Byzantine Theology

VINCENZO RUGGIERI La barriera presbiterale e il templon bizantino: ambivalenze semantiche fra liturgia, architettura e scultura* Sono lungi dal presumere, in questa sede, di poter classificare о ampliare la lista dei motivi decorativi, rinvenibili sugli epistili о plutei appartenenti alla decorazione di quell'impianto ecclesiastico a carattere architettonico-decorativo che è il templon. Ci sarebbe, in vero, troppo da annotare sul grande patrimonio costituito dai pezzi lasciati non catalogati ed abbandonati in aree archeologiche о negli oscuri e polverosi depositi dei musei archeologici -questo certamente in Asia Minore -senza nulla dire di quelli obliati e murati nelle case di villaggi Vorrei, invece, soffermarmi sulla natura ideologica che l'apparato architettonico assunse nel corso della sua evoluzione, prima che esso divenisse iconostasi; solo a sprazzi, a modo di provocazione metodologica, accennerò anche a Roma e al Meridione d'Italia. Lascerò, dunque, argomentazioni prettamente tipologiche che il vasto campionario può provocare e mi fermerò a puntualizzare degli aspetti che sottintendono l'acquisizione di una mentalità, di una ideologia composita, ricca di teologia -ben riflessa nella liturgia -e innovazioni architettonico-* Questo saggio ha fondamentalmente un intento metodologico atto a rinvenire delle valenze culturali che sono intervenute nel processo di antropizzazione dello spazio sacro cristiano. Esso fa parte di un progetto più ampio, a carattere interdisciplinare, circoscritto fra il tardo antico e il medioevo bizantino e portato avanti al Pontifício Istituto Orientale di Roma. 1 Un tale desideratum venne espresso anni or sono da С. В ARS ANTI, Scultura anatolica di epoca mediobizantina, in Milion, Studi e Ricerche d'arte bizantina, a cura di C. BARSANTI, A. GUIGLIA, A. IACOBINI, Roma, 1988, pp. 275-277. Recente è la pubblicazione dedicata alla scultura bizantina: La sculpture byzantine Vif-XII e siècles, éd. par CH. PENNAS et C-VANDERHEYDE, Athènes, 2008. 2 Resta ancora valido l'essenziale studio di A. RAES, Introducilo in Liturgiam Orientaient, Romae, 1947; più legata allo sviluppo della liturgia bizantina (costantinopolitana), R. TAFT S. J., How Liturgies Grow: the Evolution of the Byzantine "Divine Liturgy ", in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XLIII (1977), spec. pp. 355-374. 3 L. CLUGNET, Dictionnaire grec-français des nomes liturgiques en usage dans Γ église grecque, Paris, 1895, pp. 148-149. La stessa prudenza è segnalata da CH. WALTER, The Byzantine Sanctuarya word List, in Liturgy, Architecture, and Art in Byzantine World, ed. by С. С. AKENTIEV, S. Petersburg, 1995 (Byzantinorossica, 1), pp. 95-106. I Typika, con le relative referenze al templon, sono oggi riuniti in: Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, ed. by J. THOMAS and С. CONSTANTINIDES HE- RO, Washington, 1998 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 25), per il nostro periodo і voll. 1-3.

Taft R. F. The Great Entrance. A History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Preanaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. [A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. II]. Roma, 1975. (Orientalia Christiana Analecta; 200).

