The Moechian Controversy and the Constantinopolitan Synod of January A.D. 809

Patrick Henry [1]

Source: Journal of Theological Studies, N.S., Vol. XX, Pt. 2, October 1969, pp. 495-522.

 

 

In the first decade of the ninth century the Byzantine Church could ill afford controversy. A half-century of depredation at the hands of Iconoclastic emperors had been brought to an end in A.D. 787 at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II), but the reconciliation of dissident factions within the Church had required tactful and patient diplomacy on the part of Patriarch Tarasius. The fragility of the solution would become evident in A.D. 814–15 when Emperor Leo V renewed the policy of Iconoclasm and found considerable episcopal support. The crowning of Charlemagne in St. Peter’s on Christmas Day A.D. 800, symbolically uniting the interests of the only apostolic see in the West with those of the Frankish Empire, was more portentous for the future relations of the patriarchs of Old and New Rome than anyone could see at the time. Byzantium might nonetheless have been more sensitive to the portents, especially since the Libri Carolini had already shown the West’s predisposition to be displeased with the East, had there not been internal ecclesiastical distractions just at this critical juncture.

I

It was initially a question of divorce and remarriage. In the year 795 Emperor Constantine VI sent his wife Maria to a nunnery and crowned, first regally and then nuptially, one of the ex-empress’s ladies-in-waiting, Theodote, who had been his paramour for a number of years. Constantine was a rather pitiful figure, a pawn in the hands of his ambitious mother Irene, who is reported both to have arranged the initial marriage with Maria, after protracted negotiations for a union with a daughter of Charlemagne broke down, and to have urged Constantine to go through with the divorce and remarriage, knowing that such behaviour would inflame public opinion against her son. (The Byzantines, like the British, appear to have had what Macaulay termed ‘periodic fits of morality’.) In August A.D. 797 Irene ordered that Constantine be blinded in the room where twenty-seven years before she had given birth to him, and ‘this most religious woman’ (αὕτη ἡ θεοφιλεστάτη ἄνθρωπος), as the biographer of Theodore of Studios calls her, assumed the throne. She ruled for five years and got the Empire into such financial chaos that her Minister of Finance Nicephorus, perhaps as much from despair as from ambition, arranged an efficient and bloodless coup d’état and became emperor in A.D. 802. [2]

The fact that Theophanes says Irene suggested a change of wives to her son in order to arouse public opinion may be good evidence that the people were in fact disgusted, although we have no way of knowing for sure what the average Byzantine’s attitude was. There is very good reason to believe that what Irene was chiefly relying on was the reaction of the monastic community, and that it was the monks who were to give the lead to public opinion. The monks were not in any sense unanimous in their disapproval of the emperor’s marital irregularities, but opposition came from influential quarters, and Constantine made the grave error of sanctifying his adversaries by beating them and sending them into exile. At a stroke he transformed opposition from petulance into heroism, and made possible a quantum jump in the sense of unity and cohesiveness in the monastic establishment, which had been slowly reconstituting itself since the Second Nicene Council. The monks did not suddenly present a united front; they never had and they never would. But Constantine made them more aware of their common interests.

The first intimations of trouble came from the monastery of Saccudion near Brusa in Bithynia. This had originally been a private estate belonging to a noble family of Constantinople, but early in the 780s the whole family had renounced the world, adopted the monastic life and moved to Saccudion, where separate monasteries for the men and women were established. The moving force in this decision was Plato, a man who had been trained for the Imperial Civil Service but had placed himself under the guidance of a holy man named Theoctistus, abbot of the Symbols monastery on Mt. Olympus. Plato spent the years of Constantine V’s fierce Iconoclasm in hiding, but with the beginning of the reign of Leo IV (Irene’s husband and Constantine VI’s father) in A.D. 775 he returned to the capital where his reputation for holiness joined forces with his extensive and impressive family connections to make him something of a social lion. [3]

Plato had his greatest success with the family of his sister Theoctista. Her husband, Photinus, had a responsible position in the Imperial Treasury. They were sincere Iconodules, but also circumspect ones, since Photinus had been able to retain his post even when Constantine V’s Iconoclasm became most vicious. They had four children—a daughter whose name we do not know, and three sons: Euthymius, Joseph, who would eventually become Archbishop of Thessalonica, and Theodore, destined to become the most influential reformer in the history of Eastern monasticism. Plato first persuaded Theoctista and Theodore to opt for the monastic life. They were already favourably disposed, so gaining them was easy. They in turn finally persuaded the less tractable members of the family, and the whole lot of them, including three brothers of Photinus, left the city and settled at Saccudion. [4]

II

The years between the family’s move in A.D. 781 and Constantine VI’s divorce and remarriage saw a remarkable increase in the size of the monastic foundation at Saccudion. By the year 794 there were a hundred monks—a figure we know from the monk Michael’s account of an occasion on which Plato, perhaps pretending to be more ill than he really was, induced the brotherhood to elect Theodore abbot in succession to him, and then recovered to live another twenty years. [5] For the duration of the stay at Saccudion uncle and nephew served as joint abbots, although Plato found increasing opportunity to satisfy his predilection for the life of a recluse.

Plato had been present at the Council of Nicaea. He was in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople in the year 786 when the first attempt at a council was made. The assembled bishops and abbots were almost immediately routed by Iconoclastic troops. The troops themselves, traditionally the nucleus of Iconoclastic sentiment, had agents among the council members, for some bishops were heard to shout ‘Νενικήκαμεν’ (‘We have won!’) when the soldiers burst into the hall. Amidst this confusion Plato was one of the few to keep a cool head, according to Theodore. This display of imperturbability caught the attention of Patriarch Tarasius, who relied to some extent on Plato’s support and judgement the next year when the council did succeed in getting itself held in Nicaea, partly as a result of Irene’s cleverly sending the Iconoclastic troops out of the capital to fight an imaginary contingent of Arabs, and then disarming them. [6]

Many years later Theodore would look with mixed feelings on his uncle’s participation in the Council of Nicaea. Ecclesiastical history remembers that council as the one which established the Orthodox dogma of images. For Theodore, however, that was only one of its actions and not necessarily its major one, since the dogma of images in his opinion was as old as the Incarnation itself, and had been stated for all time by St. Basil the Great in his dictum that was quoted endlessly by the Iconodules: ἡ τῆς εἰκόνος τιμὴ ἐπὶ τὸ πρωτότυπον διαβαίνει (‘the honour paid to the image is transferred to the prototype’). [7] The council had also to decide what to do about repentant Iconoclastic clerics, especially bishops. It was the old problem of the lapsi in its eighth-century form. A monkish group of Council Fathers, led by the abbots Sabas and Theoctistus, initially opposed the restoration to rank of the prime movers of the heresy, but when the majority decided to admit even these men in imitation of the action of the Council of Chalcedon, Sabas and Theoctistus assented. For the sake of reconciliation concessions were in order. [8]

An analogous problem was not settled so amicably. The organizational disruption of the Church occasioned by Constantine V’s attacks had opened numerous doors to graft, and the practice of simony had spread widely. The accusation of having bought and sold the gift of the Holy Spirit touched many of the Fathers of the Council personally, and it may have been the desire to avoid extensive embarrassment that led to the issue being postponed. Tarasius’ eventual solution, which bears marks of temporizing in the face of imperial pressure as well as of statesmanlike compromise, was such as to leave the Saccudites somewhat disenchanted with the patriarch. This, at least, is the impression we get from Theodore’s later reminiscences about this period. The fact that a couple of years after the council Plato arranged for Theodore to be ordained priest by Tarasius himself suggests that relations were not seriously strained, and that subsequent controversy encouraged Theodore to ‘remember’ more dissatisfaction than he had felt at the time. [9]

When Constantine VI finally decided to make new marital arrangements he tried hard to win the support of Tarasius, since in Byzantium it was ‘certainly customary for patriarchs, not for some priest or other, to perform the wedding ceremony for emperors’ (ἔστι γὰρ πάντως πατριάρχας βασιλεῖς στεφανοῦν, οὐχ ἱερέα τινά). [10] Constantine accused Maria of trying to poison him, and produced a vial of liquid which he claimed was the intended murder weapon. Tarasius told him to his face that the charge was a trumped-up rationalization for imperial lust, and that if Constantine carried through his plan he would be denied communion. The patriarch was unceremoniously ejected from the palace. [11]

The patriarch was not the only ecclesiastic whose approval the emperor sought. Constantine sent a series of emissaries to Saccudion to try to convince Plato and Theodore to sanction his divorce and remarriage. There were at least two reasons for this. Saccudion was clearly a nerve centre for the revival of monasticism, and decisions made there could be expected to become normative for much of the monastic establishment. Also, Constantine’s new wife, Theodote, was a close relative of the abbots of Saccudion, being Theodore’s cousin. Others of her clerical relatives who hovered around the court were understandably very much in favour of what the emperor had done, since they now had an advocate sharing the imperial throne as well as the imperial bed. They thought Plato and Theodore could be persuaded by arguments of family solidarity and advantage, but they were wrong. Their frustrating visits to Saccudion were followed by the arrival of expensive presents from Theodote herself, but all to no avail. Constantine visited some thermal baths in the region, apparently hoping that the Saccudites would take the opportunity he thus gave them to pay him a traditional and formal visit during which they might try to settle their differences in personal negotiation. The monks pointedly stayed home, and Constantine was soon called back to the capital by news that Theodote had borne him a son. [12]

