Constantinople

CONSTANTINOPLE. - Ancient Byzantium (Byzantion), built in 658 B.C. by a colony from Megara, whose leader was Byzas; almost entirely destroyed by Septimius Severus in 196 A.D., but soon rebuilt. It took the name of C. toward the end of 324, when Constantine chose it as the capital of the Empire and gave it his name together with the title of "New Rome," adorning it with splendid buildings and rich artistic treasures.

The present name, Istanbul, derives from εἰς τὴν πόλιν "toward the city," while the Slavic peoples call it Tsarigrad "city of the emperor." On the border between Europe and Asia, C. sits on seven hills and extends from west to east in the form of a triangular peninsula, enclosed on the landward side by the wall of Theodosius and washed to the north by the waters of the Golden Horn, which is the city's great commercial port, spanned by two bridges that join it to the quarters of Galata and Pera.

The most fortunate period in the history of C. is the one that begins with the death of Justinian (565) and ends with the death of Basil II (1025) the Bulgar-Slayer, which sees Bulgaria vanquished and Russia disposed to enter the orbit of Byzantine influence. Then, with the dynasties of the Comneni and the Angeli, irreparable decline begins (C. is stormed in 1204 by the troops of the Fourth Crusade), a decline that ends under the dynasty of the Palaeologi with the fall of the city in 1453 beneath the scimitar of Mehmed II.

The Ottoman Turks who succeeded the emperors had at first a period of prosperity that reached its culmination with Suleiman II (d. 1566), followed then by a military and political decline that came to an end in 1922 with the abolition of the sultanate and again in 1924, with that of the caliphate, with which Mehmed V was then invested. The erection of the Turkish Republic through the work of Kemal Pasha (Atatürk, d. 1938) took from C. the rank of capital, which was transferred to Ankara in 1923.

I. THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

I. CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

The Christian origins of Byzantium are obscure. Toward the end of the 2nd century, under Pope Victor (189-99), the anti-Trinitarian heretic Theodotus the Cobbler, a native of Byzantium, was expelled from Rome, a circumstance that suggests the presence of Christians at Byzantium at this time. Given the position of this city at a much-frequented crossing point between Europe and Asia, one may reasonably conjecture that Christianity made its appearance there early, without doubt at the beginning of the 2nd century or toward the end of the 1st. The earliest community of the faithful must have been directed by a priest dependent on Heraclea in Thrace. No mention is made of bishops before the beginning of the 3rd century (ca. 215), and even tradition, which goes back only to the 10th century, presents only three incumbents for the whole of the 3rd century.

Only with Metrophanes I (306-307 - 4 June 314) does the uninterrupted series of prelates begin. These were originally, and until 381, suffragans of the metropolis of Heraclea. But a legend, no earlier than the beginning of the 6th century, makes the Byzantine bishopric a foundation of the apostle St. Andrew, who would have given it as its first incumbent St. Stachys, appointed by St. Paul (Rom. 16, 9). This legend was born from the concern to make the New Rome an apostolic foundation no less than the old. To Peter the "Coryphaeus of the Apostles," Andrew the "Protoclete," that is, the "first called," was to be opposed.

The legend had a rapid success, not only in Byzantine tradition from the 7th century but also soon in the West itself, and Baronio inserted it into the Martyrologium Romanum, under 31 Oct., forgetting the words of Leo the Great to the emperor Marcian: "Let

Anatolius not despise the imperial city, of which he cannot make an apostolic see" (perhaps - the Apostolic See, Epist., 104, 3. ad Marcinum; PL 54, 995). To support the legend, a list of 21 bishops between Sts. Stachys and Metrophanes was compiled, among whom those three probable ones of the 3rd century do not figure at all.

During the Arian controversy, four of the Byzantine bishops were notorious heretics, namely Eusebius, first of Nicomedia, Macedonius I, Eudoxius and Demophilus. For forty years (339-79) C. was truly the citadel of heresy, by the will of the emperors Constantius II and Valens.

At the death of the latter (379), St. Gregory of Nazianzus labored to re-establish Catholic orthodoxy there, amid difficulties of every kind. Recognized for a moment as bishop of the city by the fathers of the Council of 381, he renounced the see pro bono pacis.

He was replaced by Nectarius, praetor of C., still a catechumen.

II. FORMATION OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (381-451)

Two are the principal factors in the rapid rise, in only 70 years, of C. from a diocese suffragan to Heraclea to the first patriarchate of all the East: the ambition of the prelates and the caesaropapism of the emperors. The title of "New Rome," capital of the Empire, was the springboard used to arrive at this result.

The assimilation of the ecclesiastical organization with the civil one was carried further, in the First Council of C. (381). A group of civil provinces, in fact, constituted a "diocese," administered by an "exarch." This terminology passed into ecclesiastical use with the corresponding organization. An exarch designated a superior metropolitan, that is, the bishop of the capital of the civil diocese. The exarch exercised, in theory, over his metropolitans, a jurisdiction analogous to that of the metropolitans over their suffragans. This superior jurisdiction took concrete form, starting from Justinian I, in what was the patriarchal right. From then on the exarchates of the 4th and 5th centuries were called "patriarchates," and their incumbents "patriarchs." There were five patriarchates, of which one for the West: that of Rome, and four for the East, namely Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, C.

Basing themselves on the principle of equivalence between the civil rank of a city and its ecclesiastical rank, the bishops of C. aspired to the dignity of exarch or patriarch and even to something more: it was enough to make the title of New Rome, capital of the Empire, resound. Just as this city has a right to the first place because it is the seat of the Emperor and of the Senate, who command over the whole Empire, so analogously its bishop was to have precedence over all the other bishops of the Empire and even to hold over them a power of high jurisdiction, at least the right to receive appeals from the whole Empire. One obstacle stood in the way: the bishop of old Rome, still existing with the double supremacy of honor and of power. Now those of New Rome could not claim to supplant him, all the more so since this double supremacy rested, as the Christian world well knew, not on the title of capital of the Empire, but on the succession of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles. To elude the difficulty they pretended to ignore the true foundation of the Roman supremacy, and affirmed that the bishop of Rome occupied the first rank because he was installed in the capital of the Empire. Once this false principle had been pushed to its ultimate consequences, they demanded the second rank in the hierarchy after the Pope and privileges equal to his, without however claiming the universal primacy, which they still recognized as belonging to the Roman see, though it was kept as far as possible under silence. This program found a kind of apparent justification in the definitive division, at the death of Theodosius (395), of the Roman Empire into two roughly equal parts. Two superior prelates were needed, just as there were two emperors, one for the West, the other for the East. This "diarchy" became the program of the Byzantine patriarchs. Unable to bring it about by right, because of the supremacy by divine right of the bishop of Rome, it was carried out in fact, at first partially, as long as the union with Rome lasted, then completely, through the definitive schism.

At the First Council of C. (381), a general Synod of the East regarded only later as the Second Ecumenical, they began by granting the Byzantine see precedence over all the other sees of the East. The 3rd canon is conceived thus: "The bishop of C. has the supremacy of honor (τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς) after the bishop of Rome because C. is a New Rome." With precedence there gradually came effective supremacy, thanks to the caesaropapism of the emperors who, faithful to the habit of meddling in religious affairs, received appeals from the Eastern clergy; such appeals were then entrusted to the bishop of the capital. Thus the permanent synod (σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα) had its origin, composed of bishops passing through the capital under the presidency of the Byzantine bishop, who therefore in practice exercised a kind of supreme jurisdiction not only over his immediate neighbors, but also over the great sees of Alexandria and Antioch.

The immediate neighbors, that is, the metropolises of the three dioceses of Thrace, Asia and Pontus, in all 28 ecclesiastical provinces, were gradually absorbed by a series of intrusions, staggered between 381 and 451. As soon as some difficulty arose in the elections of the metropolitans or of the bishops of the dioceses in question, an appeal was made either to the "basileus" or directly to the Byzantine bishop, even if the latter did not take the initiative. This was found very natural not only in the East, but also in the West. These intrusions had some excuse in the fact that they were often solicited by the interested parties themselves, and were not such as to disturb the ecclesiastical organization established by the canons of Nicaea and of C.

All these de facto irregularities the Byzantine clergy, with the connivance of the Emperor, wished to regularize at the Council of Chalcedon, convened solely for dogmatic questions. A good number of the Fathers had already left the assembly when, on 31 Oct. 451, the XV and penultimate session was held, in which a series of 28 canons was promulgated, several of them concerning the see of C.

Cann. 9 and 17 grant it the right to receive in the last instance the appeals of every cleric in difficulty with his superior: moreover can. 17 canonizes the lay principle of the hierarchy of episcopal sees.

But the 28th canon is above all important: "Following in all things the decrees of the Holy Fathers and knowing the canon of the 150 Fathers, friends of God, which has just been read (this refers to the 3rd canon of the Council of 381), we also decree and vote the same thing regarding the prerogatives of the most holy Church of C., the New Rome. Rightly, in fact, the Fathers attributed (or recognized as belonging) to the see of old Rome the first place (the privileges it enjoys, τὰ πρεσβεῖα), because this city was the residence of the Emperor. Moved by the same consideration, the 150 fathers, much beloved of God, have granted equivalent privileges (πρεσβεῖα ἀπένεμαι) to the most holy see of New Rome, rightly judging that the city honored by the presence of the Emperor and of the Senate and enjoying (in the civil order) prerogatives equal to those of imperial old Rome, must also increase in dignity in ecclesiastical affairs, holding the second place after it. Consequently, the metropolitans only (not the bishops) of the dioceses of Pontus, of Asia and of Thrace and, moreover, the bishops who are found in the barbarian countries dependent on these dioceses, shall be ordained by the aforesaid most holy see of the Church of C., that is, each metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses shall ordain the bishops of his province with the concurrence of the suffragan bishops, as is prescribed by the sacred canons; whereas, as has been said, the metropolitans of the indicated dioceses shall be ordained by the archbishops of C. after the regular election and in conformity with custom has been notified to them" (Mansi, VII, 369).

It may be said that this canon contains in germ the whole Byzantine schism. In fact, taken literally, it sounds like heresy, while it seems to attribute to the Roman supremacy a purely human foundation. Without doubt, the signatories of this text had no intention at all of denying the primacy, by divine right, of the bishop of Rome, successor of Peter (of their faith on this point there are the most explicit declarations; v. CALCEDONIA, CONCILIO di); but, anxious to find a conspicuous title for exalting the Byzantine see and endowing it with special privileges, they had recourse to a reason which, taken literally and in its purely literary context, is the negation of the primacy by divine right; and thus properly after the schism and even in our own day, the dissident Easterners have understood it. The context of history, the only thing that excludes the heretical sense, would soon be forgotten, and from the words employed there would be logically deduced the negation of every primacy by divine right in the Church, the transfer of ecclesiastical superiority from one see to another and the multiplication of ecclesiastical supremacies according to the number of the capitals of independent States. It is the birth certificate of the national autocephalous Churches (v.).