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

The main function of religious art is to embody the abstract idea of God in a form that allows its easiest perception. A central problem of any religious system is God’s presence and its adequate description. Theophanic events are never single-layered and this is a challenge for both the spiritual writer and the spiritual artist.
One of the most enduring trends in religious beliefs in all ages and cultures is the designation of the diversity of manifestations of the divine power, presence and action with unifying notions. Probably the most sustainable and universal in this respect is the concept of the “glory” of gods, through which their divinity is expressed most emphatically, most sensually, and at the same time most unattainably for mankind. This concept is expressed through the term “the glory of God”, which is used in the theological language of all organized religious systems to denote the manifestations of the sacred.
The radiance, which symbolizes the divine grace, power and superiority over all the senses is a common and invariable part of the outward expression of the supernatural character of the events connected with the manifestations and actions of God’s glory. Therefore, one of the key problems facing the visual language of any religion is to find a concise, clear, easily doable and easily understandable form in which to express the theophanic radiance. Thus, two of the most ancient sacred symbols in human history – the nimbus and the aureole (mandorla) were born.
In Christian art, the mandorla has been used to depict the manifestations of God’s presence and actions. The human consciousness perceives the verbal descriptions of theophanic events differently and is not able to create a general convention for their uniform understanding, so the iconographic canon uses certain symbols capable of presenting the necessary universal ideas. The mandorla is an oval, oval-pointed or round outline, which in certain iconographic subjects encompasses the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity and the Theotokos or in rare cases those of some saints. It serves as a visual epitome of the phenomenon of God’s glory.

Review of Norman Russell, Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Forum of the International Orthodox Theological Association, 4 May 2020

https://iota-web.org/2020/05/04/norman-russell-gregory-palamas/

In the article we make the case that St. Germanus II shared the traditional Patristic view of monasticism as of something superior in relation to the Christian marriage. A Christian is permitted to marry one or two times in his or her life only. As a Biblical exegete Germanus is close to Olympiodorus (6th century), St. Gregory Palamas and to the 13th- and 14th-centuries Byzantine hesychasts.

Last Things," Fr. Matthew Baker draws a contradistinction between the views of Met. John Zizioulas and those of his mentor, Fr. Georges Florovsky, with regards to the significance of human agency within the historical process. 1 As Baker contends, the former tends to reflect an approach that is similar to that of Hans-Georg Gadamer, which deems the expressions of tradition and the hermeneutical attempts to engage them as being primarily impersonal events, events that, in the Metropolitan's view, must inevitably be eclipsed by the conclusive and decisive eschatological future beyond the boundaries of historical becoming. 2 By contrast, Florovsky consciously follows R. G. Collingwood, emphasizing the role and input of free human subjects within history, and not merely as an unconditioned attempt at epistemological orientation within an otherwise inexorably determined linear movement. 3 What Baker quite dexterously captures is the fact that Florovksy sees the created world and the human being as embodying creative contingency, "the openness of history to new events," a perspective that serves to "underwrite the permanent significance of human historical action." 4 This view does

Предлагаемая вниманию читателя книга представляет своеобразный свод иконографических вариантов изображения Иисуса Христа, сопровождаемый научно-историческим комментарием их генезиса и развития. Священное Писание, богослужебные и богословские тексты представляют ту литературную основу, на которой формировался визуальный язык православного искусства. Средневековые хроники и рассказы паломников с описанием древних святынь помогают лучше понять духовную среду и эстетическое восприятие людей того далекого времени. Работа построена на исследовании многочисленных памятников с изображением Христа, охватывающих самые разные жанры изобразительного искусства на протяжении огромного хронологического периода-от первых веков христианства до Нового времени. Издание снабжено богатым иллюстративным материалом: памятники монументальной живописи, мозаики, иконы, книжная миниатюра, предметы прикладного искусства. Книга является попыткой сделать доступными для широкого круга читателей исследования отечественных и зарубежных ученых, посвященные образу Христа. Она может быть использована в качестве учебного пособия и предназначена преподавателям христианского искусства, культурологам, иконописцам и студентам.

Maximus follows Dionysius the Areopagite in holding that God ‘precontains’ the knowledge of all things as their cause. He develops this idea by interpreting divine foreknowledge as a consequence of God’s knowledge of the divine logoi, the acts of will by which God predefines and creates all things. Since among the items God foreknows are creatures’ free acts, it would seem to follow that such acts are determined by the logoi. Elsewhere, however, Maximus emphasizes that the full realization of a rational creature’s logos depends upon that creature’s free choice. There thus seems to be a conflict between Maximus’s Neoplatonic account of divine knowledge and his commitment to human free will. I argue that to reconcile this conflict we must distinguish two stages in the existence of the logoi: an initial stage in which they embody simply the divine intent, and a later stage in which (as Maximus puts it in Ambiguum 10) they ‘re-enter’ into eternity to the extent that they have been embodied in the lives of the faithful. The logoi at the latter stage are the joint product of the divine will and creatures’ free choice. However, the distinction between the two stages is conceptual rather than temporal; from a point of view within time, the logoi are always already at the latter stage. This explains how in knowing them from all eternity God can foreknow, without determining, creatures’ free choices.

