Saint Sava was elevated to the rank of archbishop with the consent of the Byzantine Emperor Theodore I Laskaris, and he was ordained an archiereus by the Ecumenical Patriarch Manuel I Sarantinos in the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Nicaea. Serbian scholarship generally holds that this occurred on the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God on August 15, 1219 (Julian calendar) or in 6727 by the Byzantine calendar (Creation Era of Constantinople). However, in recent years, researchers have suggested that Saint Sava's mission in Nicaea, during which he secured independence for the Serbian Church and became its first archbishop, took place in 1218. A survey of the descriptions of Saint Sava's ordination by his biographers Domentijan and Teodosije, as well as data from old Serbian genealogies and chronicles and a protest letter that Demetrios Chomatenos (Chomatianos), Archbishop of Ohrid, sent to Sava through an intermediary, Bishop Jovan of Skopje, in May 1220, along with other relevant sources, rules out the possibility that Saint Sava became an archbishop in 1219. Namely, Chomatenos's accusations and the detailed description of Saint Sava's activities after his return from Nicaea (an extended stay on Mount Athos, departure to Serbia via Thessaloniki, spending Lent at Studenica Monastery, and the beginning of priest ordinations at Easter, followed by the establishment of dioceses and the ordination of new bishops) mean that he must have become an archbishop no later than the late autumn of 1218. The description of Saint Sava's ordination ceremony by Domentijan and Teodosije, along with other accounts in their writings and the works of other medieval Serbian authors, suggests that the specific descriptions of the feast day when Saint Sava's ordination took place correspond to the actual day when the feast or saint to whom the church or monastery was dedicated is celebrated. As the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Nicaea celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross as its feast day, the paper argues that the ordination of Saint Sava as Archbishop of Serbia occurred on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross-on September 14, 1218.
The codex Paris. gr. 328 (Diktyon 49900) is described for the first time by Henry Omont as a composite book.(1) Its older section, dating back to the 12(th) century, was restored and supplemented in the 14(th) century using palimpsest parchment.2 While Omont briefly notes the palimpsest nature of the manuscript, he does not attempt to describe or identify the erased texts. Regarding its content, he mentions that the codex includes liturgies, an office for Lent, Apostle and Gospel readings, various prayers, and a fragment of a Psalter. With this short note, I aim to provide a more detailed analysis of the various components of this codex, with particular focus on the occasional prayers, and to identify its scriptiones inferiores insofar as possible using only a Wood's Lamp.(3)
By comparing rulers' regnal dates among the Byzantines and their neighbours in Southeast Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia), it is sometimes possible to establish that a change of ruler in Byzantium was closely followed (at a distance of around 1-3 years) by a change of ruler in a neighbouring region. This raises the question of whether there might be concrete or plausible clues in such a case that point to a connection between the two processes. Employing two examples, it is possible to demonstrate just how different the results of such an investigation can turn out to be.
The sigillion of Basil I the Macedonian, issued in June 883, is the earliest constitutional text of Mount Athos. Its importance lies in establishing the basic principles governing Mount Athos' exceptional status, while simultaneously securing a range of special privileges for the monks of the Athonite monastic communities. These privileges concern asylum, the unobstructed and inviolable way of life of the Athonite monks, as well as their tax exemption. This paper offers a new edition of this document, as well as its first translation into Modern Greek, while also providing a detailed philological commentary on this document's content.
The paper examines information about the city known as Edessa (in Greek) or Vodena (in Slavic), highlighting how the settlement consistently maintained connections to nearby watercourses and water systems. Archaeological research has contributed significant-ly to our understanding of the topography of this classical and, even more so, medieval city, which experienced continuous development at the same site until the urban core of Vodena was destroyed in the 14th century. In addition, the paper examines the reports on Vodena's role in the military organization introduced in the Balkans upon the Byzantine conquest of the city in 1001 and 1015. It posits that Vodena/Edessa temporarily lost its ecclesiastical sig-nificance because there is no reference to it in Basil II's sigillia issued for the formation of the autocephalous Archbishopric of Ohrid after the end of the war in 1018/1019.
This paper focuses on the terminology employed by the Byzantine historians of the late 10th-mid-13th century to denote the Balkans and, respectively, its inhabitants. As the two are closely interconnected and one derives from the other, both issues are comprehensively addressed. Even though the Byzantine historians used ancient terms to refer to the "new peoples" (i.e., Bulgarians, Serbs, Rus, Pechenegs...) who settled either permanently or temporarily in the Balkans, they seem to exhibit a discernible tendency toward greater specificity in identifying and designating the so-called "barbarian peoples."
In this paper, we re-examine family relations between the rulers of Nemanjic Serbia, the Bulgarian Tsardom and Byzantium, focusing on the prominent Byzantine magnate Theodore Synadenos, whom Tsar Stefan Dusan and Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos in their charters both call "theta epsilon iota omicron sigma" (uncle) and whom one narrative source also describes as an uncle of the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander Asen. Although there was real consanguinity between Dusan and Synadenos, scholars tended to interpret the fact that Dusan calls Synadenos his uncle as a reflection of Dusan's pretensions to ideal kinship with the Byzantine imperial family. We propose to disprove this view and show that in every instance in which Dusan (or a member of his family) and the members of the Palaiologos dynasty refer to each other as relatives, blood or marital kinship was indeed involved. Lastly, we attempt to answer the question of kinship ties between Theodore Synadenos and the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander, i.e. to reconstruct how they were related.
The knowledge in Belgrade about the work of the Kondakov Institute for Byzantology and Archeology has been reconstructed for the most part based on personal correspondence that the members of the Institute exchanged during their stays in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In order to understand the activity of the first academic institution in this region for studying Byzantine history and culture, the paper will first provide a brief history of the development of the Kondakov Seminar/Institute in Prague, focusing on analyzing the main reasons and influences that led to its establishment. The paper pays particular attention to the period when the seminar moved from Prague to Belgrade due to the difficult political and economic situation. Much of the scholarly activity of the seminar at its new address can reconstructed from the unpublished administrative material in public archives in Serbia. Starting from this body of evidence, one of the goals of this paper is to provide more meaningful data on the history of the Kondakov Institute in Belgrade based on new written sources.
The present study is a presentation and edition of a hitherto unedited work by Niketas Myrsiniotes, later metropolitan Neilos of Rhodes. The work is preserved in only one manuscript, codex 3104 of the National Library of Greece, folios 299r-323v. The text refers to a priest who has committed grave sins and the metropolitan attempts to admonish him.
The present study is based on a passage in Michael Psellos' funeral eulogy dedicated to Nikolaos, the founder and abbot of the monastery of the Beautiful Source (tau(eta) over tilde zeta'Omega rho alpha iota alpha zeta Pi eta gamma(eta) over tilde zeta) on Mount Olympus in Bithynia. The writer describes one of the monastery's illustrations depicting the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus. The monks of this monastery were uneducated, and this was likely the reason Nikolaos chose to depict ascetics' figures and scenes in the entry of the church as personifications of basic virtues. Psellos' description is significant not only because it is a precious testimony of a monastery that no longer exists but also because it is an early sample of Byzantine art about the Climax, given that the principal Climax cycles come from the 11(th) c.
The text analyzes different methods and principles implemented by emperors John I Tzimiskes and Basil II during the pacification and integration of the Balkans into the Byzantine political and legal framework. Modern historians agree that Basil?s approach proved more effective in dismantling the Bulgarian state and reoccupying the Balkans, but the contemporary intellectual elite seems to have had a different view of the strategies those two emperors pursued in the Balkans. Hence, the paper also assesses their success through the lens of the contemporaneous Byzantine political mindset.
This study examines the notion of friendship depicted in the epistolary corpus of Euthymios Malakes who served as bishop of Neai Patrai during the second half of the twelfth century. His letters do not contain solely references to everyday problems, such as the difficulties that his diocesan floc had to encounter because of the hatred, the rapacity and the insatiable greed of state tax collectors, but they are also considered as vehicles for emotions towards his relationship with his friends and peers, either clerics or laymen. Therefore, the aim of the present article is to highlight Malakes? view regarding the notion of friend and to shed light on how his theory on friendship was influenced by ancient Greek and Christian writings.
