation that Otto had been designated in it as “august Emperor
of the Romans” and Nicephorus as “Emperor of the Greeks. ” This was
a gross blunder which might well be taken for an insult. The Byzantine
Emperors proudly vaunted the tradition which connected them with the
Caesars of ancient Rome, and the term “Hellenes” had acquired at
Constantinople the sense of “Pagans. ” The hapless legates were thrown
into prison pending the decision of the Emperor, and Liudprand himself,
held responsible for this wanton affront, was forced to promise formally
that the objectionable words should be corrected at Rome?
At the end of the tenth century proofs of the enmity of the Patri-
archs of Constantinople towards Rome grew more numerous. Whatever
their origin, whether laymen elected to the patriarchate like Sisinnius,
physician and magister (996–998), or monks like Sergius, Igumen of the
monastery of Manuel (998-1019), they shew the same hostility. In 997
Sisinnius published a regulation against unlawful marriages, which con-
demned by implication the authorisation granted by the Popes to Leo VI
to contract a fourth marriage. In an encyclical to the bishops of Asia
Minor the same Patriarch revived the already ancient dispute about the
double Procession of the Holy Ghosts.
His successor, Sergius, went a step farther. In 1009 he assembled a
synod at Constantinople, confirmed the ordinances of Photius against
Latin usages, and erased the name of the Pope from the diptychs. It
must be borne in mind that at this moment the organisation of a Greek
hierarchy in Russia had singularly increased the power of the Patri-
archate. This extraordinary increase of prestige may possibly have stimu-
lated the Patriarch to claim for himself entire freedom from any spiritual
1 Liud prandi Legatio, 21, 22 (MGH, Script. III. pp. 351-52). Seemingly the
Council of Frankfort held in 794.
Liudprandi Legatio, 47 (MGH, Script. 111. pp. 357–58
3 Schlumberger, Epopée byzantine, vol. 11. pp.
persuaded and, contrary to their instructions, they consented to preside
at a council which was convened at the Holy Apostles (May 861), and
pronounced the deposition of Ignatius, after suborned witnesses had been
1
Loparev, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth and ninth centuries (Vizan-
tiyski Vremennik, xvii. 1913, p. 49).
2 Vita S. Nicolai Studitae (MPG, cv. col. 863; cf. Loparev, Vizantiyski Vremennik,
XVII. p. 189).
## p. 249 (#291) ############################################
Conflict between Photius and Nicholas I
249
produced to affirm that the accused had been elected contrary to the
canons? .
But when the legates returned to Rome, loaded with presents from
Photius, the Pope received them with indignation and repudiated all
their acts. In an encyclical addressed to the three Eastern Patriarchs
he declared that the deposition of Ignatius was illegal and that Photius
improperly held the see of Constantinople. In answer to a letter from
Photius, brought by an imperial secretary, in which the Patriarch seemed
to treat with him on equal terms, the Pope reminded him that the see of
Rome was the supreme head of all the Churches. Finally, at the request
of some partisans of Ignatius, including the Archimandrite Theognostus,
who had succeeded in escaping to Rome, he called a council at the Lateran
palace (April 863), which summoned Photius to resign all his powers on
pain of excommunication; the same injunction was laid on all the bishops
consecrated by Photius? .
The dispute thus entered the domain of law, and the issue at stake
was the jurisdiction of the Pope over the Church at Constantinople.
Before taking the final step and embarking on schism, Photius seems to
have hesitated and to have adopted diplomatic means at first. He in-
duced the Emperor Michael to write a letter to the Pope, which was in
the nature of an ultimatum. The Emperor threatened to march on Rome
in the event of Nicholas refusing to revoke his sentences, and repudiated
the doctrine of the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy. Nicholas, making
the widest concessions, offered to revise the judgment of the council if
Ignatius and Photius would consent to appear before him at Rome? .
Photius, on his side, was fully posted in Western affairs, and knew that the
uncompromising character of Nicholas roused keen opposition in those
parts. He had favourably received a memorandum from the Archbishops
of Cologne and Trèves, who had been deposed by the Pope for having
consented to the divorce of Lothar II. In the course of the
year
863
Photius addressed letters to the Western clergy and to the Emperor
Louis II to demand the deposition of Nicholas by a Council of the
Church'. This was not yet rupture with the West, since by acting as he
did he hoped to find a more conciliatory Pope than Nicholas. Neverthe-
less, when he learned of the arrival of Roman legates in Bulgaria, consider-
ing their interference with this newly-founded Church as an encroachment
on the rights of the Patriarchate, he convoked a synod (867), which
formally condemned the Latin uses introduced into the Bulgarian Church,
and more particularly the double procession of the Holy Ghost. This was
the first step in an antagonism which was destined to end in schism.
