Hagia Sophia

In response to comments here on this blog about whether the Byzantines will one day “save” the American Church, the answer to that, as has been observed, is that there are no Byzantines remaining to save us. What’s more, there would be little support among American Orthodox Christians for the sort of deep involvement by the state in Church affairs that was typical of Byzantium. The American Founders, in their wisdom, went to great lengths to make sure that the state would not establish a Church nor would the state control its life.

The following excerpt is from “Church Structures and Administration,” by Michael Angold and Michael Whitby, in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies.

In their broad outlines the administrative structure of the Byzantine Church as systematized under Justinian survived without radical change down to the end of the Byzantine Empire. This was testimony both to Justinian’s administrative and legislative abilities and to the Church’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Justinian saw to it that the structures of the Church were established by imperial legislation (Myendorff 1968). In his famous preamble to Novel VI Justinian enunciated an ideal of harmony between emperor and priesthood, for he singled out prayer for the spiritual well being of Christian society as the latter’s prime duty, while the protection of the Church was the most serious of imperial responsibilities.

This meant in practice that the administrative structures of the Church came under imperial supervision. It is for this reason that the term ‘Caesaropapism’ has been coined to describe the Byzantine emperor’s role in ecclesiastical affairs. This has been the subject of continuing debate between those who reject the notion, because it does not do justice to the spiritual autonomy of the Byzantine Church, and those who defend its validity on the practical grounds that the Byzantine Church was largely regulated through imperial legislation (Dagron 2003).

By the twelfth century the emperors had taken the title of epistemonarches or regulator of the Church. By doing so they made clear that the ultimate responsibility for the organization of the Church lay with them (Angold 1995). The assumption of this title was not a claim to decide matters of faith. This in the end was the work of a council of the Church which, it has to be added, was presided over by the emperor or his representative. As an institution the Byzantine Church enjoyed relatively little autonomy before the fourteenth century. The final choice of a patriarch lay with the emperor, who was able to depose patriarchs as well.

When in the early seventh century the patriarch Sergios (610-38) reorganized the personnel of the patriarchal church, it required imperial approval in the shape of a novel of 612 issued by the emperor Herakleios (610-41). It fixed the staff of Hagia Sophia at 80 priests, 150 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 70 subdeacons, 160 readers, 25 cantors, and 100 ushers. Their main function was to mount the lavish round of church services celebrated at Hagia Sophia. In addition to these there were supernumerary positions, filled by the administrative rank and file, 88 in total. Continue reading →