The Sacrum Armamentarium by Andronikos Kamateros is one of the most important and voluminous remaining Byzantine inedita from the 12th century. Written for Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180), this writing is a ‘stockpile’ of theological texts to be used in refuting the theological argumentations of the opponents of the Orthodox Church.

The Sacrum Armamentarium consists in two distinct parts: a first one dedicated to the Latin Church and a second one dedicated to the Armenian Church. Each part contains a dialogue between the emperor and the representatives sent from Rome and Armenia, claimed to be verbatim transcriptions of real discussions, and an anthological section.

This volume presents the first critical edition of the anti-Latin part only; the topics under discussion in this part cover two of the points of disagreement between Catholicism and Orthodoxy: the primacy of the Roman Church and the procession of the Holy Spirit, the Filioque.

The late Antique mosaic of Orpheus decorated a small room, approximately 18 m2 in area, connected with two even smaller ones, in 4 m2 and the other 2 m2 in area, belonging most likely to a small funerary chapel (or tomb) discovered in the ancient necropolis by the Damascene Gate in Jerusalem; it was discovered in 1901 by H. Vincent.
The author proposes a new interpretation of the iconographic program of the Orpheus myth used by wealthy Christians in a sepulchral context (see Olszewski M.T. «Orphée endeuillé de la mosaïque funéraire de Jérusalem», in Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, B. ed., Actes du colloque «Orphée entre Soleil et ombre», à l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse du 16 au 17 novembre 2007, Inter Lignes, numéros spécial – mars 2008, pp. 205-214, 226). He also proposes a new interpretation of the role Orpheus played in Roman funerary art, concentrating on the importance of the play on words and the visual and textual punning that was popular in ancient art and especially in funerary art. He rejects the popular interpretation of Orpheus as Christ in the Roman catacombs and proposes to interpret the image as that of Orpheus, bard of the departed souls, without any ahistorical connection with Christ. The program of the mosaic from Jerusalem is thus explained as a play on the words Orpheus-orphanos and Chiron (Chi-Rho) and Pan [Παν(τοκράτωρ)].The frequently used Christian funerary formula of resting in peace, Christ or the Lord corresponds
perfectly with the mood created around the mythical bard.
Orpheus’ universal role as singer and musician moving even the most stony of hearts, extolling the beloved departed, is absolutely justified in the context of a 6th-century Christian tomb. Orpheus is a popular and neutral figure, meaning that in effect it does not constitute a threat to Christian theology and can be tolerated by the educated Christians of Jerusalem.

From the middle Byzantine period through the publication of the Philokalia in 1782 and beyond, St John Chrysostom has been acknowledged as an authoritative teacher of the Jesus Prayer. This claim rests on a number of letters and other texts that at an early date were ascribed to Chrysostom and given canonical status by the later Byzantine Hesychasts. This is an extensive excerpt from the introduction to my forthcoming  book on the subject, which includes the Greek text and English translation of the Chrysostomic material in question. These are uncorrected page proofs; the volume will appear sometime before the end of 2019.