The marriage ceremony itself had been an adroit piece of canonical legerdemain. Constantine knew that no prospect could so appal Tarasius as the undoing of his restoration of Orthodoxy, so he threatened to renew Iconoclasm if the patriarch stood squarely in his way. Tarasius continued to refuse to perform the wedding. A priest named Joseph, who held the offices both of steward (οἰκονόμος) of Hagia Sophia and abbot of the Kathara monastery, officiated at the ceremony, and while from that time on Tarasius scrupulously avoided concelebrating the liturgy with Joseph, the patriarch nonetheless made no move to depose or excommunicate the priest, and he did not turn the emperor away when he appeared for communion. Some years later Theodore’s opponents would taunt him with the claim that the holy Tarasius had ordered Joseph to perform the wedding. Theodore says that is a plausible argument, but he does not believe it. Theodore’s opinion is probably correct, since he thought Tarasius’ weakness was in failing to depose Joseph, and since Constantine could certainly have found numerous willing agents among the court clergy who would not pause for a ceremonial order, or even permission, from the patriarchal palace. Theodore considered that Tarasius should have shown his disapproval of the marriage ex post facto by some dramatic display of patriarchal authority. The sin was one of omission rather than commission. [13]

III

The specific aim of the various family and official visits to Saccudion was to persuade the monks to return to communion with the patriarch. At this stage in Theodore’s career a breaking of communion was something of a technicality, since Saccudion was rather far from the capital and disaffection would not often become apparent by repeated absence from appointed ceremonies. The technicality became the source of rumours, however, and to the extent that these monks could disturb the consciences of the people it was highly desirable that they be persuaded to restore full relations with the patriarch. Theodore complained about all these invasions of his monastic solitude, and blamed the emperor and his emissaries for making the Saccudites’ canonical circumspection into a cause célèbre. The monks would have been content to remain quietly and unobtrusively out of communion with Tarasius, although Theodore strongly opposed the argument that he, a mere monk and priest, had no right to pass judgement on anything done by the patriarch. [14]

Constantine’s annoyance at Saccudion’s inflexibility developed into a conviction that imperial prerogatives and authority were at stake, and in February A.D. 797 he dispatched some troops to the monastery. Plato was taken to Constantinople, where his jailer was none other than Joseph of Kathara. Theodore and three other leading Saccudites were beaten, and then eleven monks, including Theodore and his brother Joseph, were exiled to Thessalonica, and the remaining brethren were dispersed from the monastery. From Thessalonica Theodore wrote a letter to Plato in which he recounted in vivid detail the various stages of the sea and land journey. The prisoners were occasionally treated harshly, although in nearly every town they were cheered as heroes and some bishops welcomed them warmly. Theoctista was at one point able to visit her sons secretly at night; a short time later she went to Constantinople to agitate among her influential friends for her brother’s release, and raised such commotion that she herself was jailed for thirty days. The whole process of punishment was not terribly severe, and outside the capital Constantine’s orders appear to have had less than overwhelming force. Theophanes says Irene looked after her supporters, although he does not specify what help she gave. The Queen Mother may have had agents stationed along the route to Thessalonica to give aid and comfort to the Saccudites. [15]

The emperor did not hurt the monks very badly, and when he was blinded and deposed half a year after his exercise of strong-arm tactics against them, and Irene recalled the monks from exile, they returned in a kind of triumphal procession. The goodwill lavished on the Saccudites could now also include the patriarch, for Tarasius very quickly took the opportunity offered him by the change of ruler to depose Joseph of Kathara. The stumbling-block was out of the way, and Plato and Theodore publicly acknowledged their reconciliation with the patriarch. The era of good feeling which began late in the year 797 lasted without interruption until the death of Tarasius in the year 806, after a patriarchal reign of twenty-two years, one of the longest in Byzantine history. [16]

IV

In the meantime Irene had shown her regard for the Saccudites by installing them in the monastery of Studios on the south-west edge of Constantinople. In its heyday Studios had been the centre of the monastic group known as the Acoemeti (‘Sleepless Ones’), so called from their policy of having the liturgy going twenty-four hours a day. The years of Constantine V had been disastrous for Studios, and by the time Theodore became abbot there were less than ten monks left in residence. Theodore’s reputation and energy were such that within a very few years Studios was thriving with at least 700 monks, and maybe as many as 1,000. It was for this institution that Theodore undertook the revision and streamlining of St. Basil’s monastic principles and rules, with a success that led to his being hailed in his lifetime as ‘another Basil’, and to the Rule of Studios eventually becoming the basis for the monasticism of Mt. Athos and Russia. Situated in the capital city at the head of many hundreds of monks, Theodore was now more powerful, more dangerous—and more vulnerable. [17]

Theodore was probably apprehensive when Irene was replaced by Nicephorus. In addition to showing special favour to him and his uncle, the empress had assisted the cause of monasticism in general by rescinding a number of taxes that weighed on monastic property, and Theodore wrote to thank her. This did not preclude his congratulating Nicephorus several years later for having cleared up Irene’s financial mess. [18] Theodore appreciated favours, but he admired efficiency and competence. The fact that Nicephorus, while not a patron of the monks as his predecessor had been, was nonetheless formally respectful of them, must have eliminated most monastic apprehensiveness. But it would soon become clear that Tarasius had in fact served as a kind of buffer between Nicephorus and the monks. Theodore’s ability to build a strong institution at Studios may have depended more than he knew on the patriarch’s longevity.

The first order of ecclesiastical business after Tarasius’ death was the election of his successor. The emperor went through the traditional formalities of seeking advice from the various sectors of the Church. Plato nominated Theodore and engaged in nocturnal lobbying among court clerics on behalf of his candidate. Theodore himself did not propose any specific name, but characterized the ideal patriarch in such a way as to make crystal clear his conviction that no layman should be made one of the five heads of Christ’s Church. Although Tarasius had proved to be on the whole a good thing, he had been advanced from lay status directly to the patriarchate, and the Westerners, conveniently forgetting about such luminaries as Ambrose of Milan, had made this irregularity a target of their attack on the East. Theodore believed the Church needed a head who would be above suspicion, either canonical or moral. [19]

The man chosen satisfied the latter of these two criteria. The Imperial Secretary Nicephorus was a man of rather austere habits. He appears to have had an inkling of the emperor’s intentions, since he fulfilled a long-standing desire to make profession as a monk. Once elected, he was quickly advanced through the hierarchical grades and was consecrated patriarch on Easter Day A.D. 806. Plato and Theodore thought well enough of the new patriarch personally, but they were angry at the total disregard of their concern for proper procedure. The emperor did not want the installation ceremony to be marred by unseemly demonstrations, so he arrested the leading Studites and kept them in confinement for twenty-four days while Nicephorus worked his way up the ecclesiastical ladder from bottom to top. When that was completed Plato and Theodore accepted the fait accompli with rather better grace than might have been expected. [20]

V

It was nearly a decade since the troublesome Joseph of Kathara had been eliminated from the Church; Constantine VI was dead, and the whole issue must have seemed remote, or at least settled. The Studites were caught off-guard when, within a few months of his consecration, Patriarch Nicephorus called a synod of fifteen bishops for the purpose of restoring Joseph to communion and to the priesthood. The emperor instigated this, and he was willing to open this old wound not primarily because he wanted to antagonize the monks, but because Joseph had served him well in helping to bring an end to a dangerous revolt in the year 803. In return for his services to the State Joseph was to be restored to favour with the Church. [21]

The statement that the Studites were caught off-guard is an hypothesis designed to explain the curious fact that their opposition took nearly two years to come into the open. If they were willing to make sufficient noise to provoke arrest in the case of the patriarchal election, it is difficult to see why they remained silent on an issue for which they had previously endured floggings and exile. Until some time early in A.D. 808 the monks succeeded in avoiding communion with all who concelebrated the liturgy with Joseph of Kathara, most significant among that group being the patriarch himself. Theodore says this policy worked because the Studites were able to concoct excuses (ψευδοπροφάσεις) for their failure to appear at ceremonies where they were expected. They were exercising ‘economy’ in avoiding direct confrontation while at the same time they remained canonically upright by avoiding contamination. ‘Economy’ in this case sounds like a cover for the absence of any clear idea how to deal effectively with the reopening of a closed issue. [22]

Patriarch Nicephorus appears to have had little if any suspicion of the Studite disapproval of what he had done. When the see of Thessalonica became vacant late in the year 806 or early in 807 the two Nicephori made Theodore’s brother Joseph archbishop of that city, where ten years before he had been sent as a prisoner. Joseph later had pangs of conscience about his acceptance of such a post from one who had been less than strict in defence of ecclesiastical canons, but as in the case of Theodore and the simony question, memory magnified scruples. [23]

The preferment of Joseph had two significant consequences. Theodore’s brother found that ecclesiastical affairs from the episcopal throne looked different from the way they appeared in the monastery. He became more conciliatory, and found his brother’s rigorism increasingly embarrassing. [24] One is tempted to think that emperor and patriarch did in fact know of the Studite protest, and made Joseph an archbishop in order to generate conflict within the opposition. However that may be, the other consequence was very specific. In the early part of the year 808 Joseph visited Constantinople. He stayed at Studios while he was in the city, and during his time there several feast days occurred on which any out-of-town bishops who were in the capital customarily joined the patriarch in celebrating the liturgy. It is unclear whether Joseph was already more bishop than monk—that is, we cannot be sure whether he was acting on his own convictions or at the behest of Theodore—but he did not appear at the appropriate time and place. This was a far more serious slight than the excused absences of plain monks, and the Studite protest was no longer secret.

An imperial agent, the Logothete of the Course, came to Studios and interrogated Joseph.

Why haven’t you communicated with us [sc. the emperors Nicephorus and Stauracius, his son] and with the patriarch up to the present time, even though many feast days have come and gone? Give me a straight answer.

The archbishop confessed—he did not deny, but he confessed: ‘I have nothing against our devout emperors, or indeed against the patriarch, but rather against the steward who performed the wedding for the adulterer and as a result was deposed by the sacred canons.’