Juridically this canon has no value whatsoever, because: 1) it was not a truly authentic decree of all 500 fathers of the Council, but only of about 200, and in a session not presided over by the Roman legates; 2) these, the following day in the XVI session, raised an energetic protest against the decree, which they wished to have inserted into the acts; 3) Pope Leo I, despite the insistent urgings of the signatories, of Marcian and of Bishop Anatolius, explicitly abrogated it (Epist. 105 ad Pulcherrum Augustam: PL 54, 1000). It should be noted, moreover, that the Pope paid little attention to the passage on the origin of the privileges of the Roman See, a passage that is so offensive in our own day. He insisted, in his letters relating to this affair, on the violation of the rights of Alexandria, of Antioch and of the exarchs of the three dioceses of Thrace, of Pontus and of Asia. Nevertheless he wrote: "Let not Anatolius despise the imperial city, of which he cannot make an apostolic see (or: the apostolic see); and let him abandon all hope of aggrandizing himself at the expense of others" (Epist. 104 ad Marcianum imp., 3: PL 54, 995).

But the Pope's protests obtained a rather apparent and transient effect. Canon 28 is missing from the Eastern canonical collections before the 8th century. But in practice nothing was changed. The bishop of "New Rome" continued to exercise a truly patriarchal jurisdiction over the 28 ecclesiastical provinces annexed to C. by this canon and to receive appeals from all the East, according to canons 9 and 17, to which Rome had paid no attention, although their importance in some way surpassed that of the 28th. After the Council of Chalcedon, the Byzantine patriarchate is an accomplished fact. It has pre-eminence, and not merely honorary, over all the East.

III. THE BYZANTINE PATRIARCHATE FROM 451 TO 1453

It generally shared the fortunes of the Empire. Its supremacy over the East developed as a consequence of the Monophysite schism and the Arab invasion, which occupied the other three patriarchates of Alexandria, of Antioch and of Jerusalem, called Melkite patriarchates, leaving them an insignificant number of faithful, because the mass had passed over to Monophysitism or to Islam. These three sees often remained vacant, and when they had titulars, these were under the more or less direct dependence of the bishop of C.

The latter soon took the pompous title of "ecumenical patriarch." This happened at the Synod of C. of 588, convened, note this aggravating circumstance, to examine an accusation against the patriarch of Antioch, who was present together with the patriarch of Alexandria; John IV the Faster (582-95) had such a title reserved for himself alone and for his successors.

The epithet "ecumenical," applied to a bishop, was not new. Its meaning was imprecise. Etymologically, ecumenical means worldwide (οἰκουμένη). In this sense the title would suit only the Pope, as head of the whole Church. It is not likely that John the Faster wished to raise himself above the bishop of Rome. His subsequent conduct proves the contrary, since he recognized the supremacy of the Pope, who annulled several of his sentences, following appeals by Byzantine clerics to the Holy See. It seems, however, that he intended to affirm his supremacy over the entire episcopate of this little world that was the Byzantine Empire, that is, in the sense of canons 9 and 17 of Chalcedon. In any case, in the East, nothing was seen in this but a vain formula or at most the indication of rights already existing. But St. Gregory the Great, imitating his predecessor Pelagius II (579-90), protested energetically, because he saw in it not an attempt against Roman supremacy, but a lack of humility, of charity and of justice. His protests, like those of Pelagius II, remained ineffective. At the urging of Boniface III (607) the emperor Phocas had the title withdrawn from the Byzantine patriarch, recognizing Roman supremacy. But the victory was ephemeral. Once Phocas was gone (610), the successors of John the Faster resumed and kept the title down to today (S. Vailhé, St Grégoire le Grand et le titre de patriarche écuménique, in Échos d'Orient, 11 [1008], pp. 65-69, 161-71; P. Pargoire, L'Église byzantine de 627 à 847, 3rd ed., Paris 1923, pp. 49-51).

The geographical extent of the patriarchate generally coincided, with a few exceptions, with the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire.

Two hundred years after Chalcedon, around 650, the situation had scarcely changed at all. The patriarchate then counted 33 metropolises with 352 suffragan bishoprics, 24 autocephalous archbishoprics, that is, a total of 419 suffragan sees. It had grown larger, through the conquests of Heraclius: Lazica, Zechia and Abasgia on the Black Sea, and a part of Isauria belonging to the patriarchate of Antioch (cf. H. Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in the Abhandlungen d. bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaft., 1st Cl., 21, part 3, Munich 1900, pp. 531-49).

Three centuries later, at the beginning of the 10th century, an official notice listed 51 metropolises with 522 suffragan bishoprics, 51 autocephalous archbishoprics, that is, in all 624 episcopal sees. It is the moment when the patriarchate seems to reach its greatest geographical extent. It had grown larger, in 732, at the expense of the Roman patriarchate, from which Leo the Isaurian tore away the eastern Illyricum, that is, almost the entire Balkan peninsula, plus Crete, Calabria and Sicily, or 8 ecclesiastical provinces, comprising 71 dioceses, in order to punish the Pope for having condemned iconoclasm.

This annexation of the eastern Illyricum satisfied the wishes of the Byzantine patriarchs, who considered as belonging to them all the territories that belonged to the Eastern Empire. Already in 421, a decree of Theodosius II that extended over the regions in question the high jurisdiction of the Byzantine patriarch had been suspended through the work of Pope Boniface I (418-22) and of the Western emperor, Honorius. On the other hand, in the 9th and 10th centuries, C. momentarily lost ground in the Balkans because of the establishment of the first Bulgarian patriarchate. But in 1018, this first patriarchate was suppressed by Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer and replaced by the autonomous archbishopric of Ochrid or Acrida, a kind of second-rank patriarchate, which lasted until 1767 and did not escape the high influence of the ecumenical patriarch, despite its juridical autonomy.

Toward the end of the 10th century, Russia was converted with King Vladimir. But the metropolis of Kiev did not at first depend on C. Only at the end of the 11th century (around 1080) does it appear on the official notices, inscribed under number 60. From the end of the 11th century, it is incontestable that Christian Russia is drawn into the orbit of C. and largely adheres to the schism of Cerularius. Until the Mongol invasion (1240), almost all the metropolitans of Kiev are Greeks by origin. After this invasion the subjection to C. is maintained until the Council of Florence (1431-47). From 1461, the Muscovite Church properly so called, that is, that of independent Russia, was autocephalous in fact, before becoming so in law through the establishment of the patriarchate of Moscow in 1589. But the ecumenical patriarchate continued to exercise its jurisdiction over the metropolis of Kiev, which had fallen under Polish-Lithuanian dominion in 1386, until the day when Kiev and its surroundings were incorporated into the Empire of the Tsars (1686).

From the 12th century onward, the ecumenical patriarchate was in fact confined within the limits of the Empire. Toward the end of the 11th century, the Normans took Sicily and southern Italy from it. At the beginning of the 13th century, the capture of C. by the Crusaders and the founding of a Latin empire brought the gravest consequences upon this patriarchate. Autocephalous Churches arose on every side, dismembering it. The Bulgarians revived their patriarchate at Tirnovo, the Serbs founded that of Ipek. The despot of Epirus and the Empire of Trebizond shook off the religious tutelage of the ecumenical patriarch, who had taken refuge at Nicaea. The fall of the Latin Empire and the accession of Michael Palaiologos (1261) only partially restored the previous situation, while the Turks completed the conquest of Asia Minor and began to invade the Balkans. In the 14th century, however, the patriarchate made a new conquest: it established two metropolises in Romania, that of Ungrovalacchia and that of Moldovalacchia. It also recovered a certain number of bishoprics through the suppression of the Bulgarian patriarchate of Tirnovo in 1393.

In general, the patriarchs bowed to the will of the emperors and their caesaropapism. There were, nevertheless, courageous prelates who had to resign in order to remain faithful to orthodoxy and to their duty. Thus St. Eutychius in 565, St. Germanus in 729, St. Nicephorus in 815, St. Ignatius in 858. These forced resignations, or brutal expulsions, sometimes gave rise to internal schisms, which lasted for a longer or shorter time. Noteworthy are the schism of the Ignatians and the Photians in the second half of the 9th century (858-98), aggravated by a schism with Rome; the schism of the Euthymians and the Nicolaites (907-96) caused by the question of tetragamy (or the fourth marriage of the emperor Leo VI the Wise); the schism of the Arsenites and the Josephites (1261-1315); the troubles provoked by the Palamite controversy (1341-76).

Monasticism during this period was flourishing. Until the 9th century its principal centers were C. and Mount Olympus of Bithynia. During the persecutions by the iconoclast emperors, it spread in the 8th century into Sicily and southern Italy. In the 9th century it emerged victorious from the struggle and took on a new impetus. Two new monastic centers arose in the 10th century: that of Mount Athos (v.), which became the Holy Mountain, and that of Mount Latros, the ancient Latmos, near Miletus, in Asia Minor.

The influence of the monks on the people and on the clergy was considerable; and it made itself felt even in the political sphere. From among the monks were often chosen the bishops and patriarchs who, until the 10th century, were generally the protagonists of orthodoxy against imperial heresies and of Roman supremacy. Hence the wrath of Photius. But their voice soon fell silent, at least in part, because of the decadence of the Roman Church in the 10th and 11th centuries. Once the schism was consummated, they became the most obstinate opponents of union with Rome. False mysticism, moreover, recruited supporters among them, as attests the strange theology of Gregory Palamas, which became, in 1351, the official doctrine of the Byzantine Church (v. PALAMISMO).

IV. THE RELATIONS OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE WITH THE HOLY SEE FROM 451 TO 1453

Until Michael Cerularius (1054), these relations were often interrupted and rarely friendly, but afterward they practically ceased, despite the numerous attempts made to restore them. Barely two of these attempts succeeded in obtaining an ephemeral union.

As has already been said, the "New Rome" was, during the Arian controversy, the principal center of the heresy (339-79). Some time later came the unjust deposition of St. John Chrysostom (404), whom Pope Innocent I rehabilitated, but whose name Atticus, his successor, refused to inscribe in the diptychs for about ten years (405-15): a cause of a new schism with Rome. After Chalcedon, the relations of Pope St. Leo with the patriarch Anatolius (449-58) were rather tense. With Acacius (471-89), a schism of more than 30 years began, a schism aggravated by heresies and imposed by imperial policy with the aim of reuniting the Monophysites. Under Justinian, there was, for a moment, a rupture on the occasion of the affair of the "Three Chapters," and Pope Vigilius (537-55) had to endure unworthy treatment at C. (551-54). The question of Monothelitism determined a schism of more than 40 years (640-81), and the Sixth Ecumenical Council, composed almost exclusively of Easterners, which marked its end, was not courteous toward the Apostolic See, unjustly placing Pope Honorius in the number of heretics. Even greater discourtesy was shown toward Rome at the famous Synod of Trullo (691), which improperly assumed the title of ecumenical.

