Alexander Schmemann

4. Byzantium (22 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 19

The Conservative Trend.

With this assimilation of the Church to government and empire — not only external but internal and psychological — was linked a certain polarization of thought that characterized this period: a dichotomy between two basic tendencies in theology and religious experience.

First, there is no doubt that the era of the ecumenical councils, the time of creative tension in ecclesiastical thinking, ended with the iconoclastic controversy. The desire to fix Orthodoxy in some precise and final formula is intrinsically connected with the relations between Church and state. One need only recall the after-effects of the theological disputes of the fourth and fifth centuries, as a result of state interference.
This does not mean that theological development within the Church came about by the initiative of the state. But the state tried to turn to its own advantage themes, which had been developed in the speculations of the Church. From the very start we can sense in these disputes a state motif, as it were — a principle of requiring religious unanimity for the peace of the state. This had been the point of view of Constantine himself, for all his personal devotion.
As time went on, the motif became stronger. The fevers of dispute and heresy that shook the body of the Church shook the organism of the state as well. The government was increasingly determined to reduce all differences of opinion to a common denominator, not so much from disinterested love of truth as for preservation of the integrity of the multinational empire, where any religious discontent immediately flared up into a fire of ethnic and political passions and separatisms of all sorts. From this drive to control the troubled waters of racial elements came all the endless attempts to find a compromise with Monophysitism, which led the state into religious relativism. Too frequently it did not seek the truth, but rather peace and unanimity at any cost.

The victory over iconoclasm marked the turning point in this respect. While previously the emperors had been mainly concerned with finding a confessional minimum acceptable to all the diverse sections of the empire, the necessity of seeking such a minimum now disappeared of itself; religious unity was achieved at the price of the loss of all dissidents and the diminution of the empire. State authority had finally become Orthodox. In addition, it was fully aware of its mission, entrusted to it by God: the meticulous preservation of Orthodoxy in all its inviolability and purity.
Previously, the emperors had shown initiative in clarifying the faith, and theologized in order to obtain general consent; now the consent was achieved, since all protesting masses were outside the imperial borders.

This new situation required a new policy. Bitter experience had shown that each religious divergence brought a threat of shock within the state as well. Now the basic concern of the emperors became the desire not to allow any religious disturbance, but to foster a sort of religious status quo. Orthodoxy coincided with conservatism down to the very letter of tradition. Iconoclasm revealed for the last time the dangerous fact that religious passions could turn into political discord. This experience was crucial. Naturally the Church, which had always longed for dogmatic unanimity and harmony with its “external bishop,” joyously accepted the conservative policy of the state; here were rooted all the preconditions for its whole subsequent theological life.

 

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