Sf=ntul Maxim M\rturisitorul (580-662) este unul din cei mai importan]i teologi bizantini. Teologia sa reprezint\ un pisc al g=ndirii universale, un moment de sintez\ original\, un punct de plecare pentru tot ce s-a scris dup\ el. R\m=ne normativ pentru toate capitolele g=ndirii teologice, mai ales dup\ canonizarea hristologiei sale o dat\ cu Sinodul VI Ecumenic de la Constantinopol (681). De[i nesistematic, scrisul s\u are o unitate [i o coeren]\ de excep]ie. Toate categoriile g=ndirii sale exist\ `ntr-o str=ns\ unitate, `nc=t, pentru a aborda pe una dintre ele, trebuie s\ aprofundezi opera sa `n ansamblu. Firul s\u ro[u este totu[i hristologia, legat\ str=ns de celelalte teme preferate ale sale: cosmologia, antropologia, eclesiologia. Cosmologia Sf=ntului Maxim nu [i-a g\sit o confirmare oficial\ printr-un sinod ecumenic, a[a cum s-a `nt=mplat cu hristologia, fiind de multe ori consi-derat\ de teologi ca o dezvoltare personal\ a unor intui]ii mai vechi ale predecesorilor s\i ca Dionisie Areopagitul, Evagrie Ponticul [.a., iar teoria sa despre ra]iunile divine ale crea]iei a fost a[ezat\ `n r=ndul "teologumenelor". Este meritul teologiei ortodoxe contemporane, `n special a reprezentan]ilor curentului neopatristic, de a fi ar\tat actualitatea [i originalitatea g=ndirii cosmologice maximiene, dar [i a g=ndirii patristice r\s\ritene `n general. Ca un singur exemplu, P\rintele Dumitru St\niloae, care este de fapt [i principalul traduc\tor a operei Sf=ntului Maxim `n rom=ne[te, introduce pe larg `n primul volum al Dogmaticii sale `nv\]\tura despre ra]iunile divine ale lucrurilor din lume. Tema este prezen-tat\ des `n studiile maximiene occidentale, care au luat o amploare f\r\ precedent la sf=r[itul secolului trecut 1 . Zeci de teze de doctorat, monografii consacrate anumitor capitole, sute de studii, de note introductive (num\rul total al studiilor contemporane privind opera Sf=ntului Maxim se ridic\ la aproape 500), fac din Sf=ntul Maxim M\rturisitorul unul din cei mai studia]i [i mai fecunzi autori patristici pentru teologia contemporan\. Studiul de fa]\ `ncearc\ eviden]ierea 1 O privire de ansamblu asupra studiilor maximiene p=n\ la sf=r[itul anilor '80 ofer\ Aidan Nichols `n cartea sa Byzantine Gospel. Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship, Edinbourgh: T&T Clark, 1993.

Introduction to a collection of prayers to the Mother of God ascribed to St Ephraim the Syrian. These prayers were written in Greek by a writer (or writers) whom scholars call Ephraim graecus, or the "Greek Ephraim" (and I have been told that these are the first published English translations of the Greek Ephraim since the early 18th-century.) The collection also includes canons to the Virgin by Theodore the Studite, Methodios of Constantinople, and John Euchaita. On the corpus of Greek Ephraim writings, along with a number of English translations, see: https://saintephrem.wordpress.com/manuscripts/

This is the English text, unreleased in Europe or the US, given by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware to be included in the Malayalam edition of the Philokalia published in India in 2006. This edition contains a complete, but presumably unpolished, translation of Vol. 5, hitherto unknown in English. You can read about the release of the Malayalam Philokalia, which was attended by then-Metropolitan, now-Patriarch Kiril, in Kottayam, here: https://mospat.ru/archive/en/2006/12/34240/

VINCENZO RUGGIERI S.J. Consacrazione e dedicazione di chiesa, secondo il Barberinìanus graecus 336 ( 3 ) Per questa fase di transizione, cfr. C. MANGO, Le développement urbain de Constantinople (IV e -VII e siècles), Paris 1985. Dello stesso autore aspetti della vita bizantina in Daily life in Byzantium, JOB 31/1 (XVI Inter Byzantinistenkongress, Akten 1/1, Wien 1981), p. 337-353. Vedasi anche Addendum to the Report on Everyday Life, JOB 32/1 (Akten II/l), Wien 1982. p. 252-257. Consacrazione e dedicazione di chiesa, secondo il Barb. Gr. 336 81

This essay considers distinct ways of understanding these complexities, specifically by reference to the anthropological and metaphysical thought of St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ understanding of human knowledge and volition and desire are interpreted in light of his commitments concerning doctrine of God, read through his systematic correction of a broadly “Origenist” aversion to metaphysical motion.