The members of this assembly, under the presidency of the ecumenical patriarch and with the high approval of Justinian II, wished to dictate law to the Roman Church itself. Several of its customs, such as the law of ecclesiastical celibacy, the fast of the Saturday of Lent, etc., were abolished under penalty of excommunication and deposition. Here is the culminating point of Byzantine ambitions. Nevertheless, Roman supremacy was still recognized in some way, by leaving blank, before the signature of the Byzantine bishop, the place for the Pope's signature, which it was hoped to obtain either by love or by force. But the Roman approval never came.

Fifty years after the condemnation of Monothelitism, the iconoclast persecutions began, which renewed the rupture for about a century (731-87; 815-43); the century is almost reached, if one adds the five years during which the patriarch Nicephorus abstained from communicating his election to the Pope, in consequence of the adulterous union contracted by the emperor Constantine VI. The abrupt withdrawal from the Roman patriarchate of the provinces of eastern Illyricum and southern Italy, decreed by Leo the Isaurian in 732, is a new blow against the Roman pontiffs. On the other hand, the "basileus" showed himself powerless to protect Rome against the Lombards: which obliged the popes to solicit the help of Pepin the Short and of Charlemagne, who were so many "barbarians" in the eyes of the Byzantines. The Carolingians freed Rome from the Lombards and endowed the Holy See with a small kingdom, constituted at the expense of the ancient Byzantine possessions in Italy; yet not gratuitously. And the desired and skillfully prepared reward was the gesture of Pope Leo III in restoring the Western Empire in favor of Charlemagne and crowning him emperor of the Romans (Christmas of 800). In this gesture the Byzantine "basileus" saw a veritable betrayal. Thus, from the 9th century onward there were two rival and absolutist empires almost continuously at war. The idea of catholicity was increasingly erased from men's minds and, for the Easterners, the Pope became more and more the patriarch of the barbarian West. Slowly the way was being paved toward the definitive schism.

It may be said that the hour of this definitive separation came to pass at the time of the violent conflict provoked by the deposition of the patriarch Ignatius and his replacement by Photius (858). The Photian schism was not long; the official rupture lasted no more than four years (863-67), since it is now proven that it was not renewed during the second patriarchate of Photius (877-86). It did, however, take on the character of a true crisis. All the separatist forces, all the elements of discord entered into play at the same time: caesaropapism, denial of the supremacy of the Roman See by divine right, the awakening of ethnic antipathies, disputes over the jurisdiction of the patriarchates concerning the conversion of the Bulgarians, disciplinary and ritual divergences, made more dangerous by mutual ignorance. More serious still: for the first time the Roman and Latin Church was directly attacked not only in its disciplinary and liturgical customs, but also in its very dogmatic orthodoxy. In his famous encyclical to the patriarchs of the East (867) Photius drew up the first list of Latin customs, innovations or "kainotomiai," and positively attacked the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, which Pope Leo III, around 810, had solemnly proclaimed in an encyclical to the episcopate of the East, after the controversy raised at Jerusalem against the Latin monks of the Mount of Olives.

Up to this point it had been the Byzantine Church that periodically slid into heresy, while the Roman Church, each time, at the ecumenical councils, had reached out its hand to raise it up again. From now on the roles would change. The presumed heretic would no longer be C., but Rome and the Church of the West. Very skillfully Photius passed from the defensive to a direct offensive. With him was born the anti-Latin polemic, which would never cease and would cause all attempts at union to fail. Without doubt, at the Council of St. Sophia of 879-80, Photius would renounce the ritual and disciplinary polemic, but he would maintain to the end his heresy concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone. Yet, after this first scandal, the union was re-established but was preserved only with difficulty until around 1025-30. During this period the questions raised by Photius were completely forgotten. If there were ruptures, they occurred for other reasons.

The Photian schism had scarcely died out when discords broke out over the fourth marriage of the emperor Leo the Wise (886-912), which Rome authorized by way of dispensations, while the patriarch Nicholas the Mystic (901-907, 912-23) proscribed it as fornication, excommunicating all those who approved it, not excepting the Pope. The schism lasted from 912 to 923. Nicholas, at first intransigent, ended by humbly requesting the resumption of relations. These were again interrupted, for about a decade (974-85), when the Byzantine court took sides with the antipope Boniface, who succeeded in sitting twice (974 and 984-85) on the pontifical throne under the name of Boniface VII. They were certainly re-established in the early years of the 11th century, as Peter of Antioch attests in a letter to Michael Cerularius (1054), in which he declares that he saw with his own eyes, in 1009, the name of Pope John XVIII inscribed on the diptychs of St. Sophia (PG 120, 800).

There are good reasons to doubt that the Byzantines recognized as pope Benedict VIII (1012-24), chosen by the German emperor Henry II. Certainly, they strove ardently to enter into relations with his successor John XIX (1024-1032), senator of the Romans and brother of the preceding Pope. The Eastern Empire was then at its apogee. Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer and the patriarch Eustathius (d. 1025) sent the new Pope an embassy with rich gifts to obtain recognition of the famous title of ecumenical patriarch, which in the Byzantines' idea did not imply the denial of the Pope's universal supremacy, but only a superior jurisdiction over all the bishoprics of the Eastern Empire as it had been exercised, in fact, for a long time (Radulfus Glaber, Historiae, IV: PL 142, 670-72). The affair became public and provoked lively protests in the Western world. People made a show of seeing in it an attack on Roman supremacy: which it was not. The Pope therefore refused the Byzantines what they asked.

The disappointment for Basil II and for Eustathius must have been bitter; did they even go so far as to break off all relations with the Holy See? It has been supposed so with great probability. Certainly relations between Rome and C. had been suspended for many years when the question of re-establishing them arose in 1053. On his accession to the ecumenical see (25 March 1043) Michael Cerularius did not erase the Pope's name from the diptychs of St. Sophia, a gesture still attributed to him by some historians. This name had no longer appeared there for some years, and perhaps not through the fault of the Byzantine patriarchs. The papacy was then passing through the saddest period of its history. The popes did nothing but pass over the apostolic see, elected and deposed or assassinated by factions. Several, without any doubt, did not have the time to announce their election to the patriarchs of the East, as was customary. Thus from 901 to 1059, there are about forty popes as against 15 patriarchs of C. At the beginning of the patriarchate of Michael Cerularius, the situation of the Roman Church is pitiable. In 1044, there are two popes; in 1045 there are three; in 1046, the German emperor Henry III has the three existing popes deposed and replaces them with Clement II. Supposing that the Byzantine patriarch had wished to notify the Pope of his election, he might have been uncertain about the choice of recipient.

Michael Cerularius therefore did not break off relations, which in fact had no longer existed for a long time (A. Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios, II, Paderborn 1930, pp. 446-48), but he caused the attempt to resume them to fail, on the occasion of a project of political alliance between the Pope and the "basileus" against the Normans of southern Italy. To succeed in this, he reopened the polemic against the Latin rites and customs, which Photius had inaugurated, and he took particular issue with the use of unleavened bread (v.), long since widespread throughout the West. By his order, all the Latin churches of the city were closed. Then, toward the beginning of 1053, he had Leo of Ohrid launch an insolent manifesto against certain other Latin customs: the use of unleavened bread, the fast of the Saturday of Lent, the suppression of the "alleluia" during Lent, etc. The letter was addressed to John, bishop of Trani in Apulia, and, through his mediation, to all the bishops of the Franks and to the Pope himself (PG 120, 836).

The attitude of Cardinal Humbert, head of the legation sent by Pope Leo IX to C., following these events, helped to embitter the dispute. The sentence of excommunication was soon reached. On 16 July 1054, the Roman legates deposited one on the altar of Hagia Sophia against Michael and his followers, but not against the Byzantine Church and the faithful, as has been written by some. The patriarch and the Synod responded with a synodal edict (20 July 1054) excommunicating the sentence of the legates, their persons and their collaborators, but not the Pope nor the Roman Church. Cerularius, in fact, always made a show of considering Humbert a false legate, a mere emissary of Argyrus, his rival, governor of Byzantine Italy. The synodal edict does not directly attack the Latin Church, but defends the Byzantine Church against certain reproaches in the sentence of Cardinal Humbert that were either exaggerated or even positively erroneous. The question of unleavened bread is not mentioned; but since the cardinal had erroneously reproached Michael and his followers with having suppressed the word Filioque from the Creed, Michael attacked in passing the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit and the addition of the Filioque, which he had not at first thought of, so completely had the Photian polemic fallen into oblivion.

This time, it was no longer the simple rupture of relations; but a lasting and continuous separation was beginning. Without doubt, considered within the general fabric of history, the events that took place at C. in June-July 1054 have the appearance of a simple incident, and it was precisely under this aspect that contemporaries considered them, both in the East and in the West. The Byzantine chroniclers attributed so little importance to them that they passed them over in silence, and the Latin chronicles knew of them only through what Cardinal Humbert said of them. But in retrospective history, they take on quite another importance, inasmuch as they denote the very firm will of the patriarchs of C. and of their clergy to continue to live in the most complete autonomy. Moreover, the notion of Roman supremacy had been replaced among the Byzantines by the heretical theory of the "pentarchy," according to which the universal Church is governed by the five patriarchs equal in authority, compared to the five senses of the mystical body of Christ. Michael employed all his activity to drag the other patriarchs of the East into the schism, heaping up accusations against the Latins; puerile accusations, many of which are also pure calumnies and the others indifferent customs. An almost official list of them was soon drawn up in the small pamphlet entitled: Against the Franks and the other Latins, published by Hergenröther in Monumenta graeca ad Photium eiusque historiam pertinentia (Ratisbon 1869, pp. 62-71).

This booklet, the letters of Cerularius and other similar documents were spread everywhere; they were already known in Russia around 1080. The Latins are henceforth classified not only among the barbarians but also among the heretics, whose contact must be avoided. The list of their customs (σφάλματα), of their innovations (καινοτομίαι) will only grow with time. Before 1453, these customs exceeded a hundred.

For the attempts at union in later centuries v. ORIENTE CRISTIANO.

V. THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE UNDER TURKISH DOMINATION. ITS PRESENT STATE

The victor of 1453, Mehmed II, immediately wanted the election of a new patriarch, to whom he granted a kind of civil jurisdiction over his faithful. He was the head "of the Greek nation," Rum milleti. The bishops had analogous powers. Through this external authority over his flock, the bishop of "New Rome" acquired a new trait of resemblance to the Pope, at one and the same time spiritual primate and temporal king. His see was enriched with the spoils of the Bulgarian and Serbian Churches; he had as his direct inheritance the metropolises of the patriarchate of Tărnovo; the high jurisdiction over the Serbian patriarchate of Peć returned to him through the Greek-Bulgarian archbishopric of Ohrid, to which it had been annexed. Re-established in 1557, this patriarchate was definitively suppressed in 1766. The following year, Ohrid met the same fate. The three Melkite patriarchates continued even more than before to gravitate as satellites in the orbit of C., until the first quarter of the 19th century.