The Logothete’s reply was this: ‘Our devout emperors do not need you, either in Thessalonica or anywhere else.’ [25]

This report of the way in which the controversy was forced into the open comes from a letter Theodore wrote to the brethren in Saccudion only thirteen days after the event in order to let them know why the motive for the protest was now common knowledge. During the fortnight no further response had been given by Joseph and no additional questions had been asked. But the implied threat of deposition for the archbishop had made it clear to the Studites that the emperor was irritated with them, and in Dobroklonsky’s words, ‘they began to prepare for a storm’. [26]

The next few weeks or months would see Theodore engaged in feverish letter-writing activity, on the one hand trying to justify his position to the court and the patriarch, and on the other hand searching for adherents. Additional time for manoeuvring was provided by the emperor’s being called to leave the capital on a military expedition. He had already refused to grant an audience to Theodore and Joseph, and did not even permit Joseph to salute him as he left the city. While he was gone the Studites made appeals to various officials who either neglected to answer or gave evidence of duplicity. [27]

Upon the return of the emperor from his military campaign late in A.D. 808 decisive action was taken. The monastery of Studios was surrounded by a detachment of soldiers so that, in Theodore’s vivid language, the monks could scarcely breathe. Two bishops, those of Nicaea and Chrysopolis, were sent to Studios to try to convince Theodore and his monks to give up their protest on the ground that Tarasius, who was now among the saints, had ordered Joseph to perform the marriage ceremony. This argument had no effect on Theodore since, as we have seen, he was convinced that Tarasius had not in fact given such an order. After the failure of this appeal Theodore, Plato, Archbishop Joseph, and a leading Studite named Calogerus were taken under armed guard from Studios and held in custody at the monastery of St. Sergius. Here the court monk Symeon came twice for final and fruitless attempts at pacification. [28]

VI

In January A.D. 809 a synod was held in Constantinople at imperial urging. It is not known how many bishops and abbots were present; three high civil officials were there. The four Studites who had been previously arrested were brought before this council. The debates were stormy. As he did at every opportunity during the controversy, Theodore cited the analogy between his own action and that of John the Baptist, patron saint of the monastery of Studios, who had denounced Herod’s adultery with Herodias and died for doing so. When Theodore exclaimed, ‘John the Forerunner is perishing! The Gospel is being destroyed! This is not economy!’ the bishops rebuked him for babbling. Theodore, Plato, and Calogerus were led away while the synod kept Archbishop Joseph for a special judgement.

It is difficult to specify the decrees of this synod. We know them only from Theodore’s letters, and it is not easy to disentangle the actual decrees from his reflections on them and deductions from them. The historian must look very critically at reports given by the man who was the primary target of the synod’s action, and who gave the synod the ugly name ‘Moechian’ (‘Adulterous’). [29]

Dobroklonsky has devoted many pages to an analysis of Theodore’s statements about the synod and has extracted a set of seven propositions which he attributes to the gathered bishops and abbots. These are as follows:

1. It is permissible in the interests of the Church to weaken Church rules according to the example of the saints who have used economy.

2. Church rules may be set aside (according to need and for a good end?) in connection with emperors.

3. (The privilege of weakening regulations belongs to the bishops.) Bishops have the power to deal with Church rules according to their discretion.

4. The marriage of Constantine and Theodote was a saving economy for the Church.

5. For this reason Joseph is guiltless and should be raised in holy rank.

6. Anathema to those who do not accept the economies of the saints (and these conciliar definitions).

7. As for Theodore, Archbishop Joseph, and others, as being guilty of failure to recognize conciliar definitions, of schism and self-willed quarrel, let them be deposed and anathematized. [30]

Grumel, Regestes, No. 378, assigns to the January council itself a single action: ‘Condemnation synodale avec anathème de tous ceux qui ne veulent pas accepter à titre d’économie le rétablissement du prêtre Joseph.’ He then lists three other related items, dating them simply ‘en 809’: No. 379, ‘Cédule de déposition et d’anathème envoyé à Théodore et à ses deux compagnons dans leur prison de Saint-Mamas’ (where they were taken after the synod); No. 380, ‘Condemnation synodale de Platon et de trois autres à l’exil’; No. 381, ‘Déposition de Joseph de Thessalonique pour avoir célébré la liturgie au monastère de Studios sur l’invitation de son frère Théodore.’

The evidence on which No. 380 rests is in Laud. Plat. xxxvi–xxxvii. 840A–1A, written more than five years after the synod. Theodore mentions that Plato with three others (unnamed) was brought before the council and treated very roughly, as though he were a criminal. Then, after indicating that the synod had behaved more deplorably than all the previous ‘robber synods’, he passes over the immediately subsequent events (τὰ ἐν μέσῳ) to say that what had been done was confirmed by exile (κυροῦται ἐξορίᾳ).

Grumel appears to have misread this information in two ways. First, the ‘three others’ are surely Theodore, Joseph of Thessalonica, and Calogerus, and Theodore is simply reporting what we know also from Ep. i. 48, 1073CD (written much sooner after the event), that these four Studites were brought before the synod. Second, the language of Laud. Plat. at this point does not clearly say that the synod itself gave the order for exile. Indeed, the text most naturally suggests that the decree of exile followed a series of events that were themselves subsequent to the council, and was designed to confirm what had been decided there. [31]

Grumel separates the order for exile from the meeting of the synod, and in this respect he is right. I do not agree, however, with his derivation of a ‘condemnation synodale . . . à l’exil’ from the evidence. Theodore’s remarks in Ep. i. 48, 1073A, on which Grumel bases his No. 379, provide material and suggestions for a probable reconstruction of events.

Theodore recounts the delivery of a ὑπαναγνωστικὸν καθαιρέσεως καὶ ἀναθεματίσεως ἡμῶν, subsequent to an oral declaration of the same decision, to himself and two others, whom he specifies as the steward of Studios (Naucratius) and the monk Arsenius. It seems to me highly likely that the written statement of anathema and deposition was composed some time after the initial meeting of the synod, and that it was not published until the emperor had tried to drive a wedge between the Studite brotherhood and their abbot (see below, Section VII). When that effort failed, two of the key monks were put in custody with Theodore, and then the official conciliar document was presented. Once again, Grumel is right in placing an item after the primary session of the synod.

It need not be assumed that the ὑπαναγνωστικόν mentioned Naucratius and Arsenius by name. The power to send people into exile did not belong to the synod, but to the emperor. The emperor had already condemned the Studite brotherhood as a whole to banishment for refusing to resume communion with the patriarch in opposition to Theodore. I believe that the ὑπαναγνωστικόν named Plato as well as Theodore (and probably Calogerus), and that it was concurrently presented to Plato (who was being held in custody somewhere else), together with an imperial order for their exile. The action Grumel attributes to the synod in No. 380 was traditionally not a prerogative of ecclesiastical officials, and since Theodore, who certainly saw conciliar and imperial actions in this controversy as being of a piece, nowhere says explicitly that the synod decreed exile, it is best to assume that it did not.

It is not clear why Grumel separates his No. 381 from the actions of the synod. In Ep. i. 48, 1073D, Theodore clearly implies that the deposition of his brother Joseph to the rank of priest was undertaken by the council immediately after the other three prisoners had left the room. The council members appear to have caught the Archbishop of Thessalonica on a canonical technicality. Following a suggestion of Dobroklonsky, I think it likely that Joseph was accused of infringing the requirements of Apostolic Canons XXXIV and XXXV and Canons IX and XIII of Antioch (or perhaps of only one or two of these), which with certain differences in detail limit the authority of a bishop to his own diocese. A broad interpretation of these provisions could deny to a visiting bishop the right even to perform the liturgy in another’s jurisdiction without explicit permission. Perhaps Joseph of Thessalonica had forgot to present his credentials to the proper officials at the patriarchal palace (cf. Apostolic Canon XXXIV: μηδένα τῶν ξένων ἐπισκόπων ἢ πρεσβυτέρων ἢ διακόνων ἄνευ συστατικῶν προσδέχεσθαι). [32]

In the ‘Critique’ to No. 378 Grumel says that Bury goes too far in saying the synod proclaimed the legality of the marriage of Constantine and Theodote. On this point Grumel is undoubtedly right, since Theodore nowhere attacks the synod for having declared that the marriage was lawful. [33] But much more serious is Grumel’s further charge: ‘Les conclusions de Dobroklonskij, p. 645, nous semblent pareillement outrées.’

It might seem that Grumel has reduced entities beyond explicability. How could Theodore have derived all those conclusions from a single conciliar act? While I do believe that Grumel has wielded Occam’s razor too ruthlessly, I believe he is closer to being right than Dobroklonsky is.

Dobroklonsky does not take with sufficient seriousness the curious evidence of Ep. i. 30 to Patriarch Nicephorus, and Ep. i. 43 to Theodore’s brother Joseph. Dobroklonsky has done great service by demonstrating that the former of these letters was written on the day following the Synod of A.D. 809. [34] But Ep. i. 30 speaks only of the need to depose Joseph of Kathara, and insists that Theodore accepts the economies of the saints. [35]

This might be accounted for in some such way as this: the synod met in more than one session, and although in the first session, after which this letter was written, the only question was that of the confirmation of Joseph of Kathara’s rehabilitation to the priesthood, in subsequent sessions the bishops extended their list of decrees, perhaps out of pique at Theodore’s refusal to compromise.

But such an hypothesis is inadmissible. Dobroklonsky has put together a number of arguments from internal evidence to show that together a number of arguments from internal evidence to show that Ep. i. 43 was not written at the very beginning of the persecution which followed the synod, although it was probably nearer the beginning than the end. [36] In any case, both Theodore and his brother have already been exiled. And the striking thing about this letter is the way in which Theodore speaks about the Synod of January A.D. 809.

After referring to his silence in the year 806, he goes on to illustrate his continuing love for peace by his action ‘when the second absolution was undertaken by the tramplers on the law of God’.

