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On the closing of the churches and the rebaptism of Latins: Greek perfidy or Latin slander?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2016
Abstract
Following the testimony of various western medieval authors, historians sometimes assert that Byzantines closed the Latin churches of Constantinople on at least two occasions and rebaptised Latin Christians who married Greek ones from c.1054 on. Both the polemical context of these accusations, however, and statements in contemporary Greek sources call these assertions into question. Latin churches were probably not closed by the Greek patriarch in 1054 or 1089, and rebaptism of Latin Christians was not the policy of the Constantinopolitan church at any point in the Middle Ages.
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- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2005
References
Notes
1 Accounts of the events of 1054 are legion. For the reader who wishes a sample, Runciman, S., The Eastern Schism (Oxford 1955) 28–54Google Scholar, is a thorough and readable account. For more detail, as well as cogent analysis, see Smith, M.H. III, And Taking Bread… Cerularius and the Azyme Controversy of 1054 (Paris 1978)Google Scholar. For the most thorough study of the sources see Michel, A., Humbert und Kerullarios, 2 vols. (Paderborn 1924, 1930)Google Scholar. V. Laurent, J. Darrouzès, and others have disputed Michel's attribution of some texts to Keroularios. The primary sources can be found in Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios; in MPG 120, 735–747, 782–820; in MPL 143: 743–781, 794–798, 929–1004.
2 The letter in question: MPG 120, 835–843. For all dating, I follow Smith, And Taking Bread. On John of Trani, see Gay, J., L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin depuis l'avènement de Basil ler jusqu'a la prise de Bari par les Normands (Paris 1904; Bibliothèque des Ècoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 90) 495–497Google Scholar.
3 MPL 143, 759.
4 MPL 143, 764.
5 MPL 143, 974.
6 In a letter to the patriarch of Antioch in 1054, for example, Keroularios reports that he had turned away from communion a Latin who defended the use of unleavened eucharistic bread, ‘not only once, but even twice and, indeed, three and four times’; MPG 120, 788.
7 Smith, And Taking Bread… 119–121.
8 MPL 143, 764A, ‘ut fertur’.
9 MPL 143, 1002.
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14 MPL 165, 1085–1090. On the relationship of this text to Laycus's, see Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem 14–15.
15 One twelfth-century Byzantine bishop complained that the Latins ‘give baptizands extraordinary, foreign names and not the names of the saints’; John of Claudiopolis, ed. Pavlov, A.N., Kriticeskie opyty po istorie drevnejsej Greko-Russkoj polemiki protev Patenjan (St. Petersburg 1878) 190, para. 12Google Scholar.
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17 MPL 143, 1003; written after July 20, 1054.
18 Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem. The Journey of Louis VII to the East, ed., tr. V.G. Berry (New York 1948) 57; probably written spring or summer 1148.
19 E.g. Leo ‘Tuscus', ‘De haeresibus et praevaricationibus Graecorum,’ ed. Dondaine, A., ‘Hugues Éthèrien et Lèon Toscan,’ Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littèraire du moyen ège 27 (1952) 126Google Scholar; written between end of 1177 and 1181. Jerome of Ascoli, (later Pope Nicholas IV, 1288–1292), ‘Litterae ad concilium transmissae de errore Graecorum et ritu, quem tenebant,’ ed. Roberg, B., Die Union zwischen der griechischen und der lateinischen Kirche auf dem 11. Konzil von Lyon (1274) (Bonn 1964) 230Google Scholar.
20 The account comprises books 2 and 3 of Anselm's Antikeimenon, MPL 188, 1139–1248.
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24 MPL 188, 1173–1179; Grossolano, Oratio 25–26, 28–29; Phournes, ‘Apologia’ 37–42; Eustratios of Nicea, ‘Refutation’ 89-90, 92, 96-97.
25 MPL 188, 1240: ‘Proinde si generale concilium communicate omni concilio, adnitentibus piissimis imperatoribus fieret […].’
26 Lees, Anselm 271–272. Lees follows this statement with an explanation of what Anselm might have meant by portraying his Greek debater as someone who acknowledged the legitimacy of the western emperor. But compare MPL 188, 1210: ‘sed aliquod generale concilium occidentalis et orientalis Ecclesiae auctoritate sancti Romani pontificis, admittentibus piissimis imperatoribus celebrandum esset […].’ In the latter case, it seems even clearer that Anselm, through Niketas-the-debater, is distinguishing between the western authority of the pope and the eastern consent of the emperors. Compare also repeated references to ‘both’ emperors throughout Byzantine history; e.g. the repeated references to both Alexios I and his son John in Bohemond's oath, signed at Devol after his second invasion of the empire: Anna Komnene, eds D. Reinsch and A. Karambylis, Alexias (Berlin 2001) 13.12, 413–423, tr. E.R.A. Sewter, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (London 1969) 424–434.
27 Choniates, Niketas, Historia, ed. van Dieten, J.-L. (CFHB 2, Berlin 1975) 16–17, 38Google Scholar; tr. in O City of Byzantium, H.J. Magoulias (Detroit 1984) 11, 22. F. Chalandon, Jean II Comnène (1118–1143) et Manuel I Comnène (1143–1180), Les Comnènes: Études sur l'Empire byzantin au XIe et XIIe siècle, vol. 2 (Paris 1912, reprinted New York c.1960) 12–14, 182–183.