This good fortune, however, rested on a fragile foundation. The lay principle that had sustained it since 381 was not slow to bear fruit to the detriment of "New Rome." If the latter had received its ecclesiastical privileges thanks to its condition as capital of an earthly empire, those privileges were bound to be contested the day a sovereign no longer reigned on the shores of the Bosphorus.

Once C. had fallen, the patriarchate followed the fortunes of the Turkish Empire. The fragments successively separated gave rise to just as many independent national Churches. The first to shake off its tutelage was the Russian Church. Autocephalous in fact from 1461, it became so officially and by right thanks to the constitution of the patriarchate of Moscow, in 1589-90. The dismemberment of the Turkish Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries gave rise to as many autocephalies as there were independent States, and sometimes more. The last to be constituted and only recently officially recognized is the Church of Albania (1929-37).

These successive separations have reduced the Byzantine patriarchate to one of the smallest autocephalies of the Greek-Russian group, called the "Orthodox Church." Its immediate jurisdiction is no longer exercised except over the metropolis of C. with the 4 dioceses of Derkos, Chalcedon, Prinkipo and Imbros, which represent ca. 100,000 faithful; over the 4 metropolises of the Dodecanese, with 120,000 faithful; over the 20 monasteries of Athos, whose population does nothing but diminish and must not greatly exceed 4,000 monks. Also dependent on it, at least nominally, is the Greek archbishopric of America, which gathers ca. 200,000 Greeks scattered throughout the two Americas. If one adds to these the two exarchates: of Western Europe (residence in London) and of Central Europe (residence in Vienna) created in 1922 and 1924, and the metropolis of Australia (1924) (these three recent foundations concern the Greeks scattered in the regions indicated), one has the complete list of the territories under its competence. As for the total number of the faithful, it can be calculated at ca. 400,000. The clergy of the metropolis of C. comprises, besides the patriarch and the bishops of the 4 aforementioned dioceses, 14 titular metropolitans and 6 equally titular bishops, the latter placed over the principal quarters of the city. Ever since the return of the Turks to C., following the Greek defeat of 1922, the patriarchate has lost the civil privileges that the former sultans had conferred upon it.

The complicated organic statute that governed it from 1860 to 1922 has been succeeded by a very simple constitution. A permanent synod of 12 metropolitans presided over by the patriarch is its essential element. The patriarch is elected by the 18 metropolitans of the patriarchate without the participation of laymen. There remains to be created a mixed body for the administration of ecclesiastical property. In the meantime, ecclesiastical and lay commissions (epitropies) are functioning. The hostility of the Turkish government hinders the elaboration of a definitive statute.

VI. THE ANCIENT LATIN PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE CURRENT APOSTOLIC VICARIATE

The Latins of the Fourth Crusade, as soon as they had conquered C., installed as patriarch there the Venetian Tommaso Morosini (May 1204), whom Pope Innocent III officially confirmed only on 5 February 1205.

In his capacity as a Venetian, Morosini had sworn to reserve ecclesiastical benefices for his compatriots, which drew upon him every kind of difficulty both with the Holy See and with clerics of other nationalities. At his death, which occurred in 1211, the see remained vacant for 4 years as a result of intrigues and rivalries among the clergy. The Pope was forced to depose the two candidates and appointed the Tuscan Gervaso (November 1215), who lived until 1220. During the 40 years that the Latin Empire still lasted, 4 other prelates succeeded one another. In 1232, there was a vacancy of 2 years. The last residential patriarch was the Venetian Pantaleone Giustiniani (1251-61), who at the time of the recapture of the city by Michael Palaiologos managed to take refuge in Italy, where he died in 1286.

Between 1210 and 1212 the Latin patriarchate counted 22 archbishoprics, of which 2 were in Asia Minor, 7 in Thrace, 2 in Thessaly, 3 in Macedonia, 1 in Epirus, 2 in Greece, 2 in the Peloponnese, 3 in the islands.

The patriarchate did not disappear after 1261, but its titular no longer resided at C. He continued to exercise a true jurisdiction over the whole territory of the patriarchate, to which Pope Boniface VIII added, in 1302, the archbishopric of Candia. On 8 February 1314, Pope Clement V added to it the bishopric of Negroponte, which became, from that date onward, the usual residence of the patriarch. Toward the end of the 15th century, the title of patriarch of C. was reserved to a cardinal.

Being unable to reside at C., the patriarch exercised his jurisdiction through a vicar, who, until 1661, was a simple priest, most often a religious. From 1661 to 1772, this patriarchal vicar was replaced by a patriarchal suffragan bishop. In 1772, the Holy See suppressed the office of patriarchal suffragan and replaced it with that of patriarchal apostolic vicar, which still exists today. But the patriarchal epithet concerns only the city of C.; for the other territories of his competence the titular is simply an apostolic vicar. A decree of 3 March 1868 annexed to this office the apostolic delegation for the Catholics of the Eastern rites residing in the territory of the vicariate, so that, today, the apostolic vicar of C. is at the same time titular archbishop, who enjoys ordinary jurisdiction, after the decree of Benedict XIV of 15 April 1752, patriarchal apostolic vicar for the city of C. itself; simple apostolic vicar for the rest of his territory; apostolic delegate for the Catholics of the Eastern rites of his district.

The limits of the Constantinopolitan vicariate and of the apostolic delegation dependent on it have varied greatly since 1772, in the wake of the political upheavals that occurred in the Balkans. At present the vicariate exercises its jurisdiction only over European Turkey and Asiatic Turkey, with the exception of the archbishopric of Smyrna. In Asiatic Turkey, the Catholic population, like that of other Christians, is reduced almost to nothing, the Turks having expelled the Christians from the country. A Latin parish has been established at Ankara, the new capital.

A few Catholics still remain at Brussa, at Zongul-Dagh. The bulk of the faithful is concentrated in C. itself, where about 20,000 Catholics were counted, distributed among 14 parishes, before the war of 1917-18. Today, this population must have diminished by two thirds, in the wake of the xenophobic measures of the Turkish government. Turkish Thrace too has lost its faithful. Most of the works, so numerous and varied, created and directed by the members of 34 religious Orders and Congregations of both sexes, are likewise disappearing. The laicism of the Turks has swept away almost everything, and what remains leads a laborious and precarious existence, so that the Catholic population of the vicariate must not greatly exceed 10,000 faithful.

The apostolic delegation for the Eastern rites, at present attached to the S. Congregation for the Eastern Church, has also lost much of its importance, the Eastern Catholics having suffered an even sharper decline than the Latins. The most important group is that of the united Armenians, numbering about 5000. After the Armenians comes the small Greek Catholic Church of recent foundation, governed since 1911 by a bishop. The faithful must number about 300. Since 1932, there is another bishop with some faithful at Athens. The Catholic Chaldeans are represented by a patriarchal vicar with 850 faithful; the Melkites, numbering 250, likewise by a patriarchal vicar.

On the relations of the ecumenical patriarchate with the Holy See before the separation: B. Leib, Rome, Kiev et Byzance à la fin du XIe siècle. Rapports religieux des Latins et des Gréco-Russes sous le pontificat d'Urbain II (1888-99), Paris 1924; A. Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios, 2 vols., Paderborn 1922-30; F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe siècle, Paris 1926; id., Le second schisme de Photius. Une mystification historique, in Byzantion, 8 (1933), pp. 425-74; V. Grumel, La liquidation de la querelle photienne, in Echos d'Orient, 33 (1934), pp. 257-88.

On the ecumenical patriarchate after 1453 and its present situation: L. Petit, Règlements généraux de l'Eglise orthodoxe en Turquie, in Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 3 (1898), pp. 398-424; 4 (1899), pp. 227-46; E. Rausch, Geschichte der orientalischen Kirchen von 1453-1898, Leipzig 1902; id., Kirche und Kirchen im Lichte griechischer Forschung, ibid. 1903; R. Janin, La destiude du patriarcat œcuménique, in Echos d'Orient, 24 (1923), pp. 202-211. For the contemporary period from the end of the 19th century onward, see the Oriental journals: Orientalia Christiana, Revue de l'Orient chrétien, Bessarion, Echos d'Orient, Roma e l'Oriente, L'Union des Églises, L'Oriente cristiano et l'unité della Chiesa (since 1936); Il Boll. della badia di Grottaferrata (since 1930).

On the Latin patriarchate and the apostolic vicariate: L. de Mas-Lattie, Les patriarches latins de Constantinople, in Revue de l'Orient latin, 3 (1895), pp. 433-56 (list of the Latin patriarchs of C. from 1204 to 1895); G. Hofmann, Il vicariato apostolico di C., 1453-1830. Documenti con introduzione, in Orient. Christ. analecta, 103 (1935), with abundant bibliography.

Martino Jugie

VII. OTHER ECCLESIASTICAL CIRCUMSCRIPTIONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Besides being the seat of the Byzantine patriarchate, C. is the head of the following ecclesiastical circumscriptions:

1) Archbishopric of the Catholic Armenians. An Armenian vicariate was established at C. on 9 July 1830. From 10 July 1867 to 23 June 1928 C. was the seat of the patriarch of Cilicia. There are 7000 faithful, 14 priests, 14 churches, 6 parishes,

2 male religious houses, 5 female, 7 educational institutes, 1 charitable association.

2) Patriarchal vicariate of the Melkites, existing since 1846; 250 faithful, 1 church.

3) Seat of the apostolic exarch of Turkey for the Greek Catholics of the Byzantine rite, since 1911. There are 1 church, 1 parish, 5 priests, 1 school, 1000 faithful.

4) Patriarchal vicariate of the Chaldeans: 850 faithful.

Guzlielmo de Vries

II. COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

I. I COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (II ecumenical, a. 381)

1. Historical notes

M. in 378 Valens, a supporter of Arianism, his successor Theodosius I took up the defense of orthodoxy especially against the Macedonians, deniers of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. To this end he convoked the Eastern bishops in 381 to a synod, which, having begun at C. in the month of May, ended in that of July. The Council, from which the Western bishops and the legates of the Pope were absent, was not truly universal. Only later did it obtain the title of "ecumenical," that is, as regards dogma, the Symbol promulgated by it was accepted by the pontifical legates and by the whole Church in the second session of the Council of Chalcedon (451), while the disciplinary provisions, rejected earlier by Rome, were approved only in the IV Lateran Synod (1215). The presidency of the Council was held by Meletius of Antioch, by St. Gregory Nazianzen and by Nectarius. The number of bishops was barely 150.

