The treatise of Ioannes Lydos On the Magistracies of the Roman State contains an argument against the legitimacy of the Roman emperors and in favour of the political freedom of the Republic. This argument targets Justinian in particular, whom Lydos compares to tyrants such as the early kings of Rome and the dynasts of the Republic. While most of the essay examines the details of Lydos' text, some consideration is given to its historical context and the range and nature of political dissidence in early Byzantium.

The Threnos seu lamentatio sanctissimae Dei genitricis, quae dicitur in sancta et magna Parasceve, since long attributed to Ephraem the Syrian, appears to be a direct translation of the anonymous , published by Manousakas, and thus cannot be Ephraem’s work. The Greek original, based upon troparia in the versus politicus of the fourteenth century, the Akolouthia of Good Friday and the second version of the Acta Pilati, must have been composed around the year 1400. There are strong indications that this text, a sort of amplified stavrotheotokion, has been sung for some time on Good Friday, outside the official service.

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.

This article explores the various elements on which Yannis Ritsos based his approach to construct C.P. Cavafy's image in and focuses on his twofold reading, using his predecessor's biography and poetry.

The poem ‘On Form’ clearly depicts the ‘encounter’ between the two poets and provides the guidelines to explore it. The other eleven poems are built up around it and together they stress: (a) the path that brought Ritsos close to Cavafy and the problems generated during this course, (b) the external features that gradually lead deeper to his predecessor's poetics, and (c) the importance of poetic appreciation and the difficulties involved.

The following account, therefore, not only explains why Ritsos dedicated Twelve Poems to Cavafy but also underlines their role in his own oeuvre at that time. Formal features and thematic aspects that characterise Cavafy's poetry are incorporated but also elaborated upon in this collection. The younger poet nevertheless retained his independence, foreshadowing his creative assimilation of Cavafy's poetry in the 1960s.

Following Friedrich Nietzsche, Nikos Kazantzakis gives mythopoetic embodiment to a way of looking at life that anticipates what we now see — attention to evolution, language, truth, perspective, and world enthusiasm — in various postmodern philosophies of religion. To show this alliance, my essay facilitates a broad but illuminating exchange between Kazantzakis and recent postmodern thinkers from around the western-oriented world: John Caputo (North America), Don Cupitt (England), Lloyd Geering (New Zealand) and Gianni Vattimo (Italy). With the advent of Nietzschean-inspired postmodern philosophies of religion, it seems that rereading Kazantzakis, like recent rereadings of Nietzsche, creates intriguing possibilities for thought as well as for action.