Search

[German Version] is the name given since the 11th century to the systematized collection of synodal and patristic canons (Canons/Canon collections) with imperial church law of the Roman Empire (from Gk nómoi, “laws”) that arose from the 6th century on. From Constantine onward, Christian emperors issued state laws on church matters. They manifested the synthesis of imperium and church that then became current, reaching its peak with Justinian I. In the Codex Iustinianus the first 13 sections of Book I are ¶ devoted to church law; in his Novels he continued to enact church legislatio…

[German Version] (1573, Malpartida de Plasencia – c.1633, Plasencia, Spain), OP (1587), historian and preacher. He was honored in 1618 at the General Chapter of Lisbon with the title Preacher General. Fernandez authored works on the history of the Dominicans in Spain, of which a few remain unpublished. He was prior in Zamora, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Cáceres and finally in Plasencia. Heinz Ohme Bibliography Works: Historia ecclesiastica de nuestros tiempos, 1611 Historia y anales de la devoción y milagros del Rosario, 1613 De los servicios que a los Reinos de España ha hecho la …

[German Version] (1869, Kios – 1935, Athens), professor of theology and ethics at Chalki (1895–1911) and Athens (1911–1935). Androutsos was a preeminent figure in 20th-century Greek theology. His Dogmatics has been considered the first complete and authentic systematic exposition of Orthodox doctrine. To “neopatristic” theologians, Androutsos embodies a scholastic theology infiltrated by Western rationalism, unrooted in the life of Orthodoxy. Heinz Ohme Bibliography Works (Greek and Romanian): Συμβολική ἐξ ἐπόφεως ὀρθοδόξου, 21930 Δογματικὴ …

[German Version] The ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 for the first time set out to “integrate” monasticism, placing it under the authority of the local bishop; the erection of monasteries was made subject to episcopal approval (c. 4). The external sign of a monastic foundation was the erection of a cross, the so-called stavropigia (from Gk σταυρὸν πηγνύναι/ staurón pēgnýnai), mentioned in the civil ecclesiastical laws of Emperor Justinian I ( Cod. Iust. I 3.26; Novella 5.1; 67.1; 131.7), which adopted this canonical legislation ( Cod. Iust. I 3.39; Novella 133.4). The bishop h…

[German Version] (died after 1346). A monastic priest and canonist, c. 1335 Blastares compiled a handbook of Byzantine ecclesiastical law ( Syntagma kata stoicheion), in which kanones and nomoi were arranged in alphabetic association with juristic lemmas. It comprises 24 chapters, each with subdivisions. It came into widespread use in Slavic as well as Byzantine areas. Heinz Ohme Bibliography Sources: G.A. Ralles & M. Potles, eds., Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων, vol. VI, 1859 PG 144, 959–1399 On Blastares: A. Soloviev, “L'œuvre juridique de M. Blastares,” SBNE 5, 1939, …

[German Version] (1536, Anchialos – Sep, 1595, Constantinople), patriarch of Constantinople (1572–1579, 1580–1584, 1587–1595), contributed to the consolidation of Orthodoxy with important decisions: in his correspondence with Tübingen theologians (1573–1581) concerning the Confessio Augustana Graeca (Augsburg) he had been sent, he rejected their positions in three written responses. In 1583 and 1593, he refused to adopt the calendar reforms of Gregory XIII and a new edition of the Union and effected reconciliation with the Russi…

[German Version] (May 17, 1887, Lixurion – Aug 14, 1969, Athens) was professor of canon law and practical theology in Athens 1919–1956; academically, ecclessially and politically, he was one of the most important personalities in the Greek church in the 20th century. He authored almost 300 publications, co-authored the Church Constitution of 1923, organized the first Orthodox theological congress in Athens in 1936, was a pioneer in the ecumenical movement beginning in 1920, and was a member of the executive committee of the WCC from 1948 to 1968. Heinz Ohme Bibliography G.I. Konidares…

[German Version] (Feofan Grek; c. 1325–1404/1415), an important Byzantine artist who worked in Russia from 1378 until his death. Indisputably from his hand are the frescoes in the Church of the Transfiguration in Novgorod. It has recently come into question whether the Deesis series in the iconostasis in the Cathedral of Proclamation in the Kremlin in Moscow is also his work. According to a 1415 letter by the hagiographer Epifanij Premudryj of 1415 (the most comprehensively preserved personal eval…

[German Version] This synod ended the first phase of the controversy over the veneration of images (VI). The Synod of Hiereia in 754 (Constantinople: IV, 5) had made iconoclasm the theological teaching of the Empire. The resistance of a few monks led to the destruction of icons and several martyrdoms. The iconophile empress Irene (780–802) worked to reverse the decision. Because only a new ecumenical council could have the authority to annul the decision of the synod in 754, she laid the groundwor…

[German Version] The word millet (from Arab. milla, “religion”) means “religious nationality”; it was used in the Ottoman Empire for the national religious communities allowed self-government in ethnic, cultural, and religious matters on the basis of Islamic interna-¶ tional law. It was based on the overriding identification of the peoples governed with their religion regardless of all ethnic bonds and differences, together with contact between the sultan and the communities regarding their religious leadership. Thus these religious…

