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A Tractate about the Council of Florence attributed to George Amiroutzes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Joseph Gill
Joseph Gill
Affiliation:
Professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome
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Extract

George Amiroutzes, commonly called the Philosopher for his wide learning, was a native of Trebizond. In 1437 he accompanied John VIII Palaeologus, emperor of Constantinople, to Italy to the Council of Ferrara-Florence as one of the three erudite laymen (the others were George Scholarius and George Gemistus ‘Pletho’) that the emperor took with him to advise him on the difficult theological questions there to be discussed. As the events unfolded division arose in the ranks of the Greeks. First, in Ferrara, there was the question as to what should be the subject of the opening discussion—the addition of the Filioque to the Creed, or the doctrine of the Filioque. Bessarion, metropolitan of Nicaea (later cardinal) and Scholarius (later the patriarch Gennadius) wanted to start with the latter as the more fundamental; Mark Eugenicus, metropolitan of Ephesus, and Gemistus preferred the former and their opinion prevailed. Amiroutzes agreed with Bessarion and Scholarius. In Florence, where the subject of debate was the doctrine of the Filioque, the rift between the two parties was more serious. It was a rift mainly between the leaders, for the majority of the Greek bishops, of a lower intellectual standard, was content to follow. For union the protagonists were Bessarion, Isidore, metropolitan of Kiev and of all Russia, Gregory, the imperial confessor, and Dorotheus, metropolitan of Mitylene. Against union, Mark of Ephesus stood almost alone but indomitable. George Amiroutzes was a staunch supporter of the unionists, who in several of the private conferences of the Greeks bitterly attacked Eugenicus and who gave a written vote in decisive and clear terms in favour of the orthodoxy of the Latin doctrine on the Procession of the Holy Spirit. The decree of union of the Latin and the Greek Churches was promulgated in solemn session on 6 July 1439. It bears the signatures of the emperor, of all the Greek prelates but two (Eugenicus and Isaias of Stauropolis), of five deacons of the Great Church and of several monks. The three ‘philosophers’ did not sign because they were laymen. As is well known, after their return to Constantinople most of the Greek prelates, under the influence of Mark Eugenicus and of popular sentiment, repented of their adherence.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , April 1958 , pp. 30 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1958

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References

page 30 note 1 Jugie, M., ‘La profession de foi de Georges Amiroutzès au concile de Florence,’ in Echos d'Orient, XXXVI (1937), 175–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 31 note 1 Edited by Mohler, L., ‘Eine bisher verlorene Schrift von Georgios Amirutzes über das Konzil von Florenz’, in Oriens Christianus, neue Serie,IX (1920), 20–35;Google Scholar and by Jugie, M., ‘La lettre de Georges Amiroutzès au due de Nauplie Démétrius sur le concile de Florence’, in Byzantion, XIV (1939), 77–93Google Scholar. Both editors have transcribed the sole extant MS., Vallicellanus 183, an eighteenth-century copy of an earlier MS. once in the possession of Leo Allatius. Allatius received it from Chios and gives several extracts from it, including the title, which amply prove the fidelity of the copy. References will be given to Fr. Jugie's article, as probably the more accessible to the reader.

page 31 note 2 ‘And, in the first place, I together with them put into Venice’ (82). The importance of this examination of the authenticity of this treatise ascribed to Arniroutzes will be apparent to the readers of my book, The Council of Florence, which will be published very shortly.

page 31 note 3 Of George Coresius who flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century: L. Allatius, De ecclesiae occidentalis atque orientalis perpetua consensione, Coloniae Agrippinae 1648, cc. 877, 935.

page 31 note 4 Allatius, c. 1379. This, now lost, and the copy in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana are the only known MSS.

page 31 note 5 Zakythinos, A., Le despotat grec de Morée I, Paris 1932, 258Google Scholar, n, 5; ii, Athens 1953, 114, 361, with assurance: Tomadakis, N., ‘Did George Amiroutzes become a Mohammedan?’ in Epetiris Hetaireias Byzantinon Spoudon XVIII (1948), 118, with more reserve.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 Legrand, E., Cent-dix lettres grecques de François Filelfe, Paris 1892, 304–5.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Petit, L., Sidéridès, X. A., Jugie, M., Œuvres complètes de Gennade Scholarios, III, Paris 1930, 194–5. The other MS., Cod. Barrocianus Oxoniensis 85 fol. 3r–3v, drawn up in the same way, is not quite so misleading, since it mentions that Isidore became a cardinal.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 Gill, J., Quae supersunt Actorum graecorum Concilii Florentini, Rome 1953, liii–lxix.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 This idea, of its relation with Reformation ideology, occurred to me before I had actually traced any possible physical connexion.

page 36 note 2 Papaioannou, C., ‘The Acts of the so-called last Synod in St. Sophia (A.D. 1450) and their historical value’ in Ekklesiastiki Aletheia, xv–xvi, 1896–1897, passim. Allatius (op. cit., cc. 1380–95) had already indicated a number of blatant contradictions and absurdities, and had come to the same conclusion as to their worthlessness.Google Scholar

page 36 note 3 Papaioannou, op. cit., XV, 397–8: Allatius, cc. 877, 935. All we know of the treatise of Gemistus is a quotation in Allatius, op. cit., cc. 908–9: he mentions Chios as the source of what must have been this treatise in c. 937, whose opening words are nearly, but not quite, the same as those of the treatise generally recognised as genuinely of Gemistus: cf. c. 936.

page 36 note 4 Allatius, cc. 1379, 1380, 937.

page 37 note 1 Cf. Sathas, K. N., Biographies of Greeks distinguished in Literature (1453–1821), Athens 1868, 249–50. One is entitled: ‘About the Primacy of the Pope’; it would be interesting to compare its arguments with those of the treatise addressed to Demetrius.Google Scholar