28 Lees, Anselm 278–279: ‘Anselm the writer's choice of rebaptizm as the last issue to be discussed is, thus, a conscious one, allowing him to bring his debate to a close with an affirmation of the unity of the church […]. The issue of rebaptizm allows him to end where he began by making this optimism abundantly clear and minimizing the differences that remain.’
29 MPL 188, 1246–1247.
30 Kolbaba, T.M., The Byzantine Lists. Errors of the Latins (Urbana 2000) 44, 192Google Scholar.
31 See, for example, the account and illustrations of the reception of Agnes of France in Vat.gr. 1851, discussed with extensive references in Jeffreys, M., ‘The Vernacular eisitêrioi for Agnes of France,’ in Jeffreys, E., Jeffreys, M. and Moffatt, A. eds., Byzantine Papers. Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference (Byzantina Australiensia 1, Canberra 1981) 101–115Google Scholar; C.J. Hilsdale, Diplomacy by Design: Rhetorical Strategies of the Byzantine Gift, Ph.D. dissertation (University of Chicago 2003) ch. 3: ‘Incorporating with a Book’; Hilsdale, ‘Bride, Book and Visuality,’ delivered at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, October 4–6, 2002; abstract available in Twenty-Eighth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts of Papers (Byzantine Studies Conference 2002) 40–41. I am obliged to Hilsdale for these references.
32 Magdalino, P., The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143–1180 (Cambridge 1993) 42–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Diehl, C., Byzantine Empresses, tr. Bell, H. and de Kerpely, T. (New York 1963) 239Google Scholar.
34 I suspect, however, that there are others and look forward to suggestions from readers.
35 The text of this debate: August Heisenberg, ‘Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des lateinischen Kaisertums und der Kirchenunion. II. Die Unionsverhandlungen vom 30. August 1206. Patriarchenwahl und Kaiserkrönung in Nikaia 1208,’ Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philsophisch-philologische und historische Klasse 2 (1923) 15–25. Summary by Gill, Joseph, Byzantium and the Papacy 1198–1400 (New Brunswick, New Jersey 1979) 33Google Scholar.
36 Heisenberg, ‘Neue Quellen … II’ 20. The Greek of the second sentence echoes language in the Great Vespers service for the eve of Pentecost; see http://www.qub.ac.uk/ibs/glt/texts/Pen/Pentecost.htm (consulted October 10, 2003). For this reference and for help rendering the liturgical language into English, I thank Alexander Lingas.
37 Eustathios of Thessaloniki, ‘Oration in honor of the arrival of Agnes of France’, ed. W. Regel, Pontes rerum Byzantinarum, tomus 1, fasciculus 1, rhetorum saeculi xii orationes politicae (St. Petersburg 1892; reprinted Leipzig 1982) 81. Magdalino, , Empire of Manuel I 456Google Scholar; Magdalino's discussion, ibid. 462, was a considerable help in my translation and interpretation of this passage.
38 Kolbaba, , Byzantine Lists 43–44, 192Google Scholar.
39 MPG 137, 345–346 = G.A. Ralles and A. Potles, Syntagma ton theion kai ieron kanonon (Athens 1852–1859, reprinted Athens 1966) 2:191.
40 F. Miklosich and I. Müller (eds), Acta et Diplotnata Graeca Medii Aevi (Vienna 1862, reprinted Aalen 1968) 2:84, # 376, A.D.1384. Miklosich and Müller edited several more such confessions.
41 On the Dominicans in Constantinople, see Delacroix-Besnier, C., Les Dominicains et la chrétienté grecque aux XIVe et Xve siècles (Collection de la École française de Rome 237; Rome 1997)Google Scholar.
42 MPG 140, 487–574, entitled ‘Tractatus contra errores Graecorum, de processione Spiritus sancti […].’ The treatise is primarily about the procession of the Holy Spirit, but its last thirty columns deal with ‘Graecorum malae consuetudines.’ Among these are the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist and the condemnation of Latin azymes, refusal to accept papal primacy, improper monastic tonsure, eating blood, etc. The complaints about baptism are one item on this long list.
43 MPG 140, 549–550.
44 F. Stegmüller, ‘[Guilelmus Bernardi de Gaillac, OP] Tractatus de obiectionibus Graecorum contra processionem Spiritus Sancti a Filio,’ Uppsala Universitäts Arsskrift 2, f. VIII (= Analecta Uppsaliensia I) 323ff. Quoted by Congourdeau, M.H., ‘Note sur les Dominicains de Constantinople’, REB 45 (1987) 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar; discussed ibid. 165–181; also discussed by Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains 240–249.
45 In fact, the friar himself had met people who spoke of seventy complaints circulating among the Greeks about Latin doctrine and ritual. In his own research, he had found only about forty, and most of those he dismissed as being of no importance. He thought three were worth discussing: the eucharistic bread, Purgatory, and the Filioque.
Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains 242. On Greek lists of complaints about the Latins — some indeed containing more than seventy items — see Kolbaba, Byzantine Lists. For editions of two such lists, see Darrouzès, J., ‘Le mémoire de Constantin Stilbès contre les Latins,’ REB 21 (1963) 50–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kolbaba, T.M., ‘Meletios Homologetes “On the Customs of the Italians’”, REB 55 (1997) 137–168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 See Magdalino, P., ‘Byzantine Snobbery,’ in Angold, M. (ed.), The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX-XIII Centuries 58–78 (Oxford 1984)Google Scholar; reprinted in Magdalino, , Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium (London 1991) IGoogle Scholar.
47 Ware, T., The Orthodox Church, new ed. (London 1993) 98Google Scholar.