On the Division Over the Moechian Controversy

 

Again discord, confused opinions, and personal division arose both within the ecclesiastical hierarchy and among the monks, with some considering that it was not good to offend the ruler concerning this matter, but those around great Theodore responding that it was not right that the judgment on Joseph [of Kathara] pronounced by the inspired Tarasios should be overturned, as it had been to everyone’s advantage at that time. “The dispensation regarding such matters,” Theodore said, “clearly supported the adulterous marriage. In addition, it is right to be mindful of God’s righteous judgment that has already befallen the young Constantine and not consign that to oblivion and henceforth to follow the intent of divine legislation so that, by a simplistic decision and reckless reactions we should not, to the destruction of our souls, fabricate grounds for a dispensation, grounds which do not exist at all and which would simply not yield any benefit for the world.”

As a result of this, the two groups, which remained irreconcilable over the judgments, were at odds with one another, just as Paul and Barnabas were in their disagreement concerning John who was called Mark, as it is written: And there arose a sharp contention, so that they separated from each other; Barnabas took Mark him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended to the grace of God by the brethren. In his divinely illuminating commentary on Acts, holy Chrysostomos referred to this, commenting that which of them deliberated better is not ours to declare. But I do say about the present instance that both parties acted well, as indeed the renowned Tarasios also declared in his dispensation. For at that time, the patriarch, distrusting the ruler’s irascibility and quick temper, and knowing that the latter was very easily carried away by his nature into wrongdoing and suffered from a tendency to sin, relaxed the reins of strictness so that the emperor would not contrive something even harsher for the Church of God. By allowing something that was lesser and partial, he wisely procured what was more generally beneficial, fulfilling the saying, buying up the time because the days are evil.

- Michael the Monk, “Life of Theodore,” from The Life and Death of Theodore of Stoudios, edited and translated by Robert H. Jordan and Rosemary Morris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), pp. 73-74.

Background: This was concerning the decision of St. Theodore the Studite (+826) to cease commemorating St. Nikephoros the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople (+828 A.D.), over his approving Emperor Nikephoros I’s request to restore Abbot Joseph to office, who had performed the wedding of the adulterous marriage of Emperor Constantine VI to his mother’s lady-in-waiting in 795 A.D. The wedding, while not formally approved, was condoned by St. Tarasios of Constantinople (+806), who St. Theodore had broken communion with as well.