The aim of this
study is to explore the ways that the disciplinary canons of the Council of
Trullo (692) were used during the conflict between the Greek and Latin Churches
in the critical period of the eleventh century. To understand how the
disciplinary canons of Trullo influenced anti-Latin treatises before and after
the capture of Constantinople by the army of the Fourth Crusade (1204). In what
ways the canons contributed to the sense of a separate identity after the
partition of the Byzantine Empire, which was followed by intensive efforts by
the Roman Catholic Church to Latinize the Greek Orthodox populations. Focusing
on specific canons dealing with liturgical discipline that reappear in popular
anti-Latin treatises, known as Lists of
Errors. The most important questions that we will attempt to answer are as
follows: (a) is there a correlation between these lists and the canons of
Trullo?; (b) to what extent and how important was the reference to the
authority of these canons for the defense of specific doctrines and dietary and
liturgical practices for both sides?; (c) in what ways the canons of Trullo
reflect the definition of orthodoxy against heresy and Judaism and (d) What
were the political and ecclesiastical repercussions of the enactment of these
canons ? These questions will be examined from a historical and theological
point of view.
The material
comprises mainly published sources, Acts of the Councils, theological
treatises, Lists of Errors,
anti-heretical manuals, canonical commentaries, and hagiographical texts.
Though substantial work on the Lists of
Errors has been published by Tia Kolbaba, and a number of scholars have
examined the background of the theological controversies of the eleventh
century, the direct link between the canons and the list of errors has been
neglected; this dissertation is an attempt to fill in the gap.
In terms of
structure the study comprises three Sections (I-III). Section I discusses the
Council of Trullo, placing it in the historical and theological context,
focusing on the aforementioned disciplinary canons with relation to the
definition of orthodoxy and heresy. Section II examines the afterlife of the
Council and the specific canons, placing emphasis on their reception in East
and West in the period prior to the ‘events of 1054’, in an effort to assess
their use in defense of doctrinal accuracy as perceived by either side. Section
III will attempt to answer the main question, namely to what extent and in what
ways these canons influenced the development of the dialogue between Byzantine
and Western theologians in the period that followed, which culminated in the
publication of Niketas Choniates’ Panoplia
Dogmatike and Thomas Aquinas’ Contra
Errores Graecorum, and the Council of Lyons (1274), where these doctrinal
and liturgical practices were crystallized.
Section I: The
Council in Trullo
The Council in
Trullo (691-692) met in the domed hall of the imperial palace in
Constantinople, the same palace that had hosted the Sixth Ecumenical Council
eleven years earlier. The Council was convened by Emperor Justinian II
(685-695, 705-711). According to tradition, forty-three hierarchs among those
who participated had also attended and signed the acts of the Sixth Council.[1]
More recent scholarship on the earliest extant copy of the subscription list of
the Acts of the Council puts the total number of episcopal signatures at 226,
that is 227 including the Emperor’s.[2]
The Council drew up 102 disciplinary canons that were intended to supply what
the previous two Ecumenical Councils omitted.
The Council has
been treated by commentators mainly in two ways; the first interpretation and
until recently the most common opinion in the West is that the council was
effectively an exclusively Eastern local Synod. The implication of this
approach is that the canons of the Council do not have ecumenical authority.
The argument against Trullo’s ecumenical character is based primarily upon the
so-called ‘anti-Roman’ canons 6,13, 36, 52 and 55 which contradict the established
practices of the Roman (Latin) Church regarding clerical celibacy and fasting.