We said, ‘Let him simply abstain from performing the liturgy while retaining the rank [of priest], according to the Canon of Basil the Great’, although he had been concelebrating with the patriarch for two years. This was a major concession on our part and an excessive economy. . . . Nevertheless, if we compromised ourselves a bit through such an economy, they on the contrary were carried over into sin by their inflexibility. [37]

There is no mention of any further action on the council’s part, and while in this letter Theodore says that his opponents are not the Church (1065C: οὐ γὰρ οὗτοι ἐκκλησία Κυρίου), there is nowhere in it a reference to them as heretics.

This might be accounted for on the grounds that Theodore’s brother, who knew all about the synod anyway, would not need to be told about its decrees, and further, that the point of this part of the letter is to show how fervently Theodore had sought peace. But such an explanation has the sound of special pleading, especially when a close look is taken at some other letters.

In Ep. i. 53, after he has admitted that Tarasius was less than upright in his behaviour about the Simoniacs but had at least said the right things, Theodore goes on to make the following contrast:

But now a dogma against the Gospel, against the Forerunner and against the canons has been synodically promulgated through the reception of the joiner of adulterers, confirming that the transgression is an economy and that bishops and priests can lord it over the canons whenever they wish, and even anathematizing and dismissing contemptuously those who do not share this opinion, as you know. [38]

The wording here seems clearly to mean that the dogma is a deduction from the rehabilitation of Joseph and the synod’s anathema. It is not so clear that the anathema itself was directed specifically at refusal to accept Joseph’s rehabilitation, as further analysis of the relevant texts will show.

A number of passages indicate that it was the synod’s pronouncing an anathema that had, in Theodore’s view, given its statement(s) dogmatic status and thus made possible the characterization of it as heretical. Had they known the Lord’s ways, he says, ‘they would not have dogmatized that transgressions are a salutary economy for the Church of Christ by an anathema against those who do not receive them as such’. [39]

In a very curious statement at the end of Ep. i. 36 Theodore explains to some exiled Studites that what he has written to them is easy to understand, both because he is not sufficiently learned and eloquent to write something difficult, and because some of them would be unable to comprehend a more dogmatic exposition of the heresy. ‘Moreover, the word of truth is simple, and the heresy is manifest, undogmatic and easy for a child to understand.’ [40]

The word ἀδογμάτιστος is in A Patristic Greek Lexicon as ‘undogmatic, holding no dogma’, and this instance of Theodore’s use of it is the only example cited. Ep. i. 36 begins with Theodore’s assertion that he will reveal the evil dogmas of his opponents (1032A: τὰ πονηρὰ αὐτῶν δόγματα), but then throughout the rest of this rather long letter the term ‘dogma’ does not reappear. Perhaps the adjective ἀδογμάτιστος reveals more than Theodore intended; at least it tends to confirm Grumel’s minimalist approach to Theodore’s evidence for the synod’s actions. It seems to me clear that Theodore occupied some of his nearly three full years of exile using the principles of logic he had learned as a schoolboy to deduce an imposing set of dogmatic conclusions from a relatively simple premiss.

I do believe, however, that the Synod of A.D. 809 promulgated two other decrees in addition to the one admitted by Grumel, and that the one Grumel accepts did not in fact include an anathema. In Ep. i. 48, which contains a detailed account of the events before, during, and after the synod, Theodore asks a series of rhetorical questions. If this is not a heresy, he asks, ‘why was an anathema pronounced with a loud voice [διαβοήτως ἀνακραχθέν] against those not receiving the economies of the saints?’³ Later in this same letter Theodore says the Moechians should not be allowed to get away with the lie that they did not dogmatize transgressions to be economies, even if the synod did not name adulterous marriage as an economy equal to that of the saints and did not anathematize those not accepting adulterous marriage.

But if they say, ‘We did not anathematize’, why did they cry out, ‘Anathema to those not receiving the economies of the saints!’? It is clear, unless I am drunk, that this was decreed because there were some who would not accept what was done. For what was at issue other than the marriage of adulterers? Therefore the anathematization was on account of this, as though it were in line with the economies of the saints. But if it is similar to those, then the economies of the saints are illegal. But if, as is certainly true, the saints do not act illegally, then it is they, who would not accept adulterous marriage, who are in fact anathematized, even if technical sophistries are employed to obscure what is clear. But it is pointless to try to hide what has been done. [41]

It might be argued that Theodore is here, as elsewhere in his reflections on the synod, being quite unfair. The expression τὸ ἀνάθεμα . . . διαβοήτως ἀνακραχθέν suggests the possibility that Theodore has given the status of a conciliar decree to something said by an over-excited bishop during the proceedings and recorded in the acta. But the term ἡ ἐκφώνησις, while not the most common term for a conciliar decree, had been used in that sense at the most recent Ecumenical Council (cf. Nicaea II, act. 1, Mansi xii. 1050A), and Theodore himself uses the cognate verb in this way in Ep. i. 30, 1005D (cf. Ep. i. 53, 1108A, cited on p. 514, n. 2) where, speaking of ecumenical and local councils, he claims to accept τὰς παρ’ αὐτῶν ἐκφωνηθείσας ἱερὰς καὶ κανονικὰς διατυπώσεις.

The probability that Theodore is accurately reporting something the synod formally decided is increased when it is seen that such a decree trapped the Studite protesters so as to leave them no room for dogmatic manoeuvring. The synod appears, in fact, to have emulated the cleverness of the Synod of Blachernae of A.D. 754, which set forth the arguments about icons in such a way as to make Iconodulia inevitably imply either Nestorianism or Monophysitism. From Theodore’s letters we can infer that the Synod of A.D. 809 confronted him with the following (rather loose) syllogism: Numerous saints in special circumstances dealt ‘economically’ with particular canons; Patriarch Tarasius acted economically when he ordered (or perhaps simply permitted) the marriage of Constantine and Theodote; But Tarasius is now among the saints; Therefore, his exercise of economy is in the category of ‘economies of the saints’, and anyone who admits the validity of the economies of the saints tacitly admits that Tarasius acted well: Anathema to those who do not accept the economies of the saints. [42]

Finally, it is necessary to look very closely at the evidence for Grumel’s No. 378, the one decree he assigns to the synod itself. The evidence is surprisingly weak. Theodore nowhere says explicitly that the synod anathematized those who refused to accept as an act of economy the rehabilitation of Joseph of Kathara. That restoration had been effected two and a half years earlier, and in a letter written after January A.D. 809 Theodore attributes the action of restoration to ‘the Moechian heresy’, not specifically to the Synod of A.D. 809. He explains that he did not initially protest publicly because the heresy did not become apparent until this later synod, with its evil dogma and anathema; but in light of that, he saw it had been a heresy all along. [43] Elsewhere Theodore contrasts the action of the synod in regard to the two Josephs:

They declared innocent the joiner of adulterers deposed by Christ himself and the divine canons, who had for a long time been concelebrating with them, while they deposed one who was not even subject to mere canonical deposition. [44]

It could be that Theodore is here considering the action of A.D. 806 as part of the whole Moechian strategy, but it is plausible that the Synod of January A.D. 809 reaffirmed the restoration to the priesthood of Joseph of Kathara (cf. Ep. i. 43, 1065A: ἡ δευτέρα ἀθώωσις αὐτοῦ, cited on p. 514, n. 1). Nevertheless, there is no convincing evidence that failure to accept Joseph’s rehabilitation was itself subjected to anathema. Since one implication of acceptance of the synod’s ‘syllogism’ would have been absolution of Joseph of Kathara from any guilt, it would have been redundant to make special provision for it.

On the basis of all this evidence it seems to me that we must attribute the three following formal actions to the Constantinopolitan Synod of January A.D. 809:

1. Confirmation of the earlier restoration of Joseph of Kathara to the priesthood.

2. Anathema to anyone who does not accept the economies of the saints [understood to mean ‘all the economies ever exercised by all who are considered to be among the saints’].

3. Deposition of Archbishop Joseph of Thessalonica to the rank of priest.

VII

Shortly after the synod the emperor called the whole Studite brotherhood, which had remained under military surveillance, into his presence. After an unsuccessful attempt to win over the leading members privately, he promised clemency to the whole group if they would re-establish communion with the patriarch. In what appears to be a kind of conscious imitation of the Last Judgement he said that all those who wished to follow his exhortation should stand at his right hand, and all those who did not wish to at his left hand. The Studites went en bloc to his left. [45]

The monks were exiled, most to areas near the capital, but some to places as distant as Cherson and Thessalonica, and even Lipara, beyond Sicily. Many were imprisoned, often in monasteries whose abbots favoured the action of the synod and who were especially hard on their prisoners, exceeding the punishments they had been ordered to inflict. [46] Initially, Theodore tells us, the emperor tried to limit the persecution to the Studites so as to convince the world that they were isolated in their opposition. But soon others were suffering, including an abbot and his monks in Thessalonica who refused to communicate with the man who had been appointed archbishop to succeed Theodore’s brother Joseph. [47]

According to Theodore’s biographer, the Abbot of Studios received divine confirmation of the justice of his cause when, in the year 811, Emperor Nicephorus called him to a suburb of the capital where officials asked him whether he was ready to compromise. Theodore replied that because the emperor was inflexible, he would not return from his forthcoming military campaign by the way he would go. Nicephorus fell in battle in July A.D. 811, and the victorious Bulgarian Khan, Krum, took his skull, plated it with silver, and proudly drank toasts from it. [48]

Nicephorus’ son and co-emperor Stauracius had been severely wounded in the battle, and ruled for only a few months before being replaced in October A.D. 811 by Michael I Rangabe, his brother-in-law. [49] The new emperor, eager for ecclesiastical peace, recalled the dispersed Studites. And having no personal attachment to Joseph of Kathara, he was quite content to have him deposed. ‘The stumbling-block was removed.’ [50]

Thus some seventeen years after it began the Moechian Controversy came to an end. By the time Iconoclasm broke out in A.D. 814–15 the wounds had healed rather well. Theodore and Patriarch Nicephorus emerged as the most intrepid defenders of the icons, and they came to admire each other. There was nonetheless an element of reserve in their relationship that indicated the depth of the old antagonism. After all, the abbot had called the patriarch a heretic and the ‘chief Moechian’ (ὁ πρωτομοιχειανός). Lingering dissatisfaction can also be seen in a funeral oration that Theodore delivered for the Chronographer Theophanes. The two abbots had been close friends in their younger days; Theophanes had even served as Theodore’s sponsor at his profession as a monk. Theophanes had sided with Theodore’s opponents on the Moechian issue, however, and even in his eulogy the Abbot of Studios alludes to his disappointment at the stand taken in this matter by the Abbot of Sigriane. Most remarkably of all, Theodore’s bête noire entered the story yet again. Joseph of Kathara initially stood against the renewal of Iconoclasm; this led Theodore to reflect that God moves in mysterious ways. But it was not long before the consistency of human character won out over the marvels of divine φιλανθρωπία, for Joseph defected from the ranks of the Iconodules and led several other abbots with him. Theodore was not surprised. [51]

This, however, begins to stray into the final period of Theodore’s life, when he fought his most important battle, the one for the icons. The Moechian Controversy had trained the Abbot of Studios in several ways for the main struggle. Emperors and their threats had no power to impress or terrify him. He had learned the techniques of keeping a party together even when its members were scattered over much of the Eastern Roman Empire. He had discovered that appeals to Rome might be of dubious value, since the patriarch of Old Rome was subject to many of the same sorts of constraints as his counterpart of New Rome. If the pope would help, Theodore would be pleased; but Orthodoxy would have to be defended whether the successor of Peter acted or not. [52] Most important of all, the Moechian controversy made Theodore less of a rigorist. After Joseph of Kathara had been deposed for the last time Theodore wrote to some supporters to urge them to resume communion with the patriarch now that the cause of dissension was eliminated. It is clear that Theodore had followers who thought he was giving in too easily. Attempts to get these people to call off the protest must have caused Theodore to wonder ruefully about the value for the Church of absolutely consistent commitment to absolutely consistent principle, since in the Iconoclastic period he shows greater willingness to admit the force of arguments of others who disagree with him on such important questions as that of communion with those who are in league with Iconoclasm. [53]

One might say that Theodore’s ecclesiological odyssey is similar to that of another Father of the Church who stood against emperors and court clerics—indeed, contra mundum—and spent a good bit of his life in exile, Athanasius of Alexandria. In all the dreary story of ecclesiastical intrigue and backbiting that the fourth century presents to us, the sight of the elderly Athanasius finally accepting as brothers those who meant the same thing although they put it differently is refreshing and encouraging. As Athanasius and Theodore grew older they became a little less sure of themselves—and better Churchmen.

 

FOOTNOTES [Numbering combined]

1. The main purpose of this article is to propose a solution to the puzzle presented by the decrees of a synod held in Constantinople in January A.D. 809. The whole story of the Moechian Controversy is quite complex. It occupies a large part of my Yale University doctoral dissertation, ‘Theodore of Studios, Byzantine Churchman’ (1967), and will be treated in detail in the book I am writing based on the dissertation.

[https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2024/01/theodore-of-studios-byzantine-churchman.html]

Since the controversy itself is not generally well known among all students of ecclesiastical history, I have here sketched the series of events leading up to the synod whose decrees I hope I have unravelled. The dispute is discussed in all general studies of Theodore, especially the two-volume, 1,600-page Prepodobnii Feodor, ispovednik i igumen studiiskii (St. Theodore, Confessor and Abbot of Studios) by A. P. Dobroklonsky (Odessa, 1913–14). This book—exhaustive, exhausting, and occasionally wrong, as in the case of the decrees of the year 809—has not received from Western scholars the attention it deserves.

2. The best source for these developments is Theophanis Chronographia, ed. Carolus de Boor, i (Leipzig, 1883), pp. 463. 21–8, 469. 23–7, 470. 1–7, 472. 13–18, 476. 3–479. 10. All references to Theophanes will be to this edition. The Greek phrase cited is from Vita Theodori Studitae (cf. Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, 3rd ed. by F. Halkin [Brussels, 1957] [hereafter B.H.G.], 1754), xviii (P.G. 99. 256D) by a Studite monk Michael. Known as Vita B because it is printed second in P.G. 99. 233–328, this is the earliest of the biographies, written not long after A.D. 868, and serves as the basis for the other two. Vita A (*B.H.G.*³ 1755; P.G. 99. 113–232) is a tenth-century embellishment of Vita B. On the third biography cf. *B.H.G.*³ 1755d, and the discussion by C. Van de Vorst in his review of Dobroklonsky, Analecta Bollandiana, xxxviii (1920), p. 204. Reference will be made in this article to Vita B. On the general history of the period see G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, tr. J. M. Hussey (Oxford, 1956), ch. 3.

3. Plato’s function in Byzantine society at this period is reminiscent of George Whitefield’s role in the social calendar of the Countess of Huntingdon in eighteenth-century England.

4. Details of the family and the move are found in Vita B, ii. 236B–237A, v. 240D–241B; in Laudatio sancti Platonis hegumeni (*B.H.G.*³ 1553), Theodore’s funeral oration for his uncle, v–xxi. P.G. 99. 808A–824C; and in Laudatio funebris in matrem suam (*B.H.G.*³ 2422), Theodore’s funeral oration for Theoctista, vi. P.G. 99. 889B–892A.

5. Vita B, xi. 248D–249B. Michael does not say Plato was pretending, and maybe he was not. But the account talks about the uncle’s inability to persuade his nephew to take over as abbot, and one has the suspicion that he used his illness as a trump card.

6. The abortive synod: Theoph. Chron. 461. 12–462. 3; Laud. Plat. xxiv. 828AB; cf. V. Grumel, Les Regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople. ‘Le patriarcat byzantin, recherches de diplomatique, de l’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques publiées par l’Institut des Études Byzantines des Augustins de l’Assomption’, Série 1, vol. i, fasc. 2: Les Regestes de 715 à 1043 (Chalcedon [Kadiköy], 1936), no. 355. (This fascicle will be referred to hereafter as Grumel, Regestes.) Plato as a close adviser to Tarasius (σύμβουλος αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα καὶ συλλήπτωρ δεξιός): Vita B, iv. 240C. This must be seen in light of the Tendenz of Vita B, pointed out by E. von Dobschütz, ‘Methodius und die Studiten’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xviii (1909), pp. 63–70, the heightening of any evidence for cordial relations between the Fathers of Studios and the patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus. Irene’s sending the troops out of the city: Theoph. Chron. 462. 5–17.

7. Basil, Liber de Spiritu Sancto, xviii. 45, P.G. 32. 149C. The writings of the Iconodules are full of this, often with ἀναβαίνει in place of διαβαίνει. In Laud. Plat. xxiv–xxv. 828B, written on the eve of the renewal of Iconoclasm, Theodore makes very little of his uncle’s participation in the Seventh Council, and refers in a surprisingly off-hand way to the Council’s restoration of Orthodoxy. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 751, points out that a letter Theodore wrote in A.D. 815 to the Iconoclastic Synod (Ep. ii. 1, P.G. 99. 1116D) is the first extant writing of his to call the Second Council of Nicaea ‘holy’ (ἁγία). Unless this is a mere accident of preservation, we must suppose that the events of the year 815 prompted him to recognize the ecumenical authority of Nicaea against the Iconoclastic Synod of Blachernae of A.D. 754. As late as the year 823 (Ep. ii. 127, 1412C) people were reminding Theodore that he used to call Nicaea II ‘local’ (τοπική).

8. Ep. i. 38, 1044A, written in A.D. 809, more than twenty years after the council.

9. The patriarch initially decreed deposition for anyone guilty of simony in the future, but assigned only a year’s penance to those previously guilty. The opposition of Sabas was so vehement that Tarasius retracted the measure. But when a year had passed the clerics in question presented themselves to the patriarch and at the empress’s insistence Tarasius concelebrated the liturgy with them (although Theodore, Ep. i. 38, 1044C claims that ‘this was certainly not involuntary, but of his own will: when he was able not to perform the liturgy with deposed men he did it, even if someone will say he was unable to avoid it’). It was apparently after Constantine VI temporarily drove his mother from the palace in the year 790 that Tarasius once again declared himself in favour of extreme ecclesiastical penalties for those guilty of simony. This tangled story is outlined in Grumel’s ‘Critique’ to Regestes, nos. 360–4. The ordination: Vita B, x. 248AB; Ep. i. 38, 1045A; on its date (A.D. 789 or 790) cf. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 341.

10. Ep. i. 22, 977B. From the context it is clear that nuptial crowning is meant.

11. Ignatius Diaconus, Vita Tarasii (*B.H.G.*³ 1698), ed. I. A. Heikel, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, xvii (1889), p. 411. 5–36. Had Constantine been able to convince anybody of Maria’s homicidal intentions he would have had double grounds for divorce, since the empress would have had designs on the life not only of her spouse, but also of the emperor. Cf. J. Zhishman, Das Eherecht der orientalischen Kirche (Vienna, 1864), pp. 731–4: τὸ φρονῆσαι κατὰ βασιλέως· τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι θάτερον τῇ τοῦ ἑτέρου ζωῇ: Codex Justinianus, V. xvii. 8, §§ 2, 3 (Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. ii [11th ed.], ed. P. Krüger [Berlin, 1954], p. 212); Novellae xxii, cap. 15; cxvii, cap. 8, § 3 and cap. 9, § 2 (C.I.C. III [6th ed.], ed. R. Schöll–G. Kroll [Berlin, 1954], pp. 155–6, 558–9).

