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[German Version] (c. 316–397; feast day Nov 11). The writings of Sulpicius Severus about Martin are the only contemporary sources ( Epistulae et dialogae [CSEL 1]; Vita Martini [SC 133–135]). In the Vita, written c. 395/397, the various episodes are only loosely linked. They are continued after Martin's death in three letters and three (or two) Dialogues, in which Sulpicius depicts Martin according to his monastic ideals. Martin was born c. 316/317 (conflicting chronology) as the son of a tribune in Pannonian Sabaria. He grew up in Pavia, and at the …

[German Version] Maximinus the Arian (Saint), a Homoean. In 428/429, Maximinus belonged to the retinue of the Goth Sigisvult in Africa, where a disputation with Augustine of Hippo on the doctrine of the Trinity took place (Possidius, Vita Augustini, 17), the minutes of which are preserved in the Conlatio (CPL 699). Augustine subsequently authored Contra Maximinum ¶ Arrianum (CPL 700) against him. Invoking the Synod of Rimini (359), Maximinus argued in favor of a subordination theology with an explicit use of biblical language. A typical aspect of latt…

[German Version] Homoiousians, a term in use since the end of the 19th century to denote a theological group that arose from the Arian dispute while remaining particularly ¶ indebted to its Origenistic heritage. The name derives from the term ὁμοιούσιος/ homoiousios (= of similar substance, in contrast to ὁμοούσιος/ homoousios = of the same substance; Homoousios, Homoeans) as a description of the relation of God the Father to the Logos/Son in the Trinity. Today, the neutral “Homoiousian” has replaced such contemporary polemical terms as “Arians…

[German Version] Julius I, Pope (Saint), bishop of Rome from 337 to 352. With Athanasius's and Marcellus of Ancyra's flight to Rome in 339/340, the West became involved in the (church-)political controversies that followed upon the death of Constantine the Great. After the Eastern bishops failed to comply with a summons to attend a synod in Rome, a Roman synod convened under Julius in 340/341 annulled the verdicts of the Eastern synods against Athanasius and Marcellus and rehabilitated both of the…

[German Version] I. Erlangen School (Theology) – II. Erlangen School (Philosophy) I. Erlangen School (Theology) 1. History From the founding of the University of Erlangen (Erlangen, University of), the members of the theological faculty have been bound to the confessional statements of Lutheranism; a Lutheran Enlightenment theology largely dictated by Jena and Göttingen was predominant until …

[German Version] (d. Oct 23, 877). The son of Emperor Michael I Rangabe, after whose deposition (813) he was forced to become a monk, was elevated uncanonically (without vote of a synod) to the patriarchate by Empress Theodora II in 847. After her fall in 858, he had to resign in favor of Photius. Pope Nicholas I did not recognize his resignation. In the context of the rapprochement with the West of Emperor Basileios I, which resulted in the deposition of Photius, Ignatius was reappointed as patriarch in 867; in a conflict with Rome over ecclesiastical jurisdic…

[German Version] According to our only source, the Commemoratorium vitae s. Severini (511) of Eugippius, Severinus was a high-born Roman living as an anchorite in the East. After the death of Attila in 453, he went to Rhaeto-Romania as a monastic ascetic, charismatic, and miracle-worker. There he organized the Rhaeto-Romanic population politically and socially during the death throes of the western Roman Empire and prepared them for their journey to Italy. His positive relationship with the Rugian house me…

[German Version] The Arabic name of Morocco is al-Mamlaka al-maġribīya (“The Western Kingdom”). The name Morocco derives from Marrakesh (Arab. Marrākuš). The country is located at the intersection or Europe, the Middle East, and West Africa. A clear ethnic distinction between Berbers and Arabs is not always possible. Some 60% of the population speak Arabic, the rest Berber languages. Obscurity still surrounds many aspects of the cultural, political, economic, and religious life of the population before the arrival of the Arabs and Islam in the 7th and 8…

[German Version] Stylitism was a special form of early Christian asceticism, in which the stylite stood for long periods, usually for life, on a platform atop a pillar (Gk στῦλος/ stýlos, hence “stylite”), which often was raised in stages, sometimes to a height of more than 20 m, as a visible expression of the ascetic ideal of extreme homelessness and immobility. It was the duty of monks to provide the stylite with sustenance and communion. As motivation the sources speak of total separation from the world and proximity to heaven. Proposed non-Christian models have been ruled out. ¶ This rad…

[German Version] (Eukratas; c. 540/550, Aigai in Cilicia? – 634, Rome?), monk of the monastery of St. Theodosius in Jerusalem and of the laura of Pharan; after 578, he set off with his disciple Sophronius to visit monasteries and ascetic communities in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. A journey to Rome in 614 in the face of the impending threat of Persian invasion remains unclear. In the tradition of the Apophthegmata Patrum , Moschus collected his travel experiences in the ¶ form of edifying anecdotes, gathered from monks and ascetics, in a compilation dedicated to Sophronius …

[German Version] was a Roman presbyter who became bishop of Rome after the execution of Sixtus II in 259. He was able to reorganize the church, which had suffered greatly from the persecution by Licinius Valerianus. He died in 267/268. Almost nothing of him is recorded in the Liber pontificalis ; an exchange of letters with Dionysius of Alexandria and the congregation in Cappadocian Caesarea is attested. The authenticity of the fragment against the Origenistic theology of Dionysius of Alexandria (preserved in Athanasius, De decretis Nicaenae symboli [decr.…

[German Version] (521 Antioch – May 24 [or Sep 3?], 592), son of St. Martha and a father from Edessa, became a stylite and miracle worker (Simeon Thaumaturgus) at the age of six. Located after c. 540/541 on the mons mirabilis near Antioch, he was ordained to the diaconate and later to the priesthood as a stylite; he was sought out by pilgrims as a thaumaturge. He wrote works on asceticism, hymns, prayers, and letters (to Justinian I and Justin II). The pilgrimage activity associated with his pillar, as well as his contact relics and p…

[German Version] 523–526. At the command of Theodoric the Great, John I, of whom almost nothing is known, had to travel in 525 to Constantinople with a delegation of Roman senators and bishops and intervene there for the religious freedom of the homoean Goths, who were affected by the heresy laws. The triumphal reception of the pope in Constantinople must be regarded as a political demonstration against Theoderic, who, for that reason, had John held in Ravenna after his return; shortly afterward John died there. In ¶ the hagiographic tradition, he is therefore regarded as a victim…

[German Version] The so-called Eutychian Controversy was an episode in the christological controversy (Christology: II, 1), that forced the Roman and Latin West to take a dogmatic position and led directly to the christological formula of Chalcedon (Monophysites/Monophysitism). The unstable equilibrium of the Union of 433 between moderate Antiochenes and Alexandrians ( DH 272) was always in danger. Dioscorus of Alexandria, the successor of Cyril of Alexandria, was not prepared to accept a signif…

[German Version] (died 370) first appears as bishop of Germanicia at the Council of Antioch in 341. He was one of the leading supporters of the ecclesiastical policies of Constantius II and participated in almost all the important councils of the Eastern church as an opponent of Athanasius; he nevertheless played a role in the unsuccessful attempts to frame a theological compromise with the West ( formula macrostichus, Hahn, BSGR, §159). After he became bishop of Antioch in 357, his support of Aetius and Eunomius led to a breach with the…

[German Version] (“Stammerer,” or “hoarse”; died 490). In 477 Peter was elected bishop (patriarch) of Alexandria by opponents of the decrees of Chalcedon, as successor to Timotheus Aelurus, but he was able to take office only after the death of Timothy Salophaciolus and the recognition of the Henotikon in 482; because of the intervention of John Talaia (Acacius of Constantinople), he was not recognized by the West. He was also opposed in Egypt by Monophysites because he had signed the Henotikon and refused to condemn Chalcedon. Theologically, Peter must be considered less a…

[German Version] I. Definition – II. Early Christianity and Military Service – III. The Militia Christi in Primitive Christianity and the Early Church – IV. Middle Ages – V. Modern Period I. Definition Latin militia Christi (“military service for Christ”; cf. the more common miles Christi/ dei, “soldier/warrior of Christ/God”) is a metaphorical description of the life and service of Christians in the world (cf. “the church militant”). Borrowing the language of apocalypticism and imagery common to antique philosophy, it interprets the C…

[German Version] priest and archimandrite of the Monastery of Job in Constantinople, exercised great influence at the court so that Cyril of Alexandria sought his assistance as mediator as early as 432. As a radical proponent of the theology of one nature (Monophysites/Monophysitism) and an opponent of the union of 433, he was accused of Apollinarianism (Apollinaris of Laodicea) in 447/48 at over 70 …

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Church Law – III. Dogmatics I. Church History 1. Early Church Council (Lat. concilium, Gk σύνοδος [Lat. synodum]; the two terms were first differentiated in modern usage; see also synod) are meetings of bishops from various communities for binding clarification of disciplinary, organizational, or doctrinal questions, whose decisions, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, are not in principle revisable and claim validity for the whole church r…

[German Version] (c. 1050 – c. 1126), student of Michael (actually Constantine) Psellus, deacon of the Hagia Sophia and royal tutor at the court of Michael VII. Around 1090 he was made archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria, de facto the Byzantine metropolitan even though Bulgaria remained autocephalous de iure under Byzantine rule. The majority of his literary output consists of biblical commentaries in a traditional vein; in the conflict with the Latins, he took a moderate position. Other surviving works include homilies, encomia of martyrs, a m…