The purpose of this essay on the feast of the Dormition is to summarise its origin, meaning and importance as a significant part of the liturgical year. The paper covers some historical facts and discusses liturgical texts as well as spirituality and theology of the feast, mentions the general characteristics of the feast, and concludes with analysing the festal icon, as well as a comprehensive summary and some final thoughts.

In order to understand the introduction of Thomism into Byzantium, one should start with the Dominican professor who introduced Demetrius Cydones to Thomism. This article fills the void  by connecting East and West prior to Plested´s discussion of the reception of St. Thomas in Byzantium in his recently published "Orthodox Reading of Aquinas."
The present article serves to connect Demetrius Cydones to the Dominicans he knew and admired, as well as their educational system in Pera. This project was started in 2009 per the invitation of Walter Senner, OP, to whom I'm eternally grateful for his encouragement and request for the following study.

The thought of Gregory Palamas is marked by an extraordinary appropriation of Pauline theology that has largely escaped scholarly notice. This paper argues that the Hesychast controversy unfolded around rival interpretations of Paul's theology and visionary experiences, especially his vision of the divine light (Acts 9:3–9) and his ascent into the 'third heaven' (2 Cor 12:1–10), which Palamas and his followers identified with their own understanding of the uncreated light of God and with Hesychast spirituality more generally. Palamas' rich and complex handling of Paul's letters is explored through a close reading of the first Triad, along with relevant passages from the other works in the trilogy. The analysis suggests that the Hesychast controversy was in many ways a debate about who was the true follower of Paul. The last fifty years have witnessed an explosion of Palamite studies, along with growing interest in other theological writers of the period, yet almost no attention has been paid to the Palamite (or Hesychast) use of the Pauline corpus or of Scripture more generally. If we take the standard works of reference as our starting point, we will be told that the Hesychast controversy was a debate about the nature of mystical experience, a clash between ascetic spirituality and scholastic methodology, a chapter in the ongoing quarrel between faith and reason (or between theology and philosophy, or Christianity and Hellenism), or simply an ideological screen for the ambitions of warring feudal magnates set against the background of reviving urban life. As true as these interpretations might be, they do not even remotely suggest that the Hesychast controversy can and probably should be seen as a debate about who was the true follower of Paul.

This is an altered and cleaned-up version of the text supplied by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware for the Malayalam-English Philokalia published in Kerala, India, in 2006. Although Vol. 5 has yet to appear in Europe or the US, a version of the English translation has been available in India since 2006. Below you will find the lengthy 'Directions to Hesychasts,' Syntagma, or Methodos by Kallistos and Ignatios, which makes up a very large part of Volume 5. The original scan can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/40333540/Philokalia_Vol._5_Kallistos_and_Ignatios_On_the_Life_of_Stillness_English_. You can read about the release of the English-Malayalam Philokalia, at a ceremony attended by then-Metroplitan, now-Patriarch Kiril, here: https://mospat.ru/archive/en/2006/12/34240/