12. Theodote was probably a second cousin of Theodore. This is the interpretation of ἐξαδέλφη ἐτύγχανε τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Θεοδώρου ἡ συστεφανωθεῖσα τῷ Κωνσταντίνῳ (Vita B, xv. 253B) offered by J. Pargoire in ‘Saint Théophane le Chronographe et ses rapports avec saint Théodore Studite’, Vizantiiskii Vremennik, ix (1902), pp. 35–8. Pargoire’s discussion incidentally shows how intricately Theodore’s family was involved in the upper reaches of Byzantine civil and ecclesiastical society. Theodore himself says Theodote was a relative: Laud. Plat. xxviii. 832A. For the efforts at persuasion: Vita B, xv. 253BC; Epp. i. 4 (920D–924A) and i. 5 (924A–925D), both written during the period of negotiation. Cf. Theoph. Chron. 471. 8–13; the Chronographer has mistakenly placed the exile of the Saccudites before the emperor’s trip to the baths.

13. The report of Constantine’s threat to renew Iconoclasm is in Narratio de sanctis patriarchis Tarasio et Nicephoro (*B.H.G.*³ 1757), P.G. 99. 1849C–1853D, at 1852D–1853A. This Narratio is part of the later hagiographical pamphlet warfare concerning the relations between Theodore and the two patriarchs. While the report is late, it is plausible; cf. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 355.

Theoph. Chron. 470. 25–8 reports Tarasius’ reception of Constantine to communion, the monastic tonsuring of Maria and Joseph’s performance of the wedding. Theophanes believed the patriarch had ordered Joseph to do it. But Theodore, in A.D. 808, wrote as follows (Ep. i. 22, 977C): ‘Now if it is true that he even gave an order—but we do not believe that he did; he fully satisfied us and many others on that count’ (εἴπερ καὶ ἀληθὲς ὅτι καὶ ἐπέτρεψεν· οὐ γὰρ πιστεύομεν, ἡμῖν τε καὶ ἄλλοις πολλοῖς πεπληροφορηκώς). The P.G. text reads ὑμῖν. The reading ἡμῖν, which clears up the meaning of the passage, is taken from Bibliothèque Nationale MS. Coislinianus 269, f. 35ᵛ, a manuscript of Theodore’s letters which B. Melioransky, Nieskolko slov o rukopisakh i izdaniakh pisem prepod. Feodora Studita (‘Perechen vizantiiskikh gramot i pisem’, i; Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St.-Pétersbourg, Série VIII, vol. iv, no. 5 [1899]), has argued dates partly from the ninth century and partly from the early tenth century, and is part of the original collection of Theodore’s letters made at Studios. Melioransky’s dating is adopted by R. Devreesse, Le Fonds Coislin (Bibliothèque Nationale, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs II, Paris, 1945), pp. 248–9. I am at work on a critical edition of Theodore’s letters, to be based primarily on Coislinianus 269.

Theodore’s biographer Michael, Vita B, xiv. 252D, has no doubts about Tarasius’ innocence in the matter of the wedding. For the patriarch’s avoidance of contact with Joseph cf. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 354.

14. Theodore’s complaint: Ep. i. 4, 921D–924A. From Ep. i. 5 to the Imperial Secretary Stephen it is clear that emperor and patriarch had tried to shift the controversy from the plane of scriptural commandments (the prohibition of adultery) to that of proper respect for one’s hierarchical superior. Theodore responds with a barrage of instances from the Bible and St. Basil to illustrate the propriety of reprimands from below.

15. Theoph. Chron. 470. 24–471. 5. Laud. Plat. xxvii–xxix. 829C–833A. Vita B, xvi. 253CD. Theodore’s ‘travel diary’: Ep. i. 3, 913B–920C. Laud. matris, x. 896B–897A. The emperor had issued an order that no one should receive the prisoners (Laud. Plat. xxvii. 829D).

16. Vita B, xviii–xix. 256C–7D. Laud. Plat. xxx–xxxi. 833ABC. There is some uncertainty as to the precise action taken against Joseph of Kathara. Grumel, Regestes, no. 368, speaks of a ‘jugement synodal excommuniant et déposant le prêtre Joseph’. Laud. Plat. (xxxi. 833C: ἐκβολή) and Vita B speak only of deposition. Ep. i. 28, 1000A, says Joseph was ἀφορισμένος by the previous patriarch (Tarasius), and Ep. i. 39, 1008B, written to Patriarch Nicephorus, raises objections διὰ τὸν οἰκονόμον καθηρημένον ὄντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἱερῶν κανόνων πολυτρόπως· καὶ μάλιστα μετὰ τὸν ἀφορισμὸν τῆς ἐννεαετίας πάλιν ἱερουργεῖν. Grumel clearly takes ἀφορισμός in the stricter sense of excommunication. In the light of the last expression it seems to me that Theodore is using ἀφορισμός in a looser sense: ‘after a nine-year exclusion from priestly functions he is again acting as a priest’. At most, he is referring to what A Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.vv. ἀφορίζω (C.2) and ἀφορισμός (3), calls ‘minor excommunication of priests, i.e. suspension from office, and temporary exclusion from communion’.

J. Hajjar, Le Synode permanent (ΣΥΝΟΔΟΣ ΕΝΔΗΜΟΥΣΑ) dans l’Église byzantine des origines au XIe siècle (Orientalia christiana analecta, 164; Rome, 1962), pp. 209–10, says there is no convincing evidence that Joseph’s deposition was a synodal matter at all, although the restoration in A.D. 806 clearly was. Hajjar is correct when he says that Theodore speaks only of deposition by the patriarch. But Grumel notes that Vita A, xliii. 156A, mentions ‘the common vote of the Church’ (ψῆφος κοινὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας), and while this is late evidence, Grumel is probably right. For Theodore, the decisive point was that Joseph had flaunted the Lord’s commandments about adultery and had therefore been deposed ‘by the canons’.

17. Theodore’s letter to Irene, fulsome even by Byzantine standards, is Ep. i. 7, 929B–933C. Nicephorus is praised in Ep. i. 16, 960A. I agree with Dobroklonsky, i, p. 594, in seeing here an oblique reference to Irene’s incompetence; and I believe he is also right when he says (pp. 594–5) that Theodore was more favourably disposed towards Emperor Nicephorus than were some monkish writers, particularly Theophanes. The Chronographer looks on the reign of Irene with rather excessive nostalgia.

18. Theodore’s cryptic remark in Laud. Plat. xxxiv. 837B—‘he gave a vote, but for whom I will not say’—is usually taken to mean, probably correctly, that the uncle voted for the nephew. Plato’s lobbying: ibid. xxxv. 837C. Theodore’s advice is in Ep. i. 16, 960A–961A. Pope Hadrian had expressed displeasure at Tarasius’ precipitate advancement, both in that portion of his letter to Constantine and Irene (Jaffé-Wattenbach No. 2448) that was omitted when the letter was read during the second session of Nicaea II (found in the version of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Mansi, xii. 1074D–1075B), and in his letter to Tarasius himself (Jaffé-Wattenbach No. 2449), which was read in its entirety on the same occasion (Mansi, xii. 1077D; P.L. 96. 1233D–1236A): ‘In synodicis confessionis vestrae fidei . . . invenimus . . . reverentiam vestram ex laico ordine et imperatoria administratione ad sacrati gradus sublimatam esse fastigium, et vehementer in his anima nostra mirata est.’

19. Laud. Plat. xxxv. 837C. Theoph. Chron. 481. 19–32 reports that the emperor had in mind ostracizing Plato and Theodore from the city, but was dissuaded by advisers who convinced him that disruption of a monastery the size of Studios would be an inauspicious accompaniment to the patriarch’s installation. Theophanes also says that the Studites threatened schism because of the election. In light of remarks made by Theodore in Epp. i. 25, 989B; i. 28, 1001C; i. 30, 1008AB; i. 32, 1016C, this is unlikely.

20. Grumel, Regestes, no. 377. In a letter written after January A.D. 809 Theodore indicated that in the year 806 it had been decided that Joseph could serve as priest again ‘in Hagia Sophia itself’ (εἰσκρίνεται πάλιν ἱερουργεῖν ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ καθολικῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ): R. Devreesse, ‘Une lettre de s. Théodore Studite relative au synode moechien (809)’, Anal. Boll. lxviii (1950), p. 55.

Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 605–6 and P. J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople (Oxford, 1958), pp. 85–7, have shown that Emperor Nicephorus was primarily playing simple politics, not specifically ecclesiastical politics, in pressing for Joseph’s rehabilitation as a reward for his help in quelling the rebellion led by Bardanes Turcus.

21. The excuses: Ep. i. 43, 1065A. The two-year delay has been confirmed by Dobroklonsky’s demonstration, ii, pp. 174–5, that Ep. i. 30 to Patriarch Nicephorus, which speaks of impending schism, was written on the day after the Synod of January A.D. 809, not after that of A.D. 806, as had been thought by Baronius, followed by many others, including J. B. Bury, A History of the Eastern Roman Empire from the Fall of Irene to the Accession of Basil I (A.D. 802–867) (London, 1912), p. 35.

Dobroklonsky also notes (i, p. 607) that according to Epp. i. 25, 989CD (to Patriarch Nicephorus) and i. 43, 1065A (to Joseph of Thessalonica) Theodore appears to have been present at the Synod of A.D. 806. The statement at 989CD is equivocal, but 1065A says παρόντος μου ἐκεῖ and adds that Theodore maintained silence. His presence at such a synod is a curiosity, and in the absence of other evidence remains mysterious. Perhaps the fact that his opponents reminded him of his silence in the year 806 (1065A) caused Theodore to want his presence there forgotten as far as possible. The only two extant allusions to it are in letters to the man who presided and to his own brother.

