The Ecclesiastical organization in Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) Asia Minor on the Eve of the Turkish Conquest

25 dicembre 2019 alle 22:24 · Filed under Cultura, Empatia, Oscurità, Passato and tagged: Costantinopoli, Cristiani, Esotico, Impero Romano, Luce oscura, Ridefinizioni alternative

Su NovaScriptorum alcuni cenni di come era organizzata la Chiesa bizantina nell’Impero d’Oriente. Quel mondo è così lontano nel tempo e nello spazio, da essere esotico e tuttora affascinante.

Asia Minor was not only the most important Byzantine province militarily and economically, but also it was so in the religious domain. Anatolia possessed the richest, most populous metropolitanates of the empire. Their importance relative to that of the European metropolitanates is clearly reflected in the offcial lists, the notitiae episcopatum, composed for purposes of protocol, where the metropolitanates are listed in order of their rank. Of the first twenty-seven metropolitanates listed in a notitia of the eleventh century, only two were located in Europe, the remaining twenty-five were situated in Anatolia. This emerges more clearly when one compares the number of bishops to be found in the two regions of the empire. In the first half of the tenth century, there were about 371 bishoprics in Asia Minor, 99 in Europe, 18 in the Aegean isles, and 16 in Calabria and Sicily. Also, and most important, Asia Minor was strewn with sanctuaries and cults of numerous saints. Asia Minor had been one of the earliest provinces of Christian missionary activity, intimately associated with the personality, activity, and writings of the Apostle Paul.

The cults and churches of the various Anatolian saints were famous not only among the Greek Christians but also among Latins, Georgians, Slavs, and others who visited them on the pilgrimage, and these cults were, of course, very important in the everyday life of the Byzantine inhabitants of Asia Minor. The list of the sanctuaries located in Anatolia is a long one, and some of these were especially popular. In the westernmost regions the important cults included those of Tryphon at Nicaea, Polycarp at Smyrna, John the Theologian at Ephesus, Nicholas at Myra, and the Archangel Michael at Chonae. On the Black Sea coast were the shrines of Eugenius at Trebizond, Phocas at Sinope, and Hyacinthus at Amastris. The most famous of the martyrs’ sanctuaries in the hinterland included those of St. Theodore at Euchaita, the Forty Martyrs at Sebasteia, Mercurius and Mamas at Caesareia, and the various shrines of St. George in the regions of Paphlagonia. Of equal importance were the churches of the fourth and fifth-century saints Basil of Caesareia, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Amphilochius of Iconium, all of whom had played such an important role in determining the evolution of the Eastern church.

Commenti