2. The Symbol

According to the testimony of the Council of Chalcedon, the Fathers of the Synod of C. promulgated the Symbol or Creed known to all because it is inserted in the Mass both Latin and Eastern, with the exception for the Latin one of the Filioque (v.) added later. The Symbol contains integrally the Nicene one (whence also the exact name of "Nicene-Constantinopolitan") and the "apostolic or Roman" one, plus some clause taken probably from the Symbol of Jerusalem known from the Catecheses of St. Cyril, and a characteristic and new complex of assertions on the Holy Spirit directed at confessing his divinity against the Macedonians. There is then the fact that our Symbol is cited, with some insignificant discrepancy, in the Ancoratus of St. Epiphanius, written in 374. Therefore the most solid theory is that the Symbol was not composed but only made its own by the Council.

Besides the dogmatic content of the Nicene (v. NICEA, COUNCIL of) and apostolic or Roman Symbols, the Creed of C. presents, together with the Jerusalemite one, the novelty of the cuius regni non erit finis, biblical words (Lk. 1, 33) recalled undoubtedly against the recent error of Marcellus of Ancyra and of Photinus. Original then to our Creed are the following clauses attributed to the Holy Spirit: Dominum, et vivificantem qui ex Patre procedit, qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur. These are as many expressions to affirm the divine nature of the Spirit. That Dominum is from biblical usage characteristic for marking him who is not a creature, that is, a servant by essence. Vivificam, that is, he has life in himself not from outside, indeed he is the source of every life for creatures. Qui ex Patre procedit, one insists especially on the origin from the Father because the Macedonians made the Spirit a simple "creature" of the Son. Qui cum Patre et Filio..., seems to recall the recent controversy among the heretics and St. Basil who wrote on this subject his De Spiritu Sancto. If the Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son in adoration and in worship, he is therefore of divine nature.

3) Disciplinary provisions. — Only four are the canons emanated by the Council. The 1st reaffirms the Nicene Symbol and condemns the most recent heresies. The 2nd disowns Maximus of C., purported bishop. The 3rd, summarizing the norms established by cann. 6 and 5 of Nicaea, orders that the bishops of one diocese (the limits of ecclesiastical circumscriptions were identified with the civil ones) not meddle in the affairs of others. The great dioceses were: Egypt, with the metropolis of Alexandria; Orient, metropolis: Antioch; Asia (proconsular), metropolis: Ephesus; Pontus, metropolis: Caesarea of Cappadocia; Thrace, metropolis: Heraclea. But it was can. 4 that cast the seeds of the schism between the East and the West more for the principle invoked than for the relative primacy now claimed for the first time for the recent capital of the Eastern Empire (v. above): "The bishop of C. must have the primacy of honor after that of Rome, because that is the new Rome."

II. II COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (V ecumenical, also called that of the "Three Chapters," a. 553)

1. Historical notes

The policy of Justinian and of Theodora lent valid support to the Monophysites, numerous in the East, who, discontented with the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451), began around 543 a subtle and tenacious campaign against the "Three Chapters," that is: 1) Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 2) the letter of Ibas to the Persian Mari and 3) Theodore of Mopsuestia. Let it be noted that in the Chalcedonian Synod Theodoret and Ibas had been rehabilitated and defended against the accusations of the first Monophysites. To the machinations against the "Three Chapters" there also associated themselves the Origenists, indignant at their condemnation (543). Around 544 Justinian published an edict against the "Three Chapters" to which, in part under the pressure of coercion and threats, the majority of the Eastern bishops adhered, preceded by the Byzantine patriarch Menas. The decree found instead in the West tenacious adversaries, such as the fiery Facundus of Hermiane, author of the Defensio Trium Capitulorum, and Rusticus, nephew of Pope Vigilius (v.). The latter, of an indulgent character, although at first he disapproved of the edict and did not wish to communicate with Menas and the other signatories, later changed his attitude during his stay at C. where he arrived in Jan. 547. Vigilius, by now decided to satisfy the Emperor, held meetings with Eastern and Western bishops to discuss, or rather to favor, the condemnation of the "Three Chapters." The stubborn opposition of the Westerners advised the Pope to suspend the sessions and to ask each one for his own vote in writing. At the conclusion of these first negotiations Vigilius published (11 Apr. 548) an Indicatum that condemned the "Three Chapters" while also safeguarding the authority of the Council of Chalcedon. The decree aroused such a scandal in the West that the Pope decided to suspend its effect and to refer the matter to a forthcoming ecumenical council. Some of the court bishops did not abide by the truce, and Justinian himself published a new edict (551-53) of condemnation of the "Three Chapters," probably the Ὁμολογία soon signed by the patriarch Menas. The Pope reacted by excommunicating Askidas and Menas and taking refuge in the church of St. Peter. The courtiers tried to win by violence and by intrigues. Negotiations were opened with Eutychius, from 552 the successor of Menas, and Vigilius insisted on the celebration of a council possibly in Italy or in Sicily. But Justinian ended up then convoking it by his own authority at C. with the aim of having his recent condemnation of the "Three Chapters" approved. Vigilius did not consent to such a usurpation.

Consequently, in the clearest illegitimacy the Synod opened its sessions on 5 May 553 under the presidency of the Byzantine patriarch Eutychius and with the assistance in the first assembly of 164 metropolitans and bishops, among whom were also 14 Africans. The meetings were held in the sacristy of the Byzantine patriarchal church. The Synod had eight sessions, which ended on 2 June. In them the "Three Chapters" were discussed at length, by now prejudiced by Justinian. For his part, Vigilius published on 14 May his Constitutum (called by many the first), in which, after examining 60 propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia, he condemned them as heretical without, however, wishing to condemn his memory. He likewise refused to condemn Ibas and Theodoret, declared orthodox by the Council of Chalcedon. The Pope ended by excommunicating those who would condemn the "Three Chapters." Justinian and his conciliar members refused to receive the Constitutum; indeed they immediately began an action that ended by erasing Pope Vigilius from the diptychs without, however, breaking with the Roman See. The Council decided, in 14 anathematisms, the condemnation of all the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, of the impious doctrines of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against the Council of Ephesus and against the anathematisms of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and of the letter of Ibas to Mari. It was not difficult for Justinian to obtain the consent of the Eastern bishops. The Western ones, then, who for the most part rose up against the condemnation, had to suffer harassment and reprisals from the Emperor. Contrary to the opinion generally held until now, it seems that both the letter of Vigilius to the patriarch Eutychius and the so-called second Constitutum, which approves the condemnation of the "Three Chapters," are not authentic (cf. P. Silva Tarouca, Fontes Historiae Ecclesiasticae Medii Aevi, Rome 1930, p. 32); which is equivalent to saying that the principal sources are lacking for asserting that Vigilius gave his adherence to the decree of the Council. It was rather his successor Pelagius II, previously a defender of the "Three Chapters" (cf. R. Devreese, Pelagii diaconi Eccl. Rom. in defensione Trium Capitulorum [Studi e Testi, 57], Rome 1932), who was the first to give his approval to the triple condemnation (Mansi, IX, 712 ff.).

2. The dogmatic question

It is immediately noted that the Council's condemnation bears upon the writings and their doctrine in sensu auctoris, that is, in the obvious sense of the text and context, whereas the rehabilitation of Theodoret and Ibas declared at the Council of Chalcedon referred to the personae, who had previously condemned Nestorianism. It is understandable that under these conditions the contrast between the two Councils is not inevitable, although it must be admitted that the condemnation of the "Three Chapters" was fundamentally a move by Justinian intended to please the Byzantine Monophysites. Moreover, the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (v.) are full of those same Christological errors later professed by his disciple Nestorius. It is also true that certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus, as well as the letter of Ibas of Edessa to Mari, contain expressions that smack somewhat of Nestorian terminology and offend the memory of the Council of Ephesus and of St. Cyril of Alexandria. The dogmatic definition of this Council, without formally opposing the Council of Chalcedon, stands rather in the line of that of Ephesus: especially the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia inflicts a grave blow on the Nestorians, who read and studied him as their master.

III. THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (Sixth Ecumenical, 7 Nov. 680–16 Sept. 681)

It marks the end of the protracted dispute over Monoenergism and Monothelitism (v.), in which Pope Honorius I (v.) had intervened with little prudence. On the eve of the Council, St. Sophronius and St. Maximus the Confessor fought in favor of orthodoxy. Against the Typos, published by the emperor Constans II (648) to silence the controversy, Pope Martin I responded by celebrating the Lateran Synod (649), which proclaimed against Monothelitism Dyothelitism, that is, the two wills, divine and human, in Christ. Martin I was then exiled to the Chersonese, where he died a martyr (655).

Faced with the firmness of the successive popes, the Byzantine court had to yield. Constantine IV Pogonatus and the patriarch Theodore (677–79) opened negotiations first with Pope Donus and then with St. Agatho. The latter accepted the proposal to celebrate at C. an assembly with representatives of the West and of the Byzantine and Antiochene patriarchates. Previously a Synod had been held at Rome (680) which condemned Monothelitism.

The Synod convoked by the Emperor turned out, beyond expectations, truly ecumenical, since the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem also had their own representatives there. Although the honorary presidency was granted to the Emperor, the ecclesiastical presidency was retained by the Pope's legates. All 18 sessions of the Synod were devoted to the question of Monothelitism. When the patriarchs George of Constantinople and Macarius of Antioch were questioned on their doctrines in favor of a single will in Christ, they replied by referring to the doctrine of the 5 preceding councils. Thereupon their acts and the letter of Agatho were read out. Then, by both the Monothelites and the orthodox, patristic "florilegia" were read.

The result was that the Byzantine patriarch declared that he accepted the two wills, while Macarius of Antioch persisted in his Monothelitism; consequently Macarius was deposed and other anathemas were hurled against the principal authors of heresies, not excluding Pope Honorius. After treating of the authenticity of the acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the bishops promulgated and subscribed a dogmatic "definition."

This adopts the condemnation pronounced by Pope St. Agatho against those who admit in Christ "one will (ἐν θέλημα), and one operation (μίαν ἐνέργειαν)." It then confesses with the Council of Chalcedon that Christ, perfect in divinity, is perfect likewise in humanity, truly God and truly man, composed of a rational soul and a body, and adds the following definition:

"We piously proclaim, according to the doctrine of the Holy Fathers, two natural volitions or wills (δύο φυσικώς θελήσεις ἦτα θελήματα) in Him, and two natural operations (ἐνέργειας) without division, without conversion, without separation, without confusion, and two natural wills not in conflict, be it well noted, as the impious heretics have said, but His human will docile and not resisting nor recalcitrant, but rather subject to His divine and omnipotent will. Double also is the operation, although it too is neither divided, nor separated, nor confused: namely the divine operation and the human operation, since, as Pope St. Leo says in the Tomus to Flavian, each form (that is, nature) does what is proper to it in communion with the other." In other words: once the dogma is admitted that in Christ there is, besides the divine nature, also the human nature in its integrity, it follows that this is endowed with a human will, besides the divine one. This physical duality does not, however, entail disagreement between the two wills, since the human one always and perfectly adheres to the divine one.

Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina

IV. FOURTH COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (Eighth Ecumenical, 5 Oct. 869 – 28 Feb. 870)

1. Historical notes. The historical occasion of the Eighth Ecumenical Council was this: the new Byzantine emperor Basil the Macedonian (23 Sept. 867 – 29 Aug. 886) recalled the patriarch St. Ignatius immediately after his accession to the throne and deposed the illegitimate patriarch Photius. Both then sent letters to Pope Nicholas I to inform him of the new religious situation of Byzantium and to ask him for pontifical legates for a new council to be held at C. Since Pope Nicholas I had already died (13 Nov. 867) by the time the Greek embassy arrived in Rome, his successor Adrian II had to deal with this most important matter. In fact, remaining firm in the line of conduct of his predecessor regarding the Byzantine dispute, he held a Synod in Rome (June 869) in which he condemned the cabal of Photius (867) and laid the juridical foundation of the new ecumenical council at C., which was to be presided over by his legates, the bishops Donatus of Ostia and Stephen of Nepi, and the deacon Marinus.

The Council was opened in the church of St. Sophia on 5 Oct. 869 and, after 8 further sessions, closed on 28 Feb. 870. The participation of the synod members was certainly not large, since present at the I session, besides the pontifical legates, were only 12 bishops, at the VI 37 bishops and at the X about a hundred. But the subjects treated were of very great importance and the synodal decrees obtained pontifical confirmation. Already the I session promulgated the formula of the so-called Roman union, which contained an explicit profession of the Roman jurisdictional primacy and the condemnation of iconoclasm and of the errors of Photius. It was to be accepted by all the synod members and was set as the condition of their reconciliation for those bishops and clerics who, although not ordained by Photius, had nevertheless had communion with him. Under this condition there were reconciled in the II session 10 bishops, 11 priests, 9 deacons, 6 subdeacons. However, some bishops cited to the Council remained obstinate, among them Theophilus, Zacharias and Gregory Asbestas, who had ordained Photius in Dec. 858, although he had been suspended by St. Ignatius and by the Pope. In the VI session, on 25 Oct. 869, there took place a famous historical-canonical discussion between the Photian metropolitan of Chalcedon, Zacharias, and the Ignatian metropolitan of Smyrna, Metrophanes. Photius himself was present at the V session on 20 Oct. 869 and at the VII on 29 Oct.; but he refused to submit, indeed he refused to give answers to the Roman legates and dared to say publicly that rather the Roman legates ought to do penance. This obstinate conduct of Photius and his followers was the cause that already on 29 Oct. synodal anathemas were pronounced against Photius; but only in the last session were decrees against Photianism issued.

Before this conclusion of the Council, certain cases connected with the history of the Photian dispute had been discussed. Thus in the VIII session the question of the so-called writings of obedience that Photius had had given to himself had been treated, and that of the falsification of the subscriptions of the legates of the other Eastern patriarchs in the cabal of 867; in the X session the question of those who had borne witness against Ignatius in the Synod of 861. Since several of the accused persons were ready to submit to the penances decreed by the Council, reconciliation was granted to them in the IX session; the same lot fell to others who had made themselves guilty of the false doctrine of iconoclasm or who had shown an irreverent conduct toward ecclesiastical ceremonies.

The most solemn and most important session of the VIII Council was the last, of 28 Feb. Besides the pontifical legates and the synodal bishops, there were present at this session the emperor Basil and his son Constantine, about ten legates of the king of Bulgaria and three legates of the Western emperor Louis II, among whom was Anastasius the Librarian, author of a Latin version of the conciliar acts.

2. The decisions of the Council. The Council promulgated in its last sitting a profession of faith, renewing the decisions of the previous seven ecumenical councils and adding a declaration in which it defined itself as the VIII ecumenical, and, recalling the decrees of Nicholas I and Adrian II, renewed the condemnation of Photius and his associates. Moreover it published two synodal letters, one of which was directed to all the faithful and the other to the Pope. Finally it promulgated 27 canons preserved in the Latin version, while the Greek extract contains only 14.

The canons inculcate general principles of Catholic doctrine, namely of tradition (can. 1), of the papal primacy (cann. 2, 21), of the veneration of the sacred images (can. 11). Several canons concern the liberty of the Church (cann. 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22), others the rights of the lower and higher clergy (cann. 10, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 26). Against Photius and his allies are directed cann. 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 25. In can. 7 the anathematized are forbidden to make sacred images and to teach.

The conference held after the closing of the Council, in which there participated only the Emperor, Ignatius, the representatives of the other patriarchal sees, the envoys of the Bulgarians, and the papal legates, is not part of the VIII Council; indeed the Roman legates protested that they had not received powers to treat that agenda, namely to whom the jurisdiction of Bulgaria belonged, limiting themselves to defending the Roman thesis against the Eastern thesis which wanted Bulgaria (v.) dependent on the Byzantine patriarchate. Today it has become clearer that the proposition of the Roman legates was just if under the term Bulgaria was understood only the capital city of the Bulgarian kingdom of that time, that is Ochrid, included within the limits of the ancient Epirus nova belonging to the eastern Illyricum and therefore subject to the apostolic vicariate of Thessalonica, while the eastern regions of Bulgaria between Sardica (Sofia) and the Black Sea belonged to the Byzantine patriarchate. Unfortunately no agreement was reached then.

3. The ecumenicity. The VIII Council (869-70) was ecumenical. This thesis is proved by the explicit affirmation of its synodal decree, by the subscriptions of the synod members, explicit also on this point, by the pontifical approval of Adrian II and of John VIII, by the proem of the Latin version of Anastasius the Librarian, by the testimonies of contemporary Greek authors (Metrophanes, Stylianus, Nicetas David), by the formula of the oath of the newly elected popes, by the Western canonical collections, at least from the second half of the 11th century, and finally by the testimonies of the Councils of Trent and of the Vatican. The Council of Florence cannot be invoked for the contrary thesis, since the concessions made by Card. Giuliano Cesarini in the session of 20 Oct. 1438 not to wish to support the arguments of the Latins with the decisions of the VIII Council were only a polemical expedient to persuade the Greeks with sources already accepted by them (Holy Scripture, the Holy Fathers, the first seven ecumenical councils), and not a decision decreed by the Council itself. The silence of the medieval Greeks on the VIII ecumenical Council was caused by the Synod of C. (879-80) favorable to Photius, and it also influenced Latin authors until the first half of the 11th century. On this point Photius obtained some success, but for the reasons adduced above there can no longer be any doubt about the ecumenicity of the VIII Council.

The Latin version of the Greek acts, today lost, made by Anastasius the Librarian, is edited in Mansi, XVI, 16-96; the abbreviated Greek text (epitome) ibid., XVI, 308-409.

On the conference distinct from the VIII Council, cf. Lib. Pont., pp. 182-85.

Giorgio Hofmann

III. HAGIOGRAPHY OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

Tertullian speaks of martyrs of C. in the time of Caecilius Capella, but does not provide any name (Ad Scapulam, 3: PL 1, 702). St. Gregory of Nazianzus too, in his discourse to the people against the Arians, just when, in 380, Theodosius had restored their churches to the Catholics, attributes the victory to the martyrs, without however making their names known.

The known martyrs of C. are few and are known through the Hieronymian Martyrology and the synaxaria (cf. H. Delehaye, Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, in Propylaeum ad Acta SS. Novembris, Brussels 1902).

The best known are the martyrs Mocius and Acacius. Mocius is said to have been a priest of Amphipolis, martyred at C. The basilica in his honor is attributed to Constantine; it is mentioned at the time of the Council of Ephesus and was rebuilt more grandly by Justinian.

Acacius, according to the legend, is said to have been a centurion in the cohort of the Martesi and to have suffered martyrdom at C. The church that enclosed his tomb was also attributed to Constantine; Socrates wrote that the Emperor's body was carried by Macedonius into the church of the martyr Acacius (Hist. eccl., II, 38); it was situated near the σταύριον, that is, near the place where the relics of St. Stephen were landed at C., at the Zeugma (BHG, II, 1649). This locality, outside the circuit of ancient Byzantium, was located above the Golden Horn (J. Pargoire, Constantinople; la porte Basilike, in Echos d'Orient, 10 [1907], p. 30). Socrates also mentions a second sanctuary dedicated to St. Acacius, inside Constantinople, where near the grand building of Καρύα the walnut tree was shown on which the martyr was said to have been hanged. There was a sanctuary there, enlarged by Narses (S. Salaville, Les églises de St-Acace à Constantinople, in Echos d'Orient, 13 [1910], p. 103). More difficult is the identification of a church of St. Acacius often mentioned in Byzantine documents as situated in the ἐπτασμάλῳ.

Other known martyrs are Hesychius, mentioned on 18 and 19 May in the liturgical texts; finally Maximus, indicated as a presbyter on 8 May and with only his name on the 10th of the same month; Delehaye supposes that Maximus is none other than Mocius (Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 234). On 7 June there is the mention: in Byzantio Pouli; he together with his household, Martirius and Marcian, were popularly called the holy Notaries. The bishop Paul died in exile and his body was brought back to C. by Theodosius and deposited in the ancient church of the Macedonians. St. John Chrysostom began a chapel over the tomb of Sts. Martirius and Marcian, completed by Sisinnius (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., IV, 3). Constantine had limited himself to placing cenotaphs in the church of the Apostles (Eusebius, in Vita Constantini, IV, 60). But very soon the translations of martyrs begin, to enrich the city. They take place with most solemn pomp, with the participation of the imperial court, the clergy and the people.

Etheria writes that she saw at C. martyria quae ibi plurima sunt (Itinera Hierosolymitana: CSEL, 39, p. 76).

In 356 the relics of St. Timothy were translated there; the following year Constantius solemnly transported to C. the relics of the apostle St. Andrew and of the evangelist St. Luke (A. Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostolkirche, II, Leipzig 1908, p. 112). St. John Chrysostom narrates the arrival from Pontus of the relics of the martyr Phocas (PG 50, 799). Under Theodosius (379-95) the body of the bishop and confessor St. Paul returned to C. (BHG, II, 1472); then came into the church of St. Euphemia the relics of the martyrs Terentius and Africanus (Theodori lectoris, II, 762: PG 86, 213). Theodosius himself in 391 deposits the head of St. John the Baptist in the church of the Hebdomon which he had built (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., VII, 21). St. Jerome narrates the solemn translation of the relics of the prophet Samuel in the time of Arcadius; Sozomen (Hist. eccl., IX, 21) was present at the arrival of the relics of the forty martyrs of Sebaste in the time of the bishop Proclus (434-37).

Sts. Cosmas and Damian had a first church dedicated to them in the middle of the 5th century (Th. Preger, Scriptores originum Constantinopolitorum, Leipzig 1908, p. 261).

In the time of the emperor Leo I the relics of the three youths Ananias, Azarias and Misael arrive from Babylon (H. Delehaye, Les saints stylites, Brussels 1923, p. 87). To the same time belongs St. Mamas, monk and martyr of Caesarea in Cappadocia (J. Pargone, Les saints Mamas de Constantinople, in Bulletin de l'Institut archeol. russe de C., 9 [1904], pp. 261-316).