1 Mansi, Concilia, xv. 179-202. Vita Ignatii 19-21 (MPG, cv. col. 488).
2 Nicolaus, Epist. 7 (Mansi, Concilia, xv. col. 178–183).
3 Nicolaus, Epist. 8 (Mansi, Concilia, xv. 187-216).
Bury, Eastern Roman Empire, p. 200. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire
byzantin, pp. 80–82.
4
CE. IX,
## p. 250 (#292) ############################################
250
The schism of Photius
Matters came rapidly to a head. In November 866 the Pope resolved
to address a final appeal to Constantinople, and despatched fresh legates
with orders to put letters into the hands of the Emperor and principal
personages of the court. Photius then took the decisive step, and it is
possible that this decision was influenced by the raising of Basil to the
imperial throne as colleague to Michael after the murder of Bardas. He
wished to confront the future Emperor, whose hostility he anticipated,
with an accomplished fact. In the course of the summer of 867 a council
presided over by the Emperor Michael pronounced the excommunication
of Pope Nicholas, declared the practices of the Roman Church to be
heretical as opposed to Greek use, and stigmatised the intervention of
that hurch in the affairs of Constantinople as unlawful. The resolutions
of the council were sent by Photius to the Eastern Patriarchs in the form
of an encyclical, in which he bitterly condemned all the peculiar usages
of the Western Churches: the addition of the Filioque to the creed,
the Saturday fast, the use of eggs in Lent, the custom of the clergy of
shaving the beard, and others. Two bishops went to take the acts of the
council to Italy. The Pope, desirous of justifying Western uses, com-
manded Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, to convoke provincial councils
in order to answer the objections of the Greeks!
The split between the East and the West was thus effected. It is
clear that the differences in the uses quoted by Photius were not the real
cause of the schism. From the dogmatic point of view the East and the
West participated in the same faith, that of the Ecumenical Councils.
The addition of the Filioque to the creed modified in appearance the
idea which was formed of the relations between the Persons of the
Trinity, but in no respect changed the dogma itself. It was not impos-
sible, as indeed subsequent events shewed, to come to some agreement as
to Church discipline and the liturgy. At the close of the year 867 the
two apostles of the Slavs, Constantine (Cyril), a pupil of Photius, and
his brother Methodius, arrived at Rome, bringing with them the relics of
St Clement. Pope Nicholas was dead and it was his successor Hadrian II
who consecrated them bishops (5 January 868) and, by giving the name
of Cyril to Constantine, paid homage to the great Patriarch of Alex-
andria who had formerly been the connecting link between the East and
Rome. He further approved the translation of the Scriptures made by
the two apostles, as well as their liturgy in the Slavonic tongue? . No act
shews more clearly the conciliatory spirit of the two Churches in the
matter of uses. The cause of the separation cannot therefore be found
here, but must be attributed to the regard for its autonomy which inspired
1 Among the answers are quoted those of Odo, Bishop of Beauvais, and Aeneas,
Bishop of Paris. Text of the Encyclical of Photius, MPG, cii. cols. 724–731.
See Hefele, Histoire des Conciles (French translation by Leclercq, 1911), vol. iv.
Pp. 442-449.
2
Leger, Cyrille et Méthode, pp. 100-103. Cf. supra, Chapter vil(B), pp. 224-5.
## p. 251 (#293) ############################################
Deposition of Photius
251
the Church of Constantinople. Photius, by championing this cause, easily
led with him the bishops who, like himself, refused to admit the supreme
jurisdiction of the Pope in disciplinary matters. We shall further see
that even on this question the Greeks were far from being obstinate, and
admitted the intervention of the Pope when it served their interests.
Their attitude towards Rome was, in reality, always dependent on the
vicissitudes of their own disputes.
It was a palace revolution in the end which overthrew Photius and
revived relations with Rome. Some months after the council held by the
Patriarch, the murder of Michael III brought Basil the Macedonian to
the throne. The new Emperor disliked Photius, possibly because he had
been a favourite of Bardas. He saw also that the re-instatement of Ignatius,
whom the people esteemed a martyr, would conduce to his own personal
popularity. The very day after his accession (25 September 867) he had
Photius imprisoned in a monastery, and with great ceremony re-instated
Ignatius in the patriarchal chair (23 November 867). All the bishops
and archimandrites exiled by Photius were recalled.
Thus to obtain his political ends Basil formally recognised a juris-
diction in the Pope by sending him a double embassy composed of
partisans of Ignatius and of Photius, with instructions to ask him to
re-establish peace in the Church of Constantinople by calling a council
and effecting a reconciliation with the bishops consecrated by Photius.
In a synod held at St Peter's, at the close of the year 868, Pope Hadrian
II, the successor of Nicholas I, solemnly condemned the council of 867 and
convoked a council at Constantinople. Stephen, Bishop of Nepi, Donatus,
Bishop of Ostia, and a priest, Marinus, were chosen to represent him there.
