Byzantine Art
Byzantine Art
It is generally accepted that the beginning of Christianity in the Balkan regions started in Macedonia after the arrival of the Apostle Paul about the year 50. “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed to him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately he endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called him to preach the gospel to them.”[1] A small group of Christians arrived at Neapolis, which is now Kavalla in Greece, from where they went to Filippi and Thessalonica. They travelled along the Via Egnatia, one of the main land routes of the Roman Empire that connected the Adriatic Sea with the Aegean Sea. This route started at Dyrrachium, now Durres in Albania and continued through Macedonia via Thessalonica and Thracia to end at Constantinople.
Not much is known about the Christian communities of the first centuries, nor how Christianity developed during the first two centuries. It may be assumed that in the first instance it took root inside the Jewish Diaspora, then somewhat later in non-Jewish centres as well. Much later, after the confirmation of the Edict of Tolerance at Milan by Constantine the Great in 313, most of the population converted to Christianity for political or pragmatic reasons. Christianity was seen to be equally accepted under the law by authorities.
The question has been raised as to why Christianity became the leading religion in the Roman Empire. Was it the initiative of Constantine to allow the new religion beside the mystery religions? Although initially Christianity was considered by the authorities as a danger, it was generally accepted that Christianity’s exclusive and implacable monotheism gave more security than a belief in many gods and the consecration in several mysteries. The single god of the Christians was moreover much more personal in his concern for the people than any a mystery-god. His son, the saviour, was tangible, flesh and blood. Christianity was in fact a continuation of the Jewish tradition, which attracted many people, but it had less severe rules, no requirement circumcision, no food prohibitions. The commandment to love one’s neighbour is in principle different from the moral instructions of the mystery cults and related brotherhoods. Persecutions and martyrdom were considered positively reflecting the inclination of that time to self-sacrifice. Of great importance was the belief in the forgiveness of sins. A god who loved sinners was unknown thus far in history. The unique organisation of the church gave a sense of security in a dangerous world.
The new church was led by a hierarchical clergy. The tradition of the Roman Emperor as pontifex maximus survived in a modified form. Constantine used the imperial power and prestige in an effort to heal the disputes which arose among the bishops.[2] After the inauguration of a new Christian capital Constantinople there were in fact two centres now, Rome and Constantinople. In Rome the language was Latin and in Constantinople Greek was spoken. Greek, also spoken in Rome, was the language of the intelligentsia and civil services then, just as French was universally spoken in Europe before the Second World War. The emperors, as head of the state, also considered themselves leaders of the church. Their influence was great. The popes and the patriarchs recognised each other, but inevitably in the course of time the differences between them increased.
Regionally the Christian communities were administered by bishops. The names of bishops given in the Acts of the Councils held during the first centuries indicate that in a very early period there were already Christian communities in Macedonia, like Stobi, the capital of the Roman province Macedonia Salutaris, Heraclea Lyncestis, Lichnydos, Skupi and others.
During the reign of Theodosius the Great (379-395) Christianity was raised to the level of state religion in 384. By his legislation he made Christianity not merely the most favoured, but the only recognised religion of the Empire.[3]
During the fourth and fifth centuries as a result of the growth of the church rivalry arose among certain episcopal sees within the church structure. One of the great problems was the difficulty of reconciling the theological equality of the five important theological centres: Alexandria, Antioch, Rome and Constantinople. Jerusalem was added because it was the place of the crucifixion and the resurrection. The bishop in each of these cities received the title of Patriarch.[4] The bishops of Rome had enjoyed a position of ecclesiastical pre-eminence because Rome had been the capital of the empire. Now the Bishop of Constantinople claimed to enjoy a similar position. Alexandria claimed equality with Rome and resented the rise of the Bishop of Constantinople, whereas Antioch attempted to put an end to the pretensions of the episcopate of Jerusalem.[5]
This struggle lasted a great many years and was resolved in the end: Constantinople, as the New Rome, being assigned the second place after Old Rome and above Alexandria, followed by Antioch and Jerusalem. Alexandria and Antioch each claimed apostolic foundation, but in Rome Pope Damasus I (366-384) used the doctrine of Petrine primacy, in order to claim a higher status for Rome than for these apostolic foundations. His decision was based on the words of Christ: “And I say also unto thee, that thou art, Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”[6] With Damasus I and Siricius (384-399) starts the line of those Roman bishops, who on various grounds claimed to be proprietors of the cathedra Romana and consequently are to be named the heirs of the Apostle Peter.[7] Moreover, Peter and Paul, the most famous of the apostles, are considered to be the founders of the Church with Peter as the first bishop. The popes, in accordance with tradition, claimed to have received from the apostles the episcopal succession. It was the beginning of the so-called pontificate.[8] The final result was that the primacy of Rome changed into a claim to supremacy over the whole church, something which has never been accepted by the Orthodox Church. Rome owed its primacy to the fact that it was the capital of the empire and remained an important place even after the foundation of Constantinople.
Eastern Illyricum and Macedonia were places where Christianity took deep roots very early, since these were regions of Apostle Paul’s missionary endeavours.[9]
Little is known of the conversion to Christianity of the Slav peoples that entered the Balkan Peninsula. The seventh century is in fact a “dark age”. When finally settled they assimilated with the local people and it is supposed that they accepted the Christian religion. It is possible that missionaries from Constantinople and/or Thessalonica and perhaps from Rome as well, were sent to the regions where they had settled. The Byzantine influence, made possible by trade routes and economic relations, was a great stimulant for the development of Christianity in these regions. The Byzantine state itself used Christianity as a means for imposing its power on Macedonia. Whenever the Byzantine emperors undertook campaigns against the Macedonian Slavs, they tried to Christianise the subjugated inhabitants.[10]
Of great importance were the travels of two missionaries, the Thessalonican brothers Cyril and Methodius.[11] Cyril was born under the name Constantine but is usually referred to by his monk’s name Cyril. He was the younger of the brothers, born most probably in 825. Methodius was born in 815, but it is not known whether Methodius was his baptismal or his monastic name.[12] He became known to the emperor, who appointed him governor of one of the Slavonic provinces, where he acquired knowledge of the Slavic customs and language. Cyril went to Constantinople where he attended university and was trained as a missionary and diplomat. Not much is known about their lives, but they seem to have lived for some time in a monastery on Mount Olympus. In 860 Emperor Michael III (842-867) sent Cyril and Methodius as his assistants to the land of the Khazars, north of the Caspian Sea. Their leader had asked the Byzantine Emperor to send an educated man on a mission to his land in order to convert his people to Christianity by refuting the arguments of Jews and Arabs who were also trying to get their respective religions adopted. It is not certain whether Cyril and Methodius arrived in the land of the Khazars, because the Russians mounted an attack on Constantinople, which was on route to the land of the Khazars. The two brothers arrived and stayed for a period on the Crimean Peninsula, where they were active in preaching. During their stay they discovered the relics of Pope Clement (88-97), one of the first popes of Rome. According to an early Christian legend Clement was arrested on the orders of Emperor Trajan who sentenced him to exile with hard labour in the Crimea. There he continued his pastoral activity amongst 2,000 Christian miners who were his fellow prisoners. For this he was executed by drowning: a stone was tied around his neck and he was flung into the sea.[13] Whether this story is only a legend or whether there was confusion between his life and that of another martyr of the same name is in fact irrelevant. The brothers were convinced that they had found the relics of Clement. They took the relics with them because they believed that these should be returned to Rome.
When they returned to Constantinople Emperor Michael III commanded Cyril to go to Moravia. It was not only his intention to preach Christianity in the local language, but it was partly a political order from the emperor as well, because of the increasing Frankish influence. Both the Frankish and the Byzantine missionaries were working there. The Franks had translated some Christian texts into Slavonic, using Latin characters; the Byzantines did the same using Greek letters. But the problem was complicated because of the fact that the sounds of the Slavonic language could not be adequately translated by using Greek letters only. In 863 the two brothers started to evangelise in Moravia. Moreover, some years earlier they had been working on an alphabet for the Slavic people. In a relatively short time they improved what had been done earlier. They used a new Slavonic alphabet, based on Greek letters and the Slavonic tongue, which most probably was developed during their stay in the monastery on Mount Olympus.[14] The design of the new alphabet, which became known as the Glagolitic script, is ascribed to Cyril as the leader of the delegation. He was known as a profound linguist, although Methodius with his knowledge of Slavic customs and language would also have had a great share in it. As well as from the Franks Cyril and Methodius met with opposition from German missionaries who were also active in Moravia. The Germans adhered to the doctrine of Trilinguism, the theory of the “sanctified” languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, in which the name of God might be praised. It was these three tongues in which the inscription on the cross of Christ had been composed by Pilate.[15] They condemned the use of the vernacular in which Cyril and Methodius were preaching for Christian worship. During their three years in Moravia the brothers laid the foundations of Slavonic education and created a sound basis for the replacement of Latin in the church by a new written language.[16]
They returned home via Venice where they became involved in a dispute with the local Latin clergy about Trilinguism and the use of Slavonic liturgy. In the winter of 867-8 they travelled to Rome to resolve this problem. In Rome the new Pope Hadrian was favourably disposed towards them, because they had something that put them in an advantageous position, namely the relics of Clement. These caused a sensation among the people of Rome. In the Church of San Clemente in Rome a wall painting reminds us of the translation of these saintly relics to this church. The pope took the Slavonic books the brothers had brought with them and, laying them upon the altar, consecrated them, thereby signifying that they were approved and accepted as sacred.[17] By a special bull he solemnly authorised the use of the Slavonic liturgy.