A series of saints not native to Byzantium are venerated at C., such as St. Agathonicus, St. Diomedes, St. Aemilianus, St. Euphemia, St. Philemon, St. George, St. John the Baptist, St. Procopius, St. Thecla; and the buildings of worship in their honor are erected very soon and multiply. To the empress Helena are attributed the churches of Sts. Carpus and Papylus and of St. Romanus. Eudocia began the church of St. Polyeuctus, completed by Juliana, daughter of Valentinian

(364-74). Between 395-415 the churches of St. Eleutherius and St. Andrew are erected; in 397 the consul Caesarius has a church built to St. Thyrsus, in 400 the consul Aurelian one in honor of St. Stephen. Between the years 434-47 Proclus has the church built in the Zeugma in honor of Sts. Cosmas and Damian; to Pulcheria are due the churches of St. Mary of the Blachernae, of St. Stephen in the palace and of St. Lawrence; to Sporacius, consul in 452, St. John the Baptist, to Studius, consul in 454, St. John the Baptist; one of the most important of C. was the monastery annexed to it (H. Delehaye, Studion-Studios, in Analecta Bollandiana, 52 [1934], pp. 64-65); to Anthemius in 467 St. Thomas. The priest St. Marcian lavished his patrimony to build the churches of St. Anastasia, of St. Irene, of St. Stratonicus, of St. Theodore and of St. Zoe.

Under the patriarch Gennadius, St. Cyriacus is built. To Leo I (457-74) are due St. Theodosius, St. John and St. Mamas. To Anastasius (491-518) the church of St. Artemius, another of St. Thomas, of St. Anastasia, of St. Philip and of St. Plato.

Justinian founds new sacred buildings and embellishes the old ones. From Procopius (De aedificiis, I, 3-9) the following list is derived: St. Acacius, St. Agathonicus, Sts. Apostles, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Irene, Sts. Menna and Mennaeus, St. Mocius, St. Pantaleemon, Sts. Peter and Paul (whose feast, since the time of the emperor Anastasius, had been made more solemn at C., on the proposal of the Roman senator

Festus); then Sts. Priscus and Nicholas, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, St. Thecla, St. Theodora, St. Theodore, St. Theodatus, St. Thyrsus, St. Tryphon, St. Zoe.

Shortly afterwards another church to St. Mamas; and before the end of the century there are still the churches of St. Aquilina, St. Conon, St. Domitius, St. Hermione, St. Luke, St. Paul the confessor, Sts. Probus and Tarachus, St. Quiricus, St. Zenobius.

Of the martyrs Carpus, bishop of Gurdos in Lydia, and Papylus, deacon, there is known, besides the Greek text of their passio, a Latin recension (v. P. Franchi de Cavalieri, Note agiografiche, VI [Studi e Testi, 33], Rome 1920, pp. 3-40). A. M. Schneider has identified at C. their martyrium, consisting of a round domed construction with a bema or raised choir (Das Martyrium der heiligen Karpos und Papylos zu Konstantinopel, in Jahrbuch des deutschen Archäol. Instituts, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 49 [1934], pp. 416-18). The church of St. Mary the deaconess was erected in 598 under the emperor Maurice, by the patriarch Cyriacus.

Some martyrs are honored with several churches. Devotion to the Precursor, for example, had such development at C. as to have between the city and the suburb as many as 16 churches, 10 monasteries and 8 chapels dedicated to him between the 4th and 9th centuries (R. Janin, Les églises byzantines du Précurseur à Constantinople, in Echos d'Orient, 37 [1938], pp. 312-51). Sts. Cosmas and Damian had four.

St. Michael had in C. as many as 19 churches (R. Janin, Les sanctuaires byzantins de St-Michel, in Echos d'Orient, 37 [1934], pp. 28-52). Among the military saints, 11 churches were dedicated to St. George and 9 to St. Demetrius (id., Les églises byzantines des saints militaires [Constantinople et banlieue], ibid., 37 [1934], pp. 163-80, 331-42).

Emperors and dignitaries continued to enrich the city with relics, seeking them especially in the provinces of the empire; thus did Heraclius, Leo the Wise, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, John Tzimiskes (J. Ebersolt, Sanctuaires de Byzance, Paris 1921; id., Orient et Occident. Recherches sur les influences byzantines et orientales en France avant les Croisades, ibid. 1928). C. appears to visitors as the Eastern city richest in relics.

Thus indeed it is described around 1090 by the monk Joseph of Canterbury, on his return from Jerusalem (Ch. H. Haskins, A Cantorbery Monk at Constantinople, ca. 1090, in English Historical Review, 25 [1910], pp. 293-95).

Slightly later are the travel note of a pilgrim, also probably English, around the year 1150, and a Catalogus reliquiarum of C. drawn up by N. Thingeyreuse, an Irish monk, around 1157.

Quite remarkable, moreover, is the account of Antony Dobrynya Yadreikovich, metropolitan of Novgorod, who describes the churches and relics of C. around 1200 (Antonio di Novgorod, Le livre du pèlerin, in Itinéraires russes, French trans. by B. de Khitrovo, Geneva 1889, pp. 88-111; A. Palmieri, Antoine Dobrynia Iadreikovich, in DHG, III, coll. 768-69). In cod. Ottoboniano Vaticano latino 169, S. G. Mercati has discovered a list of Constantinopolitan sanctuaries and relics described cum magna festinatione before 1185 by a religious and an ecclesiastic from the circle of Giraldus Cambrensis and Ralph of Diceto. The author declares that he cannot list or know all the churches of C., and yet he still lists many of them, namely, St. Mary Dei genetrix, St. Michael, St. Sophia, St. Irene, the monasteries of the Madonna Hodegetria (C. Henze, Mater de perpetuo succursu, Bonn 1926) and of St. Lazarus (erected by Leo the Wise), the church of Sts. Cyrus and John, the monastery of St. George in Manganis, near the most famous of the 11 churches of the military martyr, then the great church of St. Menas (H. Delehaye, L'invention des reliques de s. Menas à C., in Anal. Bollandiana, 29 [1910], pp. 117-50); that of St. Christina, then the group of the Sanctuary of the Madonna Chalcopatria (D. Lathoud, Le sanctuaire de la Vierge aux Chalcopatria, in Echos d'Orient, 23 [1924], pp. 46-61).

In the sanctuary there were three other churches, one of the Redeemer, the second of the Madonna, and the third of St. James with the crypt where the apostle "frater Domini" rested. Then the oratory of Constantine at the forum, near the porphyry column; then the churches of St. Photina the Samaritan, and of St. Euphemia at the hippodrome (R. Janin, Les églises de Ste-Euphémie à C., in Echos d'Orient, 37 [1934], pp. 270-275). Not far off a church of St. John the Baptist; near the palace the monastery of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus annexed to the Justinianic basilica in their honor; on the same street the church of St. Thecla and then that of the forty Martyrs of Sebaste, and the other of St. Theodore; in the forum the church of Sts. Julian, Basilissa and Companions (H. Delehaye, Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, Brussels 1902, p. 327); near the forum the monastery of the martyrs Probus, Tarachus, and Andronicus; and beside it that of Sts. Cosmas and Damian; then two churches dedicated to St. Stephen, the Basilica of the Holy Apostles and the annexed church of All Saints, with the nearby other one of St. Anastasia with a women's monastery; then another monastery called of Narses and a third called of St. Lucillian; in the same area another church of St. John the Baptist. Then in the locality "Chelona" two churches dedicated to the martyr Procopius; in the area of the Zeugma the same codex points out the churches of St. Stephen, of St. Antony martyr and of St. Blaise; on the Blachernae street the church of St. Elias the prophet (S. G. Mercati, Santuari e reliquie costantinopolitane secondo il codice Ottoboniano latino 169 primo della conquista latina (1204), in Atti della Pont. accad. rom. di archeol., 3rd series, Rendiconti, 13 [1936], pp. 133-56).

For the medieval churches of C.: Budrun Gámi' (formerly Myreleion); Qalender Gámi' (today Fenari 'Isá); Kiliseh Gámi' (formerly St. Theodore); Eski 'Imáret (formerly Christos Pantepoptes) v. J. Kollwitz, Zur frühmittelalterlichen Baukunst Konstantinopels, in Römische Quartalschrift, 42 [1934], pp. 232-50.

With the conquest of C. by the Crusaders (1204) and following the agreement between the Franks and the Venetians, the churches of C. were for the most part stripped of the copious relics accumulated over the centuries.

The Crusaders indeed carried off from C. a quantity of relics both relating to the infancy and the passion of the Lord, and to the Madonna and bodies of Saints, such as, for example, those of St. Agatha, of St. Anastasius the Persian, of St. Barnabas, of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, of the martyr Helena, of St. Eutychius, of St. John the Almsgiver, of St. John Chrysostom, of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, of St. Lucia, of St. Macarius, of St. Nicetas martyr and of St. Nicetas the Goth, of St. Paul the hermit and of St. Paul bishop of C., of St. Theodore and of St. Vitus. As well as the heads of St. Blaise, of St. Clement, of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, of St. George, of St. Pancras, of St. Simeon, of St. Victor (P. Riant, Les dépouilles religieuses enlevées à Constantinople au XIIIe siècle par les Latins, Paris 1875; id., Exuviae Constantinopolitanae, 2 vols., Geneva 1877-78). Not everything, however, was seized, because the Greeks managed to hide not a few relics: indeed around 1350 Stephen of Novgorod and later an inventory of St. Sophia from 1396 still list many relics of the churches of C.

Eusebius (Vita Constantini, III, 49) reports that Constantine had statues of the Good Shepherd placed on the fountains of his city (for specifically Byzantine sculptures in the Museum of C. cf. G. Mendel, in Musées impériaux ottomans. Catalogue des sculptures grecques, romaines et byzantines, II, Constantinople 1914, p. 416, n. 649, p. 418, n. 650, p. 488, n. 689, pp. 453-73, nn. 668-73; III, ibid. 1919, pp. 525-26, n. 1317, pp. 535-37, n. 1328). Especially noteworthy are the four octagonal medallions with the busts of the Evangelists dated between the 4th and 5th century, which very probably decorated a sacred building (G. Mendel, op. cit., pp. 441-47, nn. 661-64; H. Peirce and R. Tyler, Art Byzantin, I, Paris 1932, p. 65, fig. 87).

If it is not known what the decoration of the ancient sacred buildings of C. was, the episode of the court official Olympiodorus is very instructive. After having a church erected, he turned to his friend Nilus, former praetorian prefect, who had become a monk on Mount Sinai, submitting to him a decoration project, in which were indicated some images of saints near the altar, and in the nave scenes of hunting and fishing. Nilus replies to his friend that in the apse he must place the cross and in the nave the history of the Old and New Testament (PG 79, 577).