Arguing that the real meaning of orthodoxy is not a set of official dogmas but “correct glorification,” the present study pleads for the possibility of divergent theological concepts within orthodoxy and for the methodology of understanding “Symeon through Symeon” without the projection of our own concept of orthodoxy, identified with the letter of the teaching of the fourteenth-century Hesychasts, into Symeon’s thought. Through philological analysis, this essay shows that, concerning the role of the body in the final mystical vision of God, Symeon’s oeuvre displays some contradictions. Symeon often quotes St Paul (2Cor 12:2), stating that, in the moment of the vision, the saints do not know whether they are in the body or without the body, because this is impossible to judge. Yet, in Hymn IX, verse 9, Symeon seems to say that in the unifying vision the saint is raptured outside the world with his body, while Nicetas Stethatus, Symeon’s pupil and the editor of his works, adds here a marginal note stating that this doctrine is to be found in another, unspecified work of Symeon. However, a thorough scrutiny into the loci where Symeon speaks about the final rapture seems to reveal that at no other place does he teach such a doctrine. Rather, he adds many times that, according to his own – necessarily speculative – view, in the rapture the saints must be without the body, in a completely immaterial state, and so do they become capable of contemplating the immaterial God. Not only this but also the descriptions of the descent into the body and the corporeal world after the vision are reminiscent of Plotinus’s comparable descriptions of the mystical union of the soul and her subsequent descent into our world. The difference, which is that of a non-Christian Platonist mysticism and a Christian Platonist spirituality, seems to be that another kind of vision is also possible in the body – represented in Symeon’s poetry by the metaphors of the pit, the darkness and the grave of the soul – due to the descent of the Light, that is, Christ, into the darkness, that is, the corporeal world. Finally, based on the above reconstruction, the study argues that the only locus where Symeon seems to teach a rapture with the body is due to the editorial intervention of Nicetas, this fact also being testified to by the latter’s misleading marginal note, and that Symeon’s mysticism typically belongs to the intellectualist type of mysticism, being very close to that of Evagrius. Yet, it is to be considered a fully orthodox teaching, among other reasons because it ignores the metaphysical dimension of Evagrius’s doctrine, condemned as unorthodox in the sixth century, and lays all its emphasis on spirituality.

The article looks at the influences on Gregory of Nyssa's apophatic theology, and shows how the polemics with the neo-Arian Eunomius and later also with Origen influenced his notions of God's infinity and the infinity of human spiritual progress. It focuses on the relationship between revelation in words and in silence, between participatory knowledge of God and participatory unknowing of God, the kind of darkness that, according to Gregory leads towards restoration, and thus carries on the graced human journey of deification.

Η θεολογική διδασκαλία του Πρόκλου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως στο έργο του Ἐγκώμιον εἰς τὴν παναγίαν Θεοτόκον Μαρίαν 1 (Λόγος Α') Ο άγιος Πρόκλος διετέλεσε Πατριάρχης Κωνσταντινουπόλεως από το 434 ως το 446 μ.Χ. Η συγκεκριμένη ομιλία του Πρόκλου εκφωνήθηκε πιθανώς στην Κωνσταντινούπολη τον Δεκέμβριο του 428 ή το 430, ενώπιον μάλιστα του Νεστορίου. Σε αυτήν την σύντομη πραγματεία θα προσπαθήσουμε να εξετάσουμε την θεολογική διδασκαλία του πατρός που περικλείεται στην πλούσια αυτή ομιλία. Η δημιουργία και οι συνέπειες της πτώσης του ανθρώπου Ο Πρόκλος Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, όντας άριστος γνώστης των Γραφών και πιστός διά του Πνεύματος θεολόγος της βιβλικο-πατερικής 1 Πιο αναλυτικά για την χριστολογία του Πρόκλου βλέπε : Κουρεμπελές Ι., Η ομιλία του πατριάρχη Πρόκλου «εις την Παναγίαν Θεοτόκον» και η απάντηση του

The present article shows the unbreakable connection between man and the created cosmos. Man, as mediator between all the divisions in creation, find themselves at the heart of the world, and have the vocation to mediate between the various levels of creation so as to deify them (theosis).

One of the most intriguing aspects of Greek patristic thought about nature is the concept of the logoi of beings. The logoi are the "inner essences" of things, the value and significance they have in the eyes of the Creator rather than our faulty human estimation. To perceive the logoi in beings is the act known as theōria phusikē, the second of the three stages of the spiritual life distinguished by Evagrius and the tradition that followed him. 1 A full discussion of theōria phusikē would require situating it within its role in the ascetic life-as, on the one hand, the outgrowth of praktikē (ascetic and moral practice), and, on the other, the gateway to theologia (pure or imageless prayer). My aim here is the more modest one of understanding the concept of the logoi of beings itself.

o n d i f f i c u l t i e s i n t h e c h u r c h f a t h e r s v o l u m e i m a x i m o s t h e c o n f e s s o r doml 28 s r l 006148_DOML028_000_FM01-01_TXT_APP • 09/20/13 08:05:15 AM • i MS2 d u m b a r t o n o a k s m e d i e v a l l i b r a r y