These canons were repeated countless times in anti-Latin literature when the
Byzantine and Roman Churches came into conflict. The first reference to Canons
13 and 55 are found in Patriarch Photius’ (858-867, 877-886) Encyclical to the Eastern
Patriarchs, written in response to the Latinising Roman missionaries in recently
converted Orthodox Bulgaria.[3] Patriarch Michael Cerularios (1043-1059) also made reference to Canon 23 of the
“Sixth Synod”, meaning Trullo when he anathematized the papal legates of 1054.[4]
Both Photius and Cerularios refer to the Council as ecumenical. Based upon
these canons and their supposed reserved or partial reception, most western
commentators have treated the Council with suspicion or have left it out of
Latin canonical collections.[5]
The second
position is that the Council was a continuation of the Fifth Council (or Second Council of
Constantinople) summoned by Justinian I in 553, and the Sixth Council (or Third
Council of Constantinople) convened by Constantine IV in the same domed hall
eleven years earlier (680-681) and that its canons are ecumenically binding. For
this reason the Council in Trullo is also known as the ‘Fifth-Sixth Council’
(Πενθέκτη Σύνοδος and Concilium Quinisextum or simply Quinisext and Penthektē).[6]
The latter position is held by the Orthodox Church that has consistently
referred to the canons pronounced in Trullo as those of the Sixth Ecumenical
Council. Those present at the Council clearly viewed it as a continuation of
the work of the previous two Councils that had pronounced on Christological
theology but did not produce any canons.[7]
As the logos prosphōnētikos in the Trullo explicitly states, the fathers were
“brought together since the last two councils drew up no canons”.[8]
The predominant reasons for the western resistance to the Council are the
content of the canons themselves and the supposed lack of western
representation at the Council. The lack of western participation in councils
held in Byzantium was nothing new, neither was it unusual for there to be
resistance to the ratification of the acts of a council. The Second Ecumenical
Council of 381 was only officially accepted by the papacy in 517, no less than
136 years after its conclusion.
[2] R. Flogaus, ‘Das
Concilium Quinisextum (691/692). Neue Erkenntnisse über ein umstrittenes Konzil
und seine teilnehmer’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 102/1 (2009), 25-64.
[3] Regarding Canon 13 cf. Photius Patriarch of
Constantinople, Encyclical to the Eastern
Patriarchs, eds. B. Laourdas and L.G. Westerink, Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia,
vol. 1 (Teubner: Leipzig, 1983) pp. 39-53: ‘There is a canon of the regional synod of Gangra that anathematises
those who do not recognise married priests. This was confirmed by the holy
Sixth Ecumenical Synod, which condemned those who require that priests and
deacons cease to cohabit with their lawful wives after their ordination. Such a
custom was being introduced even then by the Church of Old Rome. That Synod
reminded the Church of Old Rome of the evangelical teaching and of the canon
and polity of the Apostles, and ordered it not to insult the holy institution
of Christian marriage established by God Himself’. Regarding Canon 55 cf.
ibid.: ‘The first error of the
Westerners was to compel the faithful to fast on Saturdays. (I mention this
seemingly small point because the least departure from Tradition can lead to a
scorning of every dogma of our Faith. They introduced fasting on Saturdays,
although that is prohibited by the 64th Apostolic Canon which states: “If some
cleric is found fasting on Sundays or Saturdays except the one Great Saturday
before Pascha, let him be removed from the ranks of the clergy, and if he be a
layman, let him be excommunicated”. Similarly, by the 56th canon of the holy
Fourth Ecumenical Synod which states: “Since we have learnt that in the city of
Old Rome some, during the Great Fast, in opposition to the ecclesiastical order
handed down to us, keep the fast even on Saturdays, the holy Ecumenical Synod
orders that in the Church of Old Rome the Apostolic Canon which prohibits
fasting on Saturdays and Sundays is to be followed exactly”.
[4] Michael Cerularius, Anathematization
of Papal Legation, ed. C. Will, Acta et
Scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae Graecae et Latinae saec. XI composita
extant, (Leipzig and Marpurg, 1861; repr. 1968), p. 66; trans. D. J. Geanakoplos, Byzantium:
Church, Society, and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago,
1984), p. 210.
[5] G. Nedungatt, ‘Ecumenism and the Canon of the
Councils’, Theological Studies 71.3 (2010), 651-676.
[6] G. Fritz, ‘Quinisexte
(Concile ou in Trullo)’, Dictionnaire de
Théologie Catholique, vol. XIII.2 (Paris, 1937), col. 1597.
[7] For a comprehensive
examination of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils see A. Grillermier, Christ in the Christian Tradition, vol
2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to
Gregory the Great (590-604) (London, 1995).
[8] G. Nedungatt and M. Featherstone eds, The Council in Trullo Revisited, The Council in
Trullo Revisited (Rome, 1995), p. 54.
No comments:
Post a Comment