[German Version] (mid-11th cent. – mid-12th cent.), Byzantine historian and canonist who held high offices under Emperor Alexius I (1081–1118). After the emperor’s death, he became a monk and (besides several shorter works) wrote two major works: (1) a world chronicle ( Epitome historiarum, ed. L. Dindorf, 6 vols., 1868–1875) from Creation to the year 1118 (compiled from earlier sources for the period before 1081, after that independent), distinguished for its balance, which was translated into Slavic, Latin, and Romance languages, and (…

[German Version] Into the 4th century, synods did not call their decisions “canon” or “regula.” In the Greek East, they used the term horos as the older term for ecclesiastical decisions (Ankyra, cc. 6, 19, et passim). In the Latin language sphere, designations including placita, statuta, instituta, decreta, sententiae were drawn from Roman legal language as the specific terminology applicable in such cases. The designation as canons appeared for the first time at the Synod of Antioch c. 330 (cc. 19 etc.) and quickly established itself in the East (Bas. Ep. 188, cc. 4, 10). Th…

[German Version] (c. 1588, Chios – Jan 18, 1669, Rome), Catholic theologian and learned humanist of Greek origin, promoter of church union and the Counter-Reformation. In 1618, he was appointed Scriptor graecus of the Vatican Library, of which he became custodian in 1660. In 1622/23, he was responsible for incorporating the Bibliotheca Palatina into the collection. He authored some 60 works; 236 autograph volumes remain unpublished. His major work, De ecclesiae occidentalis atque orientalis perpetua consensione (1648), answers Orthodox charg…

[German Version] (c. 1385, Peloponnese – Apr 27, 1463, Rome). As an abbot in Constantinople and a proponent of union, he was appointed “metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia” in 1436. He led the Russian delegation to the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438/1439; Basel, Council of") and signed the union bull. As cardinal legate commissioned with the execution of the union in Russia in 1439, he was imprisoned in Moscow in 1441. After his escape, he was active for the union and finally succeeded in achie…

[German Version] is, in the Byzantine tradition since the 13th century, an altar cloth consecrated by a bishop and with relics sown to it, necessary for the performance of the divine liturgy, on which is placed the chalice and the paten. It can also represent the altar (III) and make it possible to perform the liturgy in any suitable place. Previously, from the 7th century, it was the designation in the Christian East for the portable wooden altar (Greco-Lat.: anti-mensa, “instead of the altar table”). Heinz Ohme Bibliography I.M. Izzo, The Antimension in the Liturgical and …

[German Version] (c. 925, Trebizond – c. 1001, Athos; Orthodox saint, feast day Jul 5) was the founder of cenobitic monasticism on Mount Athos. After studying and teaching in Constantinople, he became a monk at Mount Kymina in Bithynia in c. 952. Critically important was his acquaintance with the later emperor Nicephorus II Phocas (963–969), himself an ascetic…

[German Version] (late 949, Galatea in Paphlagonia – Mar 12, 1022, near Chrysopolis), eminent Byzantine mystic and poet, whose works contain his personal testimony to mystical experience. He was a spiritual student of the Studite (Studios Monastery) Symeon the Pious (917–986/987). At the age of 21, amid prayer and tears, Symeon experienced the first of 970 visions of the divine Logos in the form of immaterial light. In 976 he himself entered the Studios monastery but soon had to leave because he w…

[German Version] the eastern extension of the Chalcidian Peninsula, is known as ῞Αγιον ῞Ορος ( Hágion Óros, “Holy Mountain”); to the present day it has been the center of Orthodox monasticism. In the 9th century, monks fleeing iconoclasm (Veneration of images) or arriving as refugees from areas conquered by Islam swelled the number of those already living on Athos as hermits. Anchoritic eremitism, the earliest of the four forms of monasticism practiced in Athos (Monasticism), was put by …

[German Version] (Russ. Chlysty, “flagellant”), a polemical designation of a Russian dualistic sect which originated in the mid-17th century as a result of ecstatic-prophetic experiences and which gave itself the name Christy (“Christians”) or Božʾi ljudi (“People of God”). It was founded by the farmer Danila Filippov, in whose person the manifestation of the god Sabaoth was venerated, by his spiritual son Ivan Suslov as the manifestation of Christ, and by Suslov's mother as the Mother of God. A ri…

[English Version] I. Geschichtlich Der Begriff S. (von griech. συ´n̆οδος/sýnodos, »Zusammenkunft, zus. auf dem Weg sein«) kann bei der altkirchl. und ma. Entwicklung nicht vom Begriff Konzil getrennt werden. Nur im Blick auf den Protestantismus des 19./20.Jh. ist eine Isolierung sinnvoll, weil hier – vorbereitet seit dem 16.Jh. – die S. ein verfassungsrechtlich neuartiges Phänomen darstellt (Kirchenverfassung: IV.,2.; V.,1., c). Zu dessen Vorgesch. gehören die ma. Diözesansynode (als Fortentwicklung der…