The paper examines the rhetorical tools employed by the Byzantine historian Nikephoros Gregoras to create a complex and multilayered portrait of the emperor Andronikos II. Writing the historical books dealing with the emperor?s reign spanned several years, in which significant changes occurred within the Empire. The author begins his portrait of Andronikos II at the court of Andronikos III and concludes it, presumably, after the latter?s demise. This approach enabled the author to highlight the discrepancies in the portrayal of Andronikos II. The article compares Andronikos II with his father and brother in the initial section, before contrasting him with his grandson, Andronikos III, in the subsequent part. The primary issues addressed in this paper pertain to the chronology of Gregoras?s historical work and the censorship practices prevalent during the Palaiologan era.
Byzantine military manuals are a shared sphere of interest of Byzantine studies and Orthodox theology. This paper deals with religious content in the Taktika of Leo VI the Wise and Praecepta Militaria of Nikephoros II Phokas by analyzing the liturgical aspects of these 10th-century military manuals. It explores not only the religious ideology of Byzantine emperors in the 10th century but also the religious justifications for war and the meaning and type of worship practiced by an army led by military clergy. The paper aims to identify the types of worship in those military manuals, identify the military-spiritual penances they proscribe, and explain the influence of monastic typika on military manuals.
The paper discusses the founding inscription of Emperor John Asen II, which was carved on the pillar of the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Tarnovo after his glorious victory over the Epirote ruler Theodore Doukas Komnenos Angelos in the Battle of Klokotnica in 1230, focusing on the meaning of the phrase "Serbian land" in the mentioned inscription in the context of the political-geographical terminology of the time.
The Novella issued by the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1095 regulates the process of proving freedom for persons descended from ?Bulgarians and the like? and the introduction of mandatory religious marriage, which scholarship tends to interpret as the full penetration of the Christian notion of grace into these spheres of life. The text of this Novella, abridged, slightly revised, and in Old Serbian translation, reappears in the Nomokanon of St. Sava and some subsequent Old Russian Nomokanons. This paper employs the historical method and linguistic analysis of a range of sources to explore the role of this law in the process of the Byzantinization of the Slavic population.
In this paper, we re-examine family relations between the rulers of Nemanjic Serbia, the Bulgarian Tsardom and Byzantium, focusing on the prominent Byzantine magnate Theodore Synadenos, whom Tsar Stefan Dusan and Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos in their charters both call ??????? (uncle) and whom one narrative source also describes as an uncle of the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander Asen. Although there was real consanguinity between Dusan and Synadenos, scholars tended to interpret the fact that Dusan calls Synadenos his uncle as a reflection of Dusan?s pretensions to ideal kinship with the Byzantine imperial family. We propose to disprove this view and show that in every instance in which Dusan (or a member of his family) and the members of the Palaiologos dynasty refer to each other as relatives, blood or marital kinship was indeed involved. Lastly, we attempt to answer the question of kinship ties between Theodore Synadenos and the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander, i.e. to reconstruct how they were related.
The knowledge in Belgrade about the work of the Kondakov Institute for Byzantology and Archeology has been reconstructed for the most part based on personal correspondence that the members of the Institute exchanged during their stays in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In order to understand the activity of the first academic institution in this region for studying Byzantine history and culture, the paper will first provide a brief history of the development of the Kondakov Seminar/Institute in Prague, focusing on analyzing the main reasons and influences that led to its establishment. The paper pays particular attention to the period when the seminar moved from Prague to Belgrade due to the difficult political and economic situation. Much of the scholarly activity of the seminar at its new address can reconstructed from the unpublished administrative material in public archives in Serbia. Starting from this body of evidence, one of the goals of this paper is to provide more meaningful data on the history of the Kondakov Institute in Belgrade based on new written sources.
Research on liturgical objects, particularly processional crosses, is of special importance. It has shown that their purpose and function originated from the cult of the Holy Cross, as well as from the experience of processions and ritual circumambulations aimed at expanding ?new? spaces and forming a Christian sacred topography. Processional crosses, along with icons and other liturgical objects, constitute an essential part of Orthodox liturgical practice. This paper examines the role of one such cross discovered in the 1920s near the medieval town of Svrljig.
The well-known cult of Christ Chalkites - mosaic image of Christ above Chalke-gate, main entrance to the Great palace of Byzantine emperors in Constantinople - had received a new impulse from the beginning of the 12th century and miraculous healing of autokrator Alexios I Komnenos by the veil which covered the mentioned mosaic above Bronze Door. The reflections of this cult are still visible on the mosaic representation of Christ on the east wall of narthex inside the katholikon of Chora monastery (Kariye mosque in Istanbul).