22. Ep. i. 23, 980D–981C, written either by Joseph himself or by Theodore in Joseph’s name.

23. This is the distinct impression given by the tone and content of Theodore’s Ep. i. 43 (1064C–1068D) to Joseph.

24. Ep. i. 31, 1009B. Alexander, Nicephorus, p. 91, n. 1, suggests that the Logothete’s reply, οἱ εὐσεβεῖς ἡμῶν βασιλεῖς χρείαν σου οὐκ ἔχουσιν· οὔτε ἐν Θεσσαλονίκῃ, οὔτε ἄλλῃ, may have been a set formula of deposition.

25. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 614.

26. Ep. i. 23, 980D–981A; and Ep. i. 26, 992D–993A: ‘What is there to say about the patriarch? He will neither send any answer nor even hear an appeal; he is Caesar’s handyman in every respect’ (ταμιευόμενος πάντα Καίσαρι); and the lord Symeon [one of the court monks responsible for dealing with the Studites] is ‘double-tongued’ (ἀμφοτερόγλωσσος).

Dobroklonsky (i, p. 626) points out the two different directions of Theodore’s appeals at this time. It is difficult to ascertain the chronology of events in A.D. 808, but Dobroklonsky is surely right in spreading them out over a considerable time. Also, his dating (i, p. 605) of a declaration by Emperor Nicephorus that Theodote was an adulteress and her child disinherited—a statement Theodore had heard personally (cf. Ep. i. 31, 1012B)—to a time prior to the rehabilitation of Joseph in A.D. 806 is more plausible than Alexander’s conjecture (Nicephorus, p. 92) that it was contemporaneous with the Synod of January A.D. 809. Alexander’s account of this period is somewhat misleading because of confusion about the chronology of the letters.

27. Theodore recounts these events in detail in Ep. i. 48 (1069C–1084B); metaphorical asphyxiation: 1073B.

28. Imperial instigation: R. Devreesse, ‘Une lettre . . .’, Anal. Boll. lxviii (1950), p. 55. Proceedings: Ep. i. 48, 1073C–1076A; Ep. i. 34, 1021C; also Theoph. Chron. 484. 19–28. Dobroklonsky, i, p. 631, has argued convincingly that Patriarch Nicephorus was not present at the synod. Thus Ep. i. 30 can be seen as Theodore’s attempt to get his own view of the council’s action included in the dossier of reports the patriarch would be receiving.

It was only after the Synod of A.D. 809 that Theodore invented the tendentious name by which the whole controversy is known. His facility at word-coinage is dramatically illustrated by the appearance in Patr. Gr. Lex. of seventeen words beginning with μοιχ- for which his writings provide the only examples cited. Theodore developed the analogy with John the Baptist further when he began calling the Moechians ‘forerunners of Antichrist’; cf. Ep. i. 36, 1032C.

29. Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 632–45. The parentheses indicate portions about which Dobroklonsky was uncertain.

30. For helpful discussion of this passage I am grateful to my colleague at Swarthmore College, Professor Thomas N. Mitchell.

31. Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 643–4. For texts of the canons cf. F. Lauchert, Die Kanones der wichtigsten altkirchlichen Concilien nebst den apostolischen Kanones (Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896), pp. 5 (Apostolic Canons XXXIV and XXXV) and 45–7 (Antioch Canons IX and XIII).

32. Bury, op. cit., p. 36, where he also accepts at face value most of Theodore’s reports of the actions of the synod.

33. Dobroklonsky, ii, pp. 174–5. The argument is based on the following points: Theodore says elsewhere that he maintained silence at the first synod, and indeed for two years following it, while in this letter (1005CD) he is trying to clarify something he had said; Theodore objects to Joseph’s ‘continually performing the liturgy together with’ Nicephorus (1008B), a curious way to speak less than twenty-four hours after Joseph’s restoration to the priesthood; clear lines of dispute have been drawn, and Theodore speaks of his readiness to ‘carry through to the end’ (1008C), a conviction that developed only during the year 808.

34. The assigning of the specific anathematization of Theodore et al. to a time after the synod helps explain Theodore’s implication in Ep. i. 30 that negotiation is still possible.

35. Dobroklonsky, ii, pp. 182–3.

36. Ep. i. 43, 1065AB: τοῦτο δὲ ἐπειδὰν ἐκρατεῖτο ἡ δευτέρα ἀθώωσις αὐτοῦ παρὰ τῶν πατησάντων τοὺς νόμους τοῦ Θεοῦ, λεγόντων ἡμῶν· ὅτι ἀρκείτω μόνον τῆς ἱερουργίας ἀπολαύων τῆς τιμῆς, κατὰ τὸν κανόνα τοῦ μεγάλου [MS. Coisl. 269; P.G. text reads ἁγίου] Βασιλείου· ἤδη συλλειτουργήσαντος αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοῖς δυσὶν ἔτεσι τῷ πατριάρχῃ· ὅ ἦν φοβερὸν καὶ ὑπὲρ οἰκονομίαν. . . . ἀλλ’ ὅμως εἰ καὶ ἡμεῖς δι’ οἰκονομίαν τοσοῦτον κατηγορήμεθα, ἐκεῖνοι τοὐναντίον τῇ σκληρότητι συνεπαίροντο τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ. Basil’s Canon referred to here is probably Canon LXX of his Ep. 217 to Amphilochius, P.G. 32. 801A.

37. Ep. i. 53, 1105D–1108A: ὧδε δὲ δόγμα κατά τε τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, τοῦ τε Προδρόμου, τῶν τε κανόνων, συνοδικῶς διὰ τῆς τοῦ μοιχοζεύκτου παραδοχῆς ἐκπεφώνηται, βεβαιοῦν τὴν παρανομίαν οἰκονομίαν, τούς τε ἱεράρχας καὶ ἱερεῖς ὁπόταν βούλωνται ἐξουσιάζειν τῶν κανόνων· καὶ τοὺς μὴ ταὐτὸν φρονοῦντας ἀναθεματίζον τε [P.G. omits τε] καὶ ἐκκορακίζον, καθάπερ ἴστε. The compound ἐκκορακίζω does not appear in the lexica.

38. Ep. i. 38, 1041C: οὐκ ἂν παραβάντες, οἰκονομίαν σωτήριον τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ Χριστοῦ τὰς παραβάσεις συνοδικῶς ἐδογμάτιζον, ὑπ’ ἀνάθεμα τῶν ταύτας μὴ οὕτω προσιεμένων. Cf. Ep. i. 48, 1076D.

39. Ep. i. 36, 1037CD: τὸ δὲ καὶ διὰ τό τινας ὑμῶν μὴ ἰσχύειν δογματικώτερον καταλαμβάνειν τὴν αἵρεσιν, καὶ ἅμα ὅτι καὶ ἁπλοῦς ὁ λόγος τῆς ἀληθείας· ἥ τε αἵρεσις φανερά, καὶ ἀδογμάτιστος, καὶ παιδὶ εὐκατάληπτος.

40. Ep. i. 48, 1073D: ὑπὲρ τίνος τὸ ἀνάθεμα τοῖς μὴ δεχομένοις τὰς οἰκονομίας τῶν ἁγίων διαβοήτως ἀνακραχθέν;

41. Ep. i. 48, 1077A: εἰ δὲ λέγουσι μὴ ἀναθεματίσαι, ὑπὲρ τίνος ἀνεβόησαν· τοῖς μὴ δεχομένοις τὰς οἰκονομίας τῶν ἁγίων, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω; δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι, ἐνισταμένων τινῶν μὴ δέχεσθαι, ἡ ἐκφώνησις· εἰ μὴ μεθύομεν. περὶ ποίας δὲ ὑποθέσεως ἄλλης ἡ ἔνστασις, ἢ τῆς μοιχοζευξίας; οὐκοῦν ἀσφαλῶς αὐτῆς ἕνεκα ὁ ἀναθεματισμός· ὡς οὔσης κατὰ τὰς τῶν ἁγίων οἰκονομίας. καὶ εἰ μὲν ἐφάμιλλος αὐταῖς, αἱ τῶν ἁγίων οἰκονομίαι παράνομοι· εἰ δὲ οἱ ἅγιοι οὐ παράνομοι, ὅπερ ἀληθές· αὐτοὶ ἀναθεματίσθησαν μὴ προσιέμενοι τὴν μοιχοζευξίαν· κἂν τέχναις σοφίζωνται τὰ ἐναργῆ ἀφανῆ δεικνύειν· ἀλλ’ ἀμήχανον κρυβῆναι τὸ γεγονός.

42. For the dilemma of Iconodulia posed by the Synod of Blachernae, cf. Mansi, xiii. 252AB, 256AB, and the discussion of the genesis of the argument in Alexander, op. cit., pp. 43–53. Evidence for the Moechian syllogism, in addition to the passage quoted in the preceding footnote, is found in Ep. i. 48, 1073D, where Theodore attributes the following argument to the synod: ‘Thus the saints used economy, and so did the saintly previous patriarch; here are witnesses to his ordering the marriage of adulterers’ (οὕτως οἱ ἅγιοι ᾠκονόμησαν, καὶ ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις προηγούμενος· ἴδε μάρτυρες ὅτι ἐπέτρεψε τὴν μοιχοζευξίαν), although Theodore is quick to point out that this final terminus technicus was not employed by the Council Fathers. There is also evidence in Ep. i. 33 (to Pope Leo), 1020A: ‘To those, both others and themselves, who work iniquities as though they were economies, they give the name of “saints” in virtue of these very actions; and they anathematize as “aliens from God” those who will not accept such things’ (τοὺς παρανομίας ὡς οἰκονομίας ποιοῦντας, ἄλλους τε καὶ ἑαυτοὺς ἁγίους ἐν τούτῳ ὀνομάζουσι· καὶ τοὺς μὴ ταύτας προσιεμένους ὡς ἠλλοτριωμένους Θεοῦ ἀναθεματίζουσι). The argument had been constructed before the synod, and Theodore knew what to expect; cf. Ep. i. 48, 1073BC.

43. Ep. i. 39, 1048C, 1049A.

44. Ep. i. 48, 1073D–1076A: τὸν γὰρ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ Χριστοῦ καθαιρεθέντα καὶ τῶν θείων κανόνων μοιχοζεύκτην ἠθώωσαν· ἀνένοχον ἀποφημάμενοι κατὰ πάντα καὶ συνιερουργὸν αὐτοῖς ὄντα καὶ πρότερον. τὸν δὲ ἀκαθαίρετον ἐκ κανόνων, καθαιρέσει ὑπέβαλον.

45. Vita B, xxvii. 269BCD. My reconstruction of events in the preceding section of this article presupposes a sceptical judgement on the chronology of this part of Vita B. It must be remembered that the monk Michael wrote his biography of Theodore no earlier than sixty years after the events of A.D. 809. Vita B, xxv–xxvii, moves directly from an account of the initial rehabilitation of Joseph of Kathara to the exile of Theodore, Joseph of Thessalonica, and Plato (although Michael takes the opportunity to insert some characteristic obiter dicta to the effect that Theodore on the one hand and Patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus on the other hand had good reasons for the way they behaved), and then describes the ‘Last Judgement’ tableau. If, as I believe is the case, the information from the letters written within a year or two of the events can best be accounted for on the supposition that the imperial effort to sway the Studite brotherhood preceded the exile of Theodore et al., the chronological indications of Vita B do not weigh very heavily. It is possible that Michael was using as his source Laud. Plat. xxxvii. 840C–841A, where the summary description of the dispersal of the Studites follows the mention of Plato’s exile. The order of Laud. Plat. at this point seems clearly to depend on rhetorical rather than on chronological considerations.

It is interesting to see that Michael says the exile was ordered by the emperor (Vita B, xxvii. 269B). There is no doubt that that is what Michael wanted to believe, since in his reconstruction of the past there is no place for really sharp conflict between Theodore and the patriarchs. It is my contention that in this particular instance what Michael wanted to believe coincided with the truth.

46. Laud. Plat. xxxvii. 840C: τῶν μοναστῶν οἱ μυριάδες φιλανθρωπότεροι γεγόνασι· 840D: παρίημι . . . τοὺς φρουράρχους ἡγουμένους, πλείω τῶν ἐπιταγμάτων ἐνίους κακοῦντας τοὺς καθειργμένους. Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 651–2, suggests that one motive for this bitterness against the exiles might have been general monastic resentment of the reform movement centred at Studios.

47. For all these events cf. Epp. i. 48 and i. 43, and Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 646–52.

48. Vita B, xxviii. 269D–272C. Dobroklonsky, i, pp. 680–1, points out that the presence of about a thousand disaffected Studites dispersed around the empire must have been a fairly serious domestic irritant to the emperor. Theodore got his cryptic warning to Nicephorus from 1 Kings 13:9. Theoph. Chron. 491. 15–22. The seriously ill Plato had been recalled to Constantinople some time earlier: Laud. Plat. xxxix. 841D–844A.

49. For the details of this succession cf. Ostrogorsky, op. cit., pp. 174–5.

50. Laud. Plat. xl. 844A: ἤρθη ἐκ μέσου τὸ σκάνδαλον. According to the reckoning of Grumel, Regestes no. 387, this did not occur until the summer or autumn of A.D. 812. Vita B, xxviii. 272D–3A, says that the reconciliation was effected by the combined efforts of the pope (through letters) and the emperor (through personal admonition). Theodore’s brother Joseph was restored to his see of Thessalonica; cf. C. Van de Vorst, ‘La Translation de s. Théodore Studite et de s. Joseph de Thessalonique’, Anal. Boll. xxxii (1913), p. 42.

51. ‘Chief Moechian’: Ep. i. 49, 1089D. Evidence for the lingering suspicion of abbot and patriarch is presented by Alexander, op. cit., pp. 150–2. Here as elsewhere in his otherwise very valuable book Alexander shows his distinct dislike for Theodore, and he sees more ill-feeling than there really was. But it is certainly true that Theodore was not a whole-hearted admirer of Nicephorus.

The eulogy of Theophanes was published by C. Van de Vorst, ‘Un Panégyrique de s. Théophane le Chronographe par s. Théodore Studite’, Anal. Boll. xxxi (1912), pp. 11–23 (*B.H.G.*³ 1792b). Van de Vorst (p. 13, n. 4) finds a parallel to the panegyric in Ep. ii. 31, 1204A, which speaks of Theodore’s ἀνάδοχος. An even more conclusive piece of evidence for Theodore’s disappointment with Theophanes’ action is Ep. ii. 218, 1660A, where Theophanes is mentioned by name.

Joseph’s behaviour is described in several of Theodore’s letters published by J. Cozza-Luzi in A. Mai, Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, viii (1871): Epp. 2 (p. 3); 12 (pp. 11–12); 152 (p. 134); 188 (p. 160); 189 (p. 162); 195 (p. 169). Also, cf. two letters in P.G. 99: Epp. ii. 10, 1141BC, and ii. 9, 1140B (which is repeated as Ep. 145 in Cozza-Luzi’s edition). Some of Theodore’s modern biographers, e.g. Alice Gardner, Theodore of Studium: His Life and Times (London, 1905), have completely overlooked this reappearance of Joseph in the story.

52. Theodore’s appeals against the Moechians to Pope Leo III, Epp. i. 33 (1017B–1021A) and i. 34 (1021A–1028C), had elicited rather vague words of encouragement. For the complicated dating of this correspondence cf. C. Van de Vorst, ‘Les Relations de s. Théodore Studite avec Rome’, Anal. Boll. xxxii (1913), pp. 439–47.

Vita B, xvii. 256C, speaks of an appeal to Rome in A.D. 797, but says nothing about those of the years 809–11. Almost all scholars agree that Michael has here simply made a chronological mistake. I would suggest that the mistake is not innocent. Michael makes the first stage of the Moechian Controversy more definitely a case of Theodore vs. the emperor than the later phases, where Patriarch Nicephorus is more directly (although not, in Michael’s opinion, very culpably) involved. Michael’s attempt to blur—and sometimes to obliterate—the lines of conflict between Theodore and the patriarchs would be aided by saying that Theodore had appealed to the pope against Emperor Constantine VI rather than against Patriarch Nicephorus. Moreover, Vita B was written not long after A.D. 868. The fires of the Photian affair would have been fanned by evidence that Pope Leo had tacitly condemned Patriarch Nicephorus by approving Theodore’s action. But the Studites favoured cordial relations between Constantinople and Rome, so Michael would want to dampen the fire. Thus both internal Byzantine ecclesiastical strife and the larger question of the Photian Schism would have made such a chronological ‘mistake’ useful.

Theodore’s appeals to Pope Paschal I, Epp. ii. 12 (1152B–1153C) and ii. 13 (1153C–1156C), were received favourably, and the pope denounced Iconoclasm (cf. Ep. ii. 66, 1289D–1292A). But it is interesting that Theodore waited until the year 817—that is, two full years after the outbreak of the heresy—to write to Rome. Theodore’s attitude towards the pope and the other patriarchs is complex, and has not yet received adequate and dispassionate scholarly treatment.

53. Theodore urges Abbot Antony and his monks of the monastery of St. Peter to call a halt to the protest in Ep. i. 56, 1112A–D. For Theodore’s more conciliatory attitude during the Iconoclastic period and after see, among others, Epp. ii. 162, 1512D–1513A; ii. 203, 1617CD; ii. 127, 1412CD. There were premonitions of this more lenient approach even in the years 809–11. In Ep. i. 53, 1105C, Theodore warns that one must be careful not to be too strict, otherwise everybody will be implicated in some canonical fault.

The Moechian Controversy was an important stage in the division of the Byzantine Church into two major parties, the ‘Rigorists’ and ‘Economizers’ (or ‘Politiques’). I believe that these parties as distinct, identifiable groups were only in embryo during Theodore’s lifetime, and that he is not so clearly a party-line Rigorist as Dobroklonsky and Ostrogorsky, among others, make him out to be. I hope in my book to present a careful study of the origin and early development of these parties, including a detailed analysis of Theodore’s views on ἀκρίβεια (‘strictness’) and οἰκονομία.

ADDITIONAL NOTE. Since this article appeared in proof my attention has been called to J. Gill, S.J., ‘An Unpublished Letter of St. Theodore the Studite’, Orientalia christiana periodica, xxxiv (1968), pp. 62–9.

[https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/06/an-unpublished-letter-of-st-theodore.html]

The letter, to the Studite monk Gregory, is found in Cod. Vat. gr. 712 ff. 18ʳ–19ʳ, and has much in common with Ep. i. 48, which has been used extensively in this article. Gill’s letter makes particularly clear the extent of division among the Studites on the question whether their opponents should be called heretics. Theodore says harsh things about some of his followers, but at the end of the letter he agrees that it is all right, for the sake of harmony, for some Studites to refrain from using the term ‘heresy’ as long as they do not enter communion with the patriarchal party. Thus Gill’s letter provides additional evidence of the way Theodore’s views were moderating even before the end of the Moechian controversy. Two inaccuracies in Gill’s preliminary remarks need correction. On p. 62 he has Tarasius dead when Nicephorus comes to the throne in A.D. 802. Tarasius was patriarch until the year 806. On p. 63 Gill places the dispersal and imprisonment of the Studites prior to the Synod of January A.D. 809. He may have been misled by the fact that in Ep. i. 48 Theodore recounts events in reverse order.

I should like to take the opportunity given me by this additional note to dedicate this article to the memory of the late president of Swarthmore College, Courtney C. Smith, who died suddenly in January 1969. He devoted himself to making Swarthmore the kind of place where scholarship and teaching can genuinely complement each other.