The two brothers and their companions stayed at one of Rome’s Greek monasteries. Cyril died there on February 14, 869 and was buried in the Church San Clemente.
Methodius was consecrated bishop and returned to Moravia to celebrate the liturgy in Slavonic, this time with the pope’s consent.
But the German bishops remained against him and were uneasy about his success. They even put him in prison, although the great mass of the population sided with the Greek Archbishop, who had laid the foundations for their religious and spiritual freedom and self-determination[18]. He translated most of the Bible into Slavonic. Methodius died in Moravia on April 6, 885, but it is not known where he was buried.
After the death of Methodius his greatest opponent succeeded in convincing a new pope to forbid the use of Slavonic as a liturgical language. The disciples became captives of the Germans, some of them were sold as slaves and the rest imprisoned and later exiled. The Magyars overran Moravia in 907 after which it fell under Roman influence. The dream of creating a Slavonic empire built on Byzantine spiritual foundations vanished forever, taking with it the work of the Thessalonican teachers Cyril and Methodius.[19] The Slavonic script was quickly replaced by Latin.
Clement and Naum were two disciples of Cyril and Methodius, who after their exile from Moravia, first arrived in the Bulgarian capital Pliska.[20]. In 886 Clement travelled on to the shores of Lake Ohrid. Naum arrived to the shores of Lake Ohrid in 893 where he worked in the district of Kutmičevica, bordering on present day Macedonia, Albania and Greece. At the instigation of the Bulgarian tsar Boris, Clement was sent to the region of Devol[21], probably in the year 886, with the task of baptising those who were still pagan. Some years later after he was appointed bishop in 893 he went to the area around Ohrid.
The Glagolitic alphabet created by Cyril was soon superseded by a second Slavonic alphabet, the Cyrillic, which was created, most probably by Constantine, Bishop of Preslav. This alphabet had thirty-eight letters, twenty-four of which were taken from Greek. The remaining fourteen letters were devised especially to render sounds peculiar to Slavonic.[22] It received the name Cyrillic alphabet in honour of Cyril of Thessalonica . Most sources, however, mention Clement of Ohrid as its creator. However, locally the Glagolitic alphabet remained in use.
The work of Clement in Ohrid was of tremendous importance for the further development of Macedonia. He spent thirty years among the Macedonian Slavs. He founded a literary school and cultural centre in the area now known as Plaošnik. He built a monastery with a church dedicated to Panteleimon in about the year 893. Clement and Naum are known for their cultural and educational activities and their efforts to encourage a group of Slavic students at the first Slavic university which they founded. The students studied the Slavic language and literature which was familiar to them because it was the language of the liturgy. For that purpose, books were translated and texts written. It is estimated that more than 3,000 pupils attended the school of Clement and many of them became teachers and priests. Thanks to their activities Slavic literature was expanding over the Slavic speaking countries; Slavic texts, religious books and church hymns were spread over the region as far as Kiev. The literary school they founded played an active role until the twelfth century. Among other accomplishments was the translation of manuscripts from other languages into the Slavic language.
The thirty year period of Clement’s cultural and educational activities in Ohrid was of lasting influence. His monastery was the centre of many-sided activities. Clement also laid the foundations of the Macedonian Church. When in 893 he became bishop a large cadre of priests was formed under his leadership. Clement died in 916 and was buried in the Church of Sveti Panteleimon in a tomb that he is said to have built himself. In the sixteenth century a mosque was built on the site of the old church. This in fact protected the site over the centuries until excavations in 1943 when the tomb and the church were uncovered.
About 900 Clement’s brother Naum built a monastery in the south on the shore of Lake Ohrid, near the clear springs of the River Drim. Little is known about him. He died in 910 and was buried in the Church Sveti Naum at Lake Ohrid. The cult of Clement and Naum became particularly strong and both are portrayed in the most conspicuous areas of the church walls.
During the reign of Samuil the Ohrid Archbishopric was raised to the level of Patriarchate in about the year 1001.[23]After Samuil’s defeat the Byzantine Emperor Basil II degraded the status of Ohrid to that of an Archbishopric again. In the first instance Basil II appointed a native Bulgarian to this post, which proved to be an ephemeral measure, since after 1037 all his successors were Greeks.[24] There is no evidence, however, that the (Greek) archbishops of Ohrid attempted to extirpate the Slavonic liturgical tradition.[25]
From about 900 until far into the eighteenth century Ohrid was the spiritual centre of the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. Its jurisdiction extended over a vast territory from the Danube to the walls of Salonica and the Adriatic Sea. The Court at Constantinople, wishing to maintain its influence over the Macedonian Slavs, appointed as heads of the Ohrid Archbishopric the most influential and capable church dignitaries: writers and philosophers, learned theologians and poets. After the crusaders took Constantinople in 1204 the Archbishops of Ohrid were appointed from among local church dignitaries, who eventually proclaimed complete independence from the Archbishopric of Constantinople. The new Archbishops found legal ground for this in Emperor Justinian’s legal acts. The Archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrius Homatian, even found justification in these acts to crown the Byzantine despot Theodore Comnenus emperor despite the violent opposition of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
The foundation of a Serbian Orthodox Church by Sava, son of Stefan Nemanja, at the beginning of the thirteenth century weakened the influence of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in Serbia, in particular when in 1346 the Serbian Orthodox Church became a Patriarchate with its seat in Peć. Influenced by the Patriarchate of Constantinople the Turkish Sultan Mustapha III ordered that the Archbishopric of Ohrid and the Patriarchate of Peć were to be abolished and incorporated into the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1767.
The Ohrid Archbishopric was restored at the Second Church and People’s Council in the Sveti Sophia at Ohrid in 1958, but the Church was placed under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which for many years already had identified its canonical rights with the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
On the 17th of July, 1968 the Macedonian Orthodox Church was pronounced autocephalous, making it a free and independent church.
The Acts 16:9-10 ↑
Vryonis, p. 24 ↑
Ware, p. 26 ↑
Ware, p. 34 ↑
Vryonis, p. 36-37 ↑
Matthew 16:18 ↑
Denzler, Georg, Das Papsttum, Geschichte und Gegenwart, München, 1997, p. 18 (translated from German) ↑
Denzler, chapter II – Die Entstehung der Idee des Papsttums ↑
Aleksova, Blaga, Loca Sactorum Macedoniae, Skopje, 1995, p. 256 ↑
Panov, Branko, “Toward the Ethnogenesis of the Macedonian People”, Macedoine, Skopje, 1981, p. 42 ↑
Tachiaos, Anthony-Emil N., Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica, the Acculturation of the Slavs, Thessaloniki, 1989 ↑
Tachiaos, p. 11 ↑
Tachiaos, p.63 ↑
Tachiaos, p.92 ↑
Tachiaos, p.100 ↑
Tachiaos, p.102 ↑
Tachiaos, p.110 ↑
Tachiaos, p.132 ↑
Tachiaos, p.139 ↑
Knoben, U. in LCI 7, 324-325, s.v. Klemens von Ochrid; Chatzinikolaou, A., in RbK II, 1040; Knoben, U., in LCI 8, 32, s.v. Naum (Nahum) von Ochrid ↑
Grozdanov, Cvetan, Sveti Nahum of Ohrid, Skopje, 1995, p. 209: The Devol region was part of the Devol bishopric, established during the time of Clement. The town Devol was located close to the south shores of Lake Prespa, near the village Dzvezda in Albania. It does not exist any more. ↑
Tachiaos, p.155 ↑
Antoljak, p. 98, is of opinion that the Ohrid Archbishopric was never referred to as a patriarchy but only as an archbishopric (with note) ↑
Obolensky, p. 216 ↑
Obolensky, p. 216 ↑