Enrico Josi

IV. MONACHISM

AND PRINCIPAL CIVIL AND CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

1. Monasticism in C

Monks always constituted a notable and influential part of the population of C. They followed the rule of St. Basil, which was and still is the fundamental norm of monasticism in the East. At the time of their greatest development there were in the city 175 monasteries, enclosed by thick walls, provided with everything necessary for the community's consumption and with everything destined for public charity. For the monks were the administrators of the city's charity; they directed the hospitals (xenodochia), managed the hospices for the old (gerocomeia) and for children (brephotropheia), and presided over the places where food was distributed free of charge to the poor (v. also DIACONIA).

Within the enclosure of the monastery, under the authority of the hegumen (abbot), the monks carried out various duties. Alongside those assigned to the various manual works stood those who kept alive the lamp of Byzantine culture. From the monasteries, in fact, came the masters of that "Academy of twelve religious" which was, alongside the university, the highest cultural institution of C.; monks or disciples of monks are the greatest luminaries of the Byzantine Church: Romanus the Melodist, John Damascene, Theodore Studite; the chroniclers, who have preserved for us so many masterpieces of antiquity.

The perfect model of a Byzantine monastery was that of Studius, about which the most extensive information is available. Built by the consul Studius in 463, it extended widely, as far as the shores of the Propontis. The church of St. John the Baptist survives from it, now become the mosque of Mir Akhōr. It had been reduced to a desert when the abbot Theodore (v.) gathered there over a thousand monks scattered by the iconoclast persecution, basing his direction on the judicious distribution of offices, from cook to abbot, whose holders depended directly on him and had to render him an account of their administration. A great merit of Byzantine monasticism was, besides the aforementioned works of charity, that of having known how to resist, better than the episcopate did, the overbearing power of the State, upholding the thesis of the division of the two powers, a problem that in the East presents itself in the reverse of the West because in C. it is the empire that created the patriarchate while in the West it is the papacy that created the empire. The culminating moment of this contrast occurred at the time of the iconoclast struggle (v.).

2. Civil monuments

From the Byzantine era there remain the ruins of the imperial Palace with its dependencies protected by a wall that runs along the shore of the sea, where the emperors once lived, whom the sultans at first succeeded (old seraglio); now divided into two main sections, the Treasury and the Museum of Antiquities; the Hippodrome, from which Justinian watched the great rebellion known under the name of Nika; along the spina that divides it are still visible the obelisk of Theodosius the Great, the pyramid of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the serpent column once the gift of the Plataeans to the oracle of Delphic Apollo; and then, the surviving columns of Marcian, Theodosius II and Arcadius, the burnt column that once supported the statue of Constantine. Besides these monu-

profane monuments, mention should be made of the churches, now reduced to mosques, of St. Sophia, St. Irene, of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus (v. below), of the Pantocrator, of St. John the Baptist; and of the mosques erected by the Turks, of Ahmed, Bajezid, sultana Vālideh; and of the tombs of Mohammed II, the conqueror of C., and of Suleiman the Great. A separate quarter, called Fanar, groups around the Orthodox patriarch of C. the surviving Greek element of the city.

Nicola Turchi

3. Christian monuments

In 325 Constantine dedicated a temple in the Νέα Ρώμη, his new seat in the East, to « Divine Wisdom », Ἁγία Σοφία; indeed, the new construction of Constantine would have leaned against one of the ancient Christian buildings of Byzantium, and he also enlarged and decorated the old one, dedicating it to « Peace ». St. Irene and St. Sophia thus had their atrium in common, were officiated by the same clergy, and formed what was commonly called the « Great Church ». A third temple, also of notable dimensions, was erected at almost the same time, dedicated to the Sts. Apostles; destroyed in the 11th century, no traces of it remain, however, and its location too is uncertain.

According to the concordant testimony of ancient writers, it had such a close architectural affinity with St. John the Evangelist of Ephesus, erected by Justinian himself, that the latter can be considered a replica of it. The church under Justin II was decorated with mosaics, of which the description and the name of the author, the painter Eulalius, have been handed down to us by Nicholas Mesorites (text, translation and commentary in A. Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, zwei Basiliken Konstantins, II, Leipzig 1908). The church is distinctly depicted in the Menologium Basilii, on the folios corresponding to the days Jan. 22 and 27, Oct. 18 (ibid., pl. 3; see also Constantinus Rhodius, La chiesa dei SS. Apostoli. Ἔσφρασις τοῦ ναοῦ τῶν Ἁγίων Ἀποστόλων, Paris 1896). It was cruciform, with a large central dome and other smaller ones over the arms of the cross, divided by columns into three naves. Likewise very little remains of the churches built by Constantine's successors, Theodosius I and Theodosius II, by the empress Pulcheria, by Marcian and by Leo I: of the latter's, although now in a state of abandonment, St. John of Studius has survived, with the classic Romano-Hellenistic basilical plan. Erected in 463, it was preceded by an atrium, whose eastern side, the only surviving part, formed the front of the narthex, opening onto the courtyard with two side doors corresponding to the minor naves of the church, and, in the center, with a small portico of four large columns in Proconnesian marble, surmounted by an architrave finely and deeply carved, with its ends resting on the piers. Two more side doors and three central ones allowed passage from the narthex into the respective naves of the temple. These were separated by two rows of columns of verde antico per side, connected by marble lintels on which rested the beams of the galleries, corresponding to corbels set into the side walls. The capitals are of the « Theodosian » type; a composite one was also found, with the front part of eagles flying at the four corners. The floor was in opus sectile, with figures of animals and mythological scenes (cf. Gerlach, Tagebuch des Gesandtschaft an die Ottomatische Pforte durch David Ungnad, 1573-78, s. 1., p. 217). From the discovery of many mosaic tesserae, on the occasion of the excavations conducted by the Russian Archaeological Institute in 1913, it can be deduced that in this church too the walls were adorned with mosaics. On the south side of the church is a cistern, surviving from the destroyed annexed monastery, whose vault is supported by 23 columns with fine Corinthian capitals. All the other buildings, although some were restored even in later times, have yielded to time and to the rapacity of men, who have used their decorative and building materials elsewhere, or have been transformed into mosques, often with alterations so great as to render them unrecognizable.

Few, therefore, are the monuments of this period that have come down to us; besides the already mentioned St. John of Studius, one may count St. Sophia and St. Irene, and, in this case too, not without more or less profound reworkings due to Justinian's successors. Almost intact, on the other hand, is the church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, also Justinianic.

The most important and the most famous of all these buildings is that of St. Sophia.

Of the ancient sanctuary erected by Constantine, even the memory had by now been lost. Already in 404, under Arcadius, it had been destroyed, together with the Curia, by a fire that broke out following a revolt caused by the exile of St. John Chrysostom. Theodosius II rebuilt it in 415, but on Jan. 13 of 532, the fifth year of Justinian's reign, because of the tragic revolt known as that of the Victoriati (Nika), caused by a more violent explosion of the usual circus rivalries, it again caught fire, along with part of the imperial palace and some quarters of the city.

Submerged by the greater basilica that succeeded it, only a few elements of its facade have been found, in the excavations conducted by the German Archaeological Institute of C. (A. M. Schneider, Die vorjustinianische Sophienkirche, in Byz. Zeitsch., 36 [1936], pp. 75-85). The outer wall of the church was 7.50 m from that of the present exonarthex and 2.50 m below the level of the Justinianic era. The building was preceded by a portico. On two blocks of the frieze six lambs are carved in profile, moving toward a palm.

Justinian rebuilt the church on a larger scale and with such splendor as to eclipse, in magnificence, every other church of the Empire. Only forty days after the ruin, he laid the first stone of the temple and began the works. Costly expropriations to give more ample space and breathing room to the new construction; the enormous mass of 10,000 workers; the search for rare and precious materials in all the regions of the Empire, from Ephesus, which contributed eight columns of green breccia, perhaps from the temple of Artemis, to Rome, from which were carried off, among other things, eight columns taken by Aurelian from the temple of the Sun in Heliopolis (Ba'albek), and then to Athens, Delos, Cyzicus, and the temples of Egypt, stripped of their rarest ornaments; the request for the most varied marbles from the most famous quarries; the purchase of gold, silver, bronze and ivory, precious stones and the finest fabrics, destined to make the decoration of the church ever more splendid, put a severe strain on the finances of the State.

Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus designed the new Hagia Sophia, continually supervised by Justinian. To counteract the frequent seismic movements, a vast system of water-filled cisterns was devised beneath the foundation platform, with pillars founded directly on the rock and built of blocks of gritstone, connected with metal clamps; for the dome, which was lowered, bricks of extreme lightness were expressly made at Rhodes. The monument was inaugurated on 27 December 537, with a pomp of which an enthusiastic description survives. However, on 14 December 557 an earthquake caused the dome to collapse. Justinian entrusted the reconstruction to Isidore the Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus; he completed the work in one year, making the dome 30 feet higher, to reduce the outward thrust, while at the same time reinforcing the pillars with sturdy walls leaning against them on the outside (G. Miller, La coupole primitive de Ste-Sophie, in Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 2 [1923], pp. 599-617; K. J. Conant, The first dome of St. Sophia and its rebuilding, in The bulletin of the Byzantin Institut, 1 [1946], p. 71 ff.).

There is record of other interventions toward the end of the 10th century. It is known in fact that between 986 and 994 Hagia Sophia was closed for restorations, following one of the many earthquakes; the dome was damaged in 989 and the emperor Basil II had it repaired by the Armenian Tiridates. Portraits of emperors and empresses, in mosaic on the interior walls, attest to their constant care for the preservation of so great a building (J. Ebersolt, Ste-Sophie de C. Etude de topographie, d'après les cérémonies, Paris 1910).

Closely set between two lesser side aisles, but communicating with them by means of porticoes and galleries, the central nave opens, like a triumphal arch, at the center of a series of nine great portals. The dome rises from the floor to a height of 65 meters. The four sturdy piers, on which the whole ensemble actually depends, appear as if annulled by the play of arches and vaults that conceals their enormous static effort. Within the rectangle constituting the hall, measuring 75.60 m. (without the apse) by 71.70 m. in width, the dome has a diameter of 31.38 m., equal to a seventh of the total surface. Four pendentives connect it to as many arches springing from the piers; to the right and left they are closed by two superimposed colonnades followed by a double series of large windows. The upper colonnade formed the facade of the matroneum.

The decoration, largely preserved, is no less worthy of note.

Of the 107 columns, 40 are on the ground floor, 60 at the level of the gynaeceum, 7 in the highest gallery. No less imposing is the expanse of marble slabs with which the interior surface of the church was covered up to the springing of the vaults. Some panels bear carved stylized floral motifs or Latin crosses. The floor was for some stretches in opus sectile mingled with mosaic. Of great plastic effect are the capitals, several of which bear the monograms of Justinian and Theodora (Rud. Kautzsch, Kapitelstