Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 26

Shortly afterward, in 531, Justinian sharply changed course and abandoned the use of force, replacing it by a policy of compromise. Usually this reversal is ascribed to the influence of his wife Theodora, a secret Monophysite, who constantly helped the persecuted leaders of the heresy. Other historians mention a unique division of spheres between husband and wife; Justinian’s support of orthodoxy and Theodora’s of Monophysitism they claim were a political maneuver to preserve the unity of the empire, by allowing both sides access to imperial power. Whatever the case, Justinian could not help but comprehend the threatening significance of this religious division, behind which the separatism of ancient nationalisms was ever more clearly visible.

The expelled monks were allowed to return to their monasteries. A huge number of them settled right next door to the emperor himself, where for decades they were a center of secret Monophysite intrigues around Theodora. The emperor was still counting on a theological agreement. In 533 he arranged a three-day discussion in which twelve theologians participated, six on each side. Despite the peaceful tone and high theological level of the debate, it had no result. Soon afterward Theodora succeeded in making a certain Anthimus, almost openly a Monophysite, patriarch of Constantinople. An encounter with Severus of Antioch, whom the emperor had managed to entice out of Egypt for theological discussions, completed Justinian’s apparent conversion to the Monophysite camp.

Just then, however, the Roman Pope Agapetus himself appeared in Constantinople. The patriarch’s heresy was exposed, he disappeared, and the orthodox Menas was elevated to his seat by the pope’s own hand. Justinian again changed course. In an edict of 536 Monophysitism was once more solemnly condemned, the books of Severus of Antioch were removed from circulation, and entry to the capital was forbidden to heretics. He resolved on an even more drastic step: after so many years of almost official recognition of the Monophysite hierarchy in Egypt, he now sent an orthodox bishop there with unlimited powers, and a wave of terror once more rolled through the country.

Now a decisive development took place: the rise of an independent, parallel Monophysite hierarchy, which changed to a final and irreversible schism what might hitherto have been considered a theological divergence. There had been parallel patriarchs at times before this. But now with the help of Theodora a certain Bishop John, exiled for heresy, succeeded in being transferred to the capital on the pretext of needing medical attention, and here, concealed from the police by the empress, he began to consecrate priests in his own house. Later he managed to pass secretly throughout almost all Asia Minor for the same purpose. A little later another secret bishop, Jacob Baradai “the Ragged,” traveled through Syria in the guise of a beggar. On this journey, with the help of two exiled Egyptian bishops, he consecrated bishops as well. The latter soon elected their own Monophysite patriarch. The foundation of the “Jacobite” Church (named after Baradai) was laid, and it exists today. Copts and Syrians thus established their national Church, and the first permanent division between the churches was complete.

After this neither Justinian nor his successors ever retreated from Chalcedon, and the empire joined its fate with Orthodoxy forever. But is it not tragic that one of the main reasons for the rejection of Orthodoxy by almost the whole non-Greek East was its hatred for the empire? A hundred years later the Syrians and Copts would greet their Mohammedan conquerors as saviors; this was the price the Church paid for the inner dichotomy of the union of Constantine.

 

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