Ryan Strickler: Memory and Authority in the Seventh-Century Christological Controversies

The seventh century is well known for the theological controversies of monenergism and monotheletism. Much work has been done to examine the evidence used by both sides of these controversies, including prooftexts and florilegia, especially as they were employed in the sixth ecumenical council in 680/1. Less work has been done to examine the manipulation of cultural memory, particularly memory of canonical fathers, ecumenical councils, and even contemporary synods and recently deceased clergy and emperors, to promote particular perspectives on the question of the number of energies and wills in Christ. This paper explores the manipulation of memory by proponents and the opposition as found in extant evidence, particularly the letters of the patriarchs Sergius and Pyrrhus of Constantinople, the corpus of Maximus the Confessor, the acts of the Lateran Synod of 649, and the sixth ecumenical council of Constantinople in 680/1.

Matthew Pereira: Rewriting and Reordering Tradition from the Borderlands: John Maxentius and the Scythian Monks

This reassessment explores the reordering of the conciliar tradition by the Scythian monks, which was thereafter transmitted through a constellation of networks leading to its amplification. Hailing from Scythia Minor, a Latinized enclave encircled by Greeks in the eastern Roman Empire, these monks reformed canonical knowledge by reinserting two systematically silenced teachings into canonical discourse: theopaschism and predestination. This rereading attends to the rhetorical and hermeneutical arguments wherein the monks reassigned these doctrines to church fathers in a manner that transgressed cultural and linguistic boundaries. From their early writings – Capitula Maxentii Ioannis and Libellus fidei – then onwards, the Scythian monks professed that the Word of God suffered in the flesh along with an Augustinian doctrine of divine grace, which included predestination in their last two writings. Rather than dismissing their theological tradition as bizarre and accidental (see previous historians), this reading argues that their hybrid alternative was contoured by the Latinization (i.e. Romanization) of their homeland. This reassessment also traces the interactions between the monks with allies and adversaries that led to the proliferation of their alternative tradition and led to the vindication of the Cyril of Alexandria’s theopaschite teachings at the Council of Constantinople II (553) under Emperor Justinian. This historical case study contributes to the mapping of reordering canonical knowledge by tracing the interrelated practices of translating, rewriting, reordering and transmitting tradition.

Richard Price: Conciliar Acts: A genre or a category?

The German critical edition of the acts of the seven ecumenical councils (Berlin, 1914-2016) is now complete, and the time has come for this body of material to be considered as a whole. But first of all, the acts of each council need to be examined individually – to determine their author and method of compilation, their fullness as a record of the debates and of the accompanying documentation, their reliability, indeed their truthfulness, their purpose, and their intended circulation. Too many modern accounts of these councils have treated the acts as a simple documentary record, akin to the official records of modern parliamentary debates.  This paper will briefly set out the distinctive features of a selection of these sets of acts, to illustrate the considerable range of variation. This raises a general question: do the various conciliar acts constitute a genre, with established rules and patterns, or a mere category made up of texts of greatly varying character and differing purposes?

KONSTANTINOS GEORGIADIS: Reexamining the origins of Byzantine Iconoclasm: Docetism in Hieria Council’s Florilegium and Definition (754AD)

Before Martin Luther's ‘Sola Scriptura’, hardly could be found any Christian denomination that would not consider itself as genuine, if not the exclusive, successor of the ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church’. Nothing was to be considered in accordance with the Christian faith, unless it was based as much on the Scripture as on Church tradition. This is the reason why in the Council of Hieria (AD 754) Iconoclasts showed particular interest in repeating constantly and explicitly the Definitions, Creeds and Αnathemas of all their previous Oecumenical Councils. According to Hieria Council’sDefinition and Florilegium, iconoclastic dogma had to be proved on the basis of the Triadological and Christological dogma. Similarly, iconoclast policy of Isaurian emperors would have been justified by the predominant theology. Here a crucial question arises whether nonorthodox beliefs through a series of textual sources like those of Apocrypha could be interpolated into authentic patristictestimonia. In reality, a number of those texts, especially in Hieria Council’s Florilegium, were examined thoroughly in the fifth and sixth sessions of the 7th Oecumenical Council. Additionally, proclamations such that of ‘indescribable [Christ] even after the Incarnation’ are found in Hieria’s Definition. Through this evidence, a dominant docetism, which presupposes the annihilation of Christ’s ‘flesh’ after Resurrection, is eventually revealed. That’s why Fathers of Nicaea II call Iconoclasts ‘Manicheans’. Only Christ’s human nature could be describable compared to his indescribable divinity, unless humanity was considered as something unreal or absorbed by divinity, and consequently co-indescribable.

Thomas Graumann: Orality and Writing in Church Councils

The paper investigates the relationship between the oral interventions of speakers during transactions in councils, their use of written texts prepared in advance for the purpose, and the techniques and customs by which such statements were put on record in the written minutes of the sessions.

Josef Rist: Kirchenpolitik und/oder Bestechung: Die Geschenke des Kyrill an den kaiserlichen Hof

Die Ereignisse nach dem Ende der kyrillischen Synode in Ephesus 431 – das spätere dritte ökumenische Konzil  – sind in der Kirchengeschichte häufig kritisch beurteilt worden.

In besonderer Weise gilt dies für das Vorgehen des Erzbischofs Kyrill von Alexandrien, der vorgeblich dem kaiserlichen Hof große Geschenke und beträchtliche Geldbeträge zuwendet. Im Kampf gegen seinen Widersacher Nestorius greift er also offensichtlich zum Mittel der Bestechung. Der Kurzvortrag führt in die Ereignisse in Ephesus ein, analysiert die einschlägigen Quellen (insbesondere Kyrill, ep. 96) und versucht eine Einordnung der Vorgänge in den zeitgenössischen Kontext.

Isabella Image: Fraud at the council of Rimini (359 AD)

The council of Rimini (359 AD) marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Nicene party.  Although originally the Nicene Symbol was accepted as the doctrinal definition for the council, the delegates eventually were persuaded to do a U-turn and countersign a homoian creed that was definitive for many decades after (e.g. by Empress Justina at her famous confrontation with Ambrose). 

The action of the delegates baffled later generations; contemporary accounts (e.g. the letter from the Gaulish bishops preserved by Hilary) and later historical narrative (e.g. Rufinus, Jerome) alike suggest fraud and trickery.  Modern assessments on Rimini, almost always following the seminal work by Duval (“La manoeuvre frauduleuse de Rimini...” in Hilaire et son temps: Actes du Colloque de Poitiers 29 Sep – 3 Oct 1968, p.51-103), suggest that elements of the fraud regarded the addition of an anathema denying the Son was a creature “like the other creatures” or the deception of delegates as to what was happening at the sister Greek council in Seleucia.

This paper will consider some of the events of the council and will suggest a more general reading of the ‘fraud’, in that the purpose of the council was originally presented as seeking compromise but turned out to be used to condemn many of the key players (e.g. Basil of Ancyra); although indeed allegations of fraud are a trope now as then for explaining the disagreeable actions of one’s political or theological bedfellows.