After a difficult journey the legates entered Constantinople by the
Golden Gate on 29 September 869. Basil received them with the greatest
honours, and testified in their presence to his veneration for the Church
of Rome," the mother of all the other Churches. ” But it was manifest
from the very first sittings of the Council, which opened on 9 October 869
and took the title of Ecumenical, that a misunderstanding existed
between the Emperor and the legates. The Emperor, solicitous for the
interests of the State, wished first and foremost to re-establish peace in
the Church. He had been surprised to see that, differing from Nicholas I,
Pope Hadrian II had condemned Photius unheard and on the sole evidence
of the partisans of Ignatius. In order that the peace might be permanent, ,
and to prevent Photius and his followers from being able to plead an
abuse of justice, it was necessary that the Council should revise the sentence
and deliver a full and detailed judgment. This was the purport of the in-
structions given to the Patrician Baanes, president of the lay commission
which represented the Emperor at the Council. The Pope's standpoint
was quite different. His legates had only been instructed by him to
1 Vogt, Basile I, pp. 210-212. Loparev, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth
and ninth centuries (Vizantiyski Vremennik, vol. xviii. p. 61).
CH, X.
H
## p. 252 (#294) ############################################
252
Ecumenical Council (869-870)
publish the sentence against Photius, pronounced by his predecessor and
confirmed by him. They had the further duty of reconciling with the
Church those bishops, followers of Photius, who should consent to sign
the libellus satisfactionis brought by them. The jurisdiction of the Pope,
differently understood in the East and the West, was the real matter at
issue?
Baanes won an initial success by demanding that Photius and his
followers should be brought before the Council to tender their defence
there. On 20 October Photius appeared, but remained mute to all interro-
gations. His condemnation was then renewed, but the legates observed
that they were not re-trying the case but were merely publishing the
sentence already formulated. Basil accepted this compromise, which was
tantamount to a defeat for him, and came in person to preside at the
concluding sessions of the Council, which broke up on 28 February 870.
Thus the Ecumenical Council, which was intended to smooth all the
religious difficulties, only ended in increasing the distrust between Rome
and Constantinople. Basil certainly lavished friendly words and assur-
ances of orthodoxy on the legates at the ceremony which marked the
closing of the Council, but his acts discounted his speeches. Some days
previously, to gratify the old partisans of Photius who regretted having
signed the libellus satisfactionis, he had seized all the copies of that
document at the house of the legates in spite of their protests but then
consented to allow them to be deposited with Anastasius the Librarian,
ambassador of the Emperor Louis II at Constantinople. Further, this
scholar was requested by the legates to compare the Greek and Latin
texts of the acts of the Council, when he perceived with astonishment
that a letter of Pope Hadrian had been tampered with, and that the com-
pliments which he paid to the Emperor Louis II had been suppressed? .
The most grave incident occurred three days after the close of the
Council. The Bulgarians had received baptism from the Greek mis-
sionaries sent by Photius, but their Tsar Boris, whose ambition was to
see an ecclesiastical hierarchy founded in Bulgaria with a Patriarch at
its head, being unable to obtain it from Constantinople, had applied to
Rome. Nicholas I had sent a mission to Bulgaria under the direction
of Formosus, Bishop of Porto, who replaced the Greek ritual everywhere
by the Latin, and Photius had on other occasions protested against this
interference. But when Boris called upon the Pope to create Formosus
Patriarch, he met with a flat refusal. Then it was that, turning to Con-
stantinople, he sent an embassy to implore the Council to decide to which
Church Bulgaria should belong.
The Emperor assembled once more the fathers of the Council and
tried to obtain from the legates the formal recognition of the jurisdiction
of the Patriarch of Constantinople over Bulgaria. The legates protested
1 Vogt, Basile I, pp. 215–218.
2 Vogt, op. cit. pp. 218–227.
## p. 253 (#295) ############################################
Re-instatement of Photius
253
vehemently that they had not received any instructions on this point, and
that Bulgaria was besides directly amenable to the see of Rome. Hardly,
however, had the legates left when the Patriarch Ignatius consecrated an
archbishop and ten bishops for Bulgaria. Photius would not have acted
otherwise, and nothing shews more clearly than this affair the inherited
misunderstanding which separated the leaders of the two Churches? .
When the legates took leave of the Emperor, so strained were the
relations that Basil was mean enough not to make any arrangements for
facilitating their return. Their journey, which lasted nine months, was
most arduous: they were captured by Slav pirates and lost all their
archives, and only reached Rome on 22 December 870. By good fortune
Anastasius the Librarian, who had embarked for the same destination,
had safely brought the acts of the Council and the copies of the libellus
satisfactionis. Hadrian II wrote an indignant letter to Basil, in which
he complained of the manner in which his legates had been treated on
their return and also of the interference of Ignatius in Bulgaria ; but
nothing came of it, and the Bulgarian Church remained definitely attached
to Constantinople. Finally, as a mark of his dissatisfaction, the Pope
refused to pardon the followers of Photius for whom the Emperor had
interceded.
But soon, by the usual reversal of Byzantine opinion, Photius, who had
been imprisoned in a monastery, succeeded in regaining the good graces
of Basil and was recalled to Constantinople? . Ignatius continued to
govern the Church, but three days after his death, which took place on
23 October 877, Photius was re-instated on the patriarchal throne, and,
according to the Vita Ignatii, he began by banishing and ill-treating the
principal adherents of Ignatius. But what was to be his attitude towards
Rome? Logically he ought to have refrained from any relations with
the Pope. He did nothing of the kind, and asked Pope John VIII to
recognise his re-instatement. The Emperor, who supported this request,
had evidently no wish for a rupture with Rome, and placed at the same
time his fleet at the disposal of the Pope to defend Italy against the
Saracens.
The circumstances were therefore favourable for the union. John VIII
consented to recognise Photius as Patriarch on condition that he should
ask pardon before a synod for his past conduct and should abstain from
any interference in Bulgaria. A council then opened at Constantinople
in November 879, but Basil, overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of his
only legitimate son, Constantine, was not present and did not even send
a representative. Photius, having thus. a free hand, easily outwitted the
legates, who were ignorant of Greek and were unaware that the Pope's
1 Vogt, op. cit. pp. 223-230.
2 According to the Vita Ignatii, 52 and Symeon Magister, vii. 752, he won the
favour of the Emperor by forging a genealogy which connected the family of Basil
with the Armenian dynasties.
CH. II.
## p. 254 (#296) ############################################
254
Disgrace and death of Photius
letter, translated into that language, had been garbled. The Patriarch
gave a lengthy defence of his conduct and was rapturously applauded
by the 383 bishops present. The question of the Bulgarian Church was
referred to the decision of the Emperor; the council refused to admit the
prohibition, desired by the Pope, of nominating laymen to the epis-
copate; finally, by pronouncing the anathema against all who should add
anything to the faith of Nicaea, it once more brought up the question
of the Filioque?
Photius had triumphed; it was only three years later, in 882, that
the Pope, thanks to an inquiry made by a new legate, Marinus, who was
sent to Constantinople, learned what had really happened at the council.
John VIII in indignation declared the legates of 879 deposed, and ex-
communicated Photius. The rupture was complete, and the two Churches
were thus separated by a new schism, which persisted under John's suc-
cessors, Marinus, Hadrian III, and Stephen V, who exchanged letters full
of recriminations with Basil.
The death of Basil in 886 was followed by an astonishing coup de
théâtre, and Photius was once more disgraced. Leo VI, the heir to the
throne, who passed for an illegitimate son of Michael III and Eudocia
Ingerina, was fired with an intense hatred of Photius. Although he had
been his pupil, he had quarrelled with him. He charged him with having
intrigued with Basil to deprive him of the throne, and there was even
talk at Byzantium that the ambitious Patriarch had contemplated either
himself assuming the imperial throne or giving it to one of his relations? .
The fact remains that Leo VI had hardly attained to power before he
pronounced the deposition of Photius. The strategus Andrew and the
superintendent of the posts, John Hagiopolites, were commanded to go
to St Sophia, where the synod had been assembled. They read out a
long recital of all the crimes of which Photius was accused; the Patri-
arch was then stripped of his episcopal vestments and conducted to a
monastery, where he lived for another five years (886-891). An assembly
of bishops elected Stephen, the Emperor's brother, as Patriarch? .
At the same time one of Photius' principal followers, Theodore
Santabarenus, was arrested in his diocese of Euchaita, conducted to Con-
stantinople, and put into solitary confinement. The Emperor tried to
induce him to accuse Photius of plotting against him, but when con-
fronted with the ex-Patriarch the abbot revealed nothing. Leo VI was
furious and ordered him to be scourged and banished first to Athens,
where his eyes were put out, and thence to the eastern frontier.
Photius thus came out of the struggle apparently defeated, and left
the Greek Church more rent asunder than at his accession. Some hagio-
graphic documents drawn up at this period throw strong light on the
i Vogt, op. cit. pp. 239-244.
2 Vogt, op. cit. p. 249.
3 Mansi, Concilia, xviii. 201.
## p. 255 (#297) ############################################
Contemporary judgments on Photius
255
was
divided attitude of the Greek clergy towards the question of relations
with Rome. The author of the life of St Joseph the Hymn-writer,
Theophanes the Sicilian, who wrote in the last years of the ninth century,
when nearing the end of his work, prays the saint to ask Christ for
the cessation of the disputes and for the restoration of peace in the
Church, and later he vehemently urges Joseph to obtain by his prayers
the boon that orthodoxy remain inviolate! Such was indisputably the
desire of a large part of the Greek clergy, and of the monks of Studion
in particular, whose Igumen, Anthony, had passed almost the whole
patriarchate of Photius in exile.
On the other hand, the life of St Euthymius the Younger of Thessa-
lonica strikes a somewhat different note. The author, Basil, Archbishop
of Thessalonica, admittedly a supporter of Photius, gives a brief but
very partisan account of the vicissitudes of the struggle between Photius
and Ignatius, and throws all the responsibility for the schism onto the
imperial policy. If he abstains from attacking Ignatius, he none the less
considers Photius to be a saint.
“ The Iconoclast heresy,” he says,
already extinct. St Methodius after having governed the Church for five
years had returned to the Lord. Ignatius the Holy had been raised to
the episcopal throne of Constantinople. He governed it for ten years. . . .
In consequence of the persecutions of those who then reigned he left his
throne and his Church, the one voluntarily, the other under compulsion.
He retired to a monastery and published an act of abdication. . . . The
news of this forced abdication soon spread, and in consequence many
refused to take communion with the new Patriarch. The very holy
Nicholas [of Studion), not wishing to have any dealings with him, pre-
ferred to leave his monastery, the new Patriarch being orthodox and
invested with all virtues. This was the blessed Photius, the torch (TOU
owtós) whose rays illuminated the ends of the earth". Then follows a
eulogy of Photius and his incomparable life, and an account of his miracles.
This curious testimony gives us the version of the events which had
been prepared by the adherents of Photius. It shews us the deep im-
pression which this man, who had nothing of the apostle in him but was
first and foremost a politician and a diplomatist, had produced by his
intrepidity. He had posed as a champion of orthodoxy against Rome,
and had thus bequeathed to his successors a formidable weapon
which
was destined to render any new agreement between the two Churches un-
stable and precarious.
Immediately after the deposition of Photius, Leo VI had opened
negotiations with the Pope for the re-establishment of religious union,
but it was only twelve years later, in 898, that any agreement was reached.
The chief difficulty was the question of the bishops consecrated by Photius,
1 Loparov, Byzantine lives of the saints of the eighth and ninth centuries (Vizan-
tiyski Vremennik, vol. xviii. p. 6).
2 Ib. vol. xix. pp. 101–102.
CH, Tx.
## p. 256 (#298) ############################################
256
Restoration of communion with Rome (898)
whose powers the Popes refused to recognise. The Popes, Stephen V
(885-891), Formosus (891-896), Boniface VI, Stephen VI, Romanus,
Theodore II, all refused any concession. In the end an agreement was
reached between Pope John IX and the Patriarch Anthony Cauleas, a
former monk of Olympus in Bithynia (898). A general amnesty was pro-
claimed and concord reigned once more in the Church. Normal relations
revived between Rome and Constantinople! Important evidence on
this point is supplied by Philotheus the atriclines in the work which
he has left on the ceremonial of the imperial court under the title of
Kleterologion. He mentions the arrival at Constantinople in 898 of the
papal legates, Bishop Nicholas and Cardinal John, and he gives the
interesting detail that in the course of the ancient ceremonies they took
precedence of the first order of civil dignitaries, the magistri? . Another
passage of the same work proves that a permanent papal embassy was
re-established at Constantinople. The order of precedence at the imperial
table was fixed thus: after the magistri comes the "syncellus of Rome,”
then that of Constantinople, followed by those of the Eastern Patriarchs3.
Peace seemed therefore definitely restored, but Leo VI intended to
employ this alliance with Rome for the furtherance of his personal aims,
and thus to violate the conditions of the agreement. As had already
happened under Constantine VI, it was the private conduct of the
Emperor which stirred up new dissensions in the Church.
After divorcing Theophano in 893, Leo VI married Zoë, daughter of
Stylianus; then on the death of Zoë he married Eudocia Baiane in 889.
This third marriage was disapproved by the clergy, since the laws against
third marriages, sanctioned even by Leo himself in his Novels, were
very strict. But the crowning scandal was when, after the death of
Eudocia in 901, it was rumoured that the Emperor proposed to take as
his fourth wife his mistress Zoë, “the black-eyed. ” So great was the
indignation that plots were hatched for dethroning the Emperor, and in
902 he narrowly escaped assassination in the church of St Mocius. The
Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus was consulted, but flatly refused his approval.
When, however, Zoë gave birth to a son, the future Constantine Por-
phyrogenitus, the Patriarch and the bishops consented to baptise the
child, if the Emperor undertook not to live any longer with the mother.
The baptism took place with much ceremony in St Sophia on 6 January
906; three days later Leo VI violated his promise and had his marriage
with Zoë celebrated by a clerk of his chapel. The bishops immediately
forbade Leo to enter the churches, and he appealed to the judgment of
the Pope and the Eastern Patriarchs.
Sergius III, who then occupied the pontifical throne, an unworthy
creature of Theophylact and of Theodora, returned a favourable answer
1 Mansi, Concilia, vol. XVIII. col. 101.
2 De Cerimoniis, 11. 52 (MPG, cxII. col. 1293–1299).
3 lb. (MPG, CXXII. col. 1341).
## p. 257 (#299) ############################################
Leo VI and Nicholas Mysticus
257
to Leo VI. On these tidings the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus, who
appeared at first to have sought some means of solving the difficulties,
openly declared against the Emperor. On Christmas Day, in the presence
of the whole court, he forbade the Emperor to enter St Sophia (25 De-
cember 906).
Leo VI lost no time in revenging himself on Nicholas Mysticus, im-
plicated in the conspiracy of Andronicus Ducas, who had fled to the
Saracens. Secret correspondence between the Patriarch and the rebel was
seized. On 6 January 907, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Patri-
arch had once more forbidden the Emperor to enter the church, Leo
yielded, but at the imperial banquet which followed the ceremony he
violently harangued Nicholas Mysticus, and in the presence of all the
metropolitans taxed him with treason. At that moment the Roman
legates arrived at Constantinople. Nicholas refused any dealings with
them, but a considerable section of the bishops abandoned him. The
synod released the Emperor from all ecclesiastical penalties, and Nicholas
Mysticus, compelled to abdicate his office, was sent to a monastery in
Asia. Euthymius was appointed Patriarch, and the rival headship divided
the Greek Church ; several bishops were banished or imprisoned. On
9 June 911 Euthymius anointed the son of Zoë, Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, Emperor.
Seized with remorse in his last moments, Leo VI reinstalled Nicholas
Mysticus on the patriarchal throne, and gave orders that Euthymius
should be deposed (911). His brother Alexander now became sole
Emperor, and chafing at the obscurity in which he had been kept, did his
best also to reverse all that had been done in the previous reign. Zoë was
driven from the palace, Euthymius struck in the face in the presence of
the Emperor, and Nicholas Mysticus solemnly re-instated. His first care
was to send to Pope Anastasius a memorandum in which he traduced the
character of Leo VI, blamed the weakness of Sergius III, whom his legates
had misled, and claimed reparation for the scandal. On the death of
Alexander, 6 June 912, the Patriarch, being marked out as head of the
council of regency for the young Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was all-
powerful for several months. In October 913 Zoë succeeded in ousting
him from the government, but could not induce Euthymius to resume
his office.
Subsequent events in which Byzantium was engrossed for seven
years, war with the Bulgarians, the revolt and coronation of Romanus
Lecapenus, caused the affair of Leo's fourth marriage to sink into the back-
ground. It was only in 920 that Nicholas Mysticus, probably instigated
by Romanus Lecapenus, petitioned Pope John X to send new legates to
Constantinople. The entente with Rome was restored. The memory of
Euthymius, who had died in the interval, was vindicated. In the presence
of the Emperors Romanus and Constantine, Nicholas Mysticus solemnly
promulgated a tomus unionis, reconciling the two parties. Leo's good
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. IX.
17
## p. 258 (#300) ############################################
258
Concord of the two Churches
name was sacrificed for this agreement; he was declared absolved on
special conditions, and the Church stigmatised in severe terms the fourth
and even the third marriage!
Peace then seemed to reign once more between Rome and Constanti-
nople, and the Greek Church had again accepted the arbitration of the
Pope. But the excessive leniency of the Court of Rome towards Leo VI
by no means increased its prestige. On the other hand the Emperor had
set an example which could not be lost on his successors. The alliance
with the Pope had only been a device for calming the agitation produced
by his fourth marriage. The same Emperor who had written letters to
Rome emphasising his zeal for the See of St Peter, had addressed to his
people veritable homilies in which he savagely attacked the doctrine of
the double Procession of the Holy Ghost, a policy hạrdly likely to con-
duce to a lasting peace. And so it turned out; the relations between
the two Churches were constantly dominated by the political affairs of
Byzantium at home and abroad.
Except for the ephemeral schism of Sergius, concord existed officially
between the two Churches for 134 years, from 920–1054. It must be
added that this concord was real. This is the impression produced, if the
official relations are neglected and only those of the ordinary members of
the two Churches are considered. It may safely be said that the large
majority of the Westerners and of the Greeks dreaded schism, and that
the two parties, far from mutual hatred and excommunication, considered
themselves members of the same Church. The influx of Eastern monks
into Rome, Italy, and the entire West at this period, episodes such as the
reception of St Nilus at Monte Cassino and his establishment at Grotta
Ferrata (1004), the numerous Western pilgrims passing through Con-
stantinople and the cordial welcome they received there, shew con-
clusively that the faithful of the two cults were animated with a true
spirit of charity one towards the other and did not attach too great im-
portance to the difference in their customs'. Neither of them desired
schism; it was their pastors and princes, not they themselves, who were
solely responsible for it.
But however favourable the circumstances were for the union, it was
during this period that the definitive separation was prepared. Not that
the causes of divergence were multiplied, but historic events modified the
situation and favoured the rupture.
First of all, there was the diminishing prestige of Rome. After the
end of the ninth century feudal anarchy attacked the Church and did not
spare even the throne of St Peter. The Papacy became a fief for which
the barons of the Roman Campagna disputed. It was the sinister epoch
1 Hergenröther, Photius, vol. 111. p. 684; Epistolae Nicolai Mystici, MPG, (XI,
col. 276.
2 Leo VI, Oratio de Spiritu Sancto, MPG, cvii. col. 131.
3 L Brehier, Le Schisme Oriental du xre siècle, pp. 18–34.
## p. 259 (#301) ############################################
Lessened prestige of Rome
259
of an Alberic, a Theodora, a Marozia, and a Crescentius. Then, dating
from the coronation of Otto (962), the Popes were creatures of the Ger-
manic Emperors. Rome became a field for intrigues, and the Byzantine
Emperors, rivals in Southern Italy of the Germanic Emperors, naturally
sought to win partisans for themselves there and to influence the election
of the Popes. The Papacy, become a tool of the temporal princes, was on
the verge of seeing the catholic character of its power disappear. It had
lost all moral authority, and events were destined to disappoint sadly
the reliance of the Studites on Roman supremacy.
At this moment, with the Papacy weakened, the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople saw his influence increase. That was the inevitable consequence
of the policy of victorious expansion which the Macedonian dynasty fol-
lowed. It was not merely the victories of Nicephorus Phocas, of John
Tzimisces, and of Basil II, but also the success of the missions to Slav
countries, and in particular the conversion of the Russians, which helped
to spread the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The
recovery of Southern Italy was followed by the reconstitution of a
Greek ecclesiastical hierarchy in Apulia and in Calabria, where colonies of
Basilian monks were founded. After the baptism of Vladímir (989), the
clerics of Constantinople had organised the Russian Church, whose
metropolitan bishop was strictly subordinated to the Patriarchate. Simi-
larly Basil II, after terminating the independence of Bulgaria (1018),
substituted an archbishop, a suffragan of Constantinople, for the Patriarch
of Ochrida. The military and diplomatic successes of the same Emperor
in Armenia, and later the annexation of that country by Constantine IX,
resulted in drawing more closely and more cordially the bonds of union
between the Greek and Armenian Churches. Finally, in Palestine the
protectorate over the holy places and the Christian inhabitants passed
at the beginning of the eleventh century from the Franks to the Byzantine
Emperors?
While the Roman Church was ravaged by schism, simony, and
nepotism, the Patriarch of Constantinople bulked more and more as
the spiritual head of the East. Although many of the Patriarchs had
been monks and some had issued even from the monastery of Studion,
they had been accustomed to despise the Papacy. Enjoying virtual auto-
nomy as regards Rome, they actually tried to obtain official recognition
of the fact.
The Emperors far more than the Patriarchs maintained unbroken
relations with Rome, and for them it was always political interests, internal
or external, that were at stake. Thus when Romanus Lecapenus, desirous
of placing his power on a secure basis and assuring the future of his
dynasty, undertook to raise his son Theophylact, a mere child, to the
patriarchal dignity, he applied to Rome. On their side, Pope John XI,
son of Marozia, and his brother Alberic, Prince of the Romans, sought his
1 L. Brehier, L'Église et l'Orient au moyen âge. Les Croisades, pp. 38–39.
17-2
CA. IX.
## p. 260 (#302) ############################################
260
Independence of the Greek Church
alliance. The young Theophylact, aged sixteen years, was consecrated
Patriarch on 2 February 933, in the presence of four papal legates. To
arrive at this result Romanus Lecapenus had extorted an act of abdi-
cation from the Patriarch Tryphon, but there is no indication that this
scandalous act raised the slightest protest from the clergy? Theophy-
lact, devoid of the slightest ecclesiastical vocation, led an absolutely
worldly life while filling the patriarchal chair, trafficking in dispensa-
tions and bishoprics, surrounding himself with pantomimists and dancers,
and shewing a consuming passion for horses, which he bred at great cost.
He survived the palace revolution which overthrew his father (944), and
died in 956 owing to a fall from his horse.
After the middle of the tenth century a strong current of asceticism
swept through the Greek Church. This was the epoch when St Athanasius,
the spiritual director of Nicephorus Phocas, founded the convent of St
Laura on Mount Athos (961), which was to become the most important
monastic centre of the East. All the successors of Theophylact in the
Patriarchate, Polyeuctes (956–970), Basil the Scamandrian (970–974),
Anthony of Studion (974–980), were monks of great austerity, whose
uncompromising attitude led often to conflicts with the imperial power.
It does not appear that in these disputes the Court of Rome ever tried
to arbitrate or that it was ever asked to do so. The relations between
Rome and Constantinople seem under Constantine VII, Nicephorus
Phocas, and John Tzimisces to have been exclusively political. Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, allied with King Hugh of Italy, sent a fleet to his help
to protect Provence and Central Italy against the Saracens. Under
Nicephorus Phocas, Southern Italy was the debateable point, and the
unfortunate embassy of Liudprand, Bishop of Cremona, sent by Otto I
in 968, illustrates the barrier of misunderstanding and prejudice which
separated the Greeks from the Westerners.
In purely religious questions, on the contrary, where the authority of
the Pope was concerned, the Emperors and Patriarchs took the most
important steps without paying any attention to Rome. In 964 Nice-
phorus Phocas published his celebrated Novel on the monasteries, which
aroused violent opposition amongst the clergy, without its opponents
even attempting to support their cause by calling in Rome, as the
Studites had formerly done. Similarly, without consulting the Pope,
Nicephorus Phocas altered the ecclesiastical divisions of Southern Italy
by creating the province of Otranto and by attempting to hellenise
Apulia. No protests were raised by Rome, but we have the testimony
of Liudprand to shew what dissatisfaction was caused among the Latin
clergy by this act.
The feeling which seemed to dominate more and more the Greek
i Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin, p. 221.
2 Liudprandi Legatio, 62 (MGH, Script. 111. pp. 361–63). Gay, op. cit. pp. 351-
853.
## p. 261 (#303) ############################################
Strained relations with Rome
261
Church was a certain contempt for these Latins, whom it considered
mere barbarians, while the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose authority
had been founded by the Ecumenical Councils, had been able to keep
inviolate the orthodox faith entrusted to him. This is shewn by the
curious conversation which the Patriarch Polyeuctes held with Liud-
prand at the imperial table on 6 July 968, and by the contemptuous
tone in which he questioned him on the number of councils held in the
West. He spoke scoffingly of the Saxon Council, “ too young yet to
figure in the canonical collections. ”ı
Nothing, however, shews more clearly the way in which the authority
of the Papacy was despised than the incident caused by the arrival of
the legates, whom Pope John XIII had sent to support the negotia-
tions of Liudprand with a view to an alliance between the two Empires
(19 August 968). Nicephorus Phocas had just started for the army in
Asia, but when his cabinet dealt with the Pope's letter it discovered with
indignation that Otto had been designated in it as “august Emperor
of the Romans” and Nicephorus as “Emperor of the Greeks. ” This was
a gross blunder which might well be taken for an insult. The Byzantine
Emperors proudly vaunted the tradition which connected them with the
Caesars of ancient Rome, and the term “Hellenes” had acquired at
Constantinople the sense of “Pagans. ” The hapless legates were thrown
into prison pending the decision of the Emperor, and Liudprand himself,
held responsible for this wanton affront, was forced to promise formally
that the objectionable words should be corrected at Rome?
At the end of the tenth century proofs of the enmity of the Patri-
archs of Constantinople towards Rome grew more numerous. Whatever
their origin, whether laymen elected to the patriarchate like Sisinnius,
physician and magister (996–998), or monks like Sergius, Igumen of the
monastery of Manuel (998-1019), they shew the same hostility. In 997
Sisinnius published a regulation against unlawful marriages, which con-
demned by implication the authorisation granted by the Popes to Leo VI
to contract a fourth marriage. In an encyclical to the bishops of Asia
Minor the same Patriarch revived the already ancient dispute about the
double Procession of the Holy Ghosts.
His successor, Sergius, went a step farther. In 1009 he assembled a
synod at Constantinople, confirmed the ordinances of Photius against
Latin usages, and erased the name of the Pope from the diptychs. It
must be borne in mind that at this moment the organisation of a Greek
hierarchy in Russia had singularly increased the power of the Patri-
archate. This extraordinary increase of prestige may possibly have stimu-
lated the Patriarch to claim for himself entire freedom from any spiritual
1 Liud prandi Legatio, 21, 22 (MGH, Script. III. pp. 351-52). Seemingly the
Council of Frankfort held in 794.
Liudprandi Legatio, 47 (MGH, Script. 111. pp. 357–58
3 Schlumberger, Epopée byzantine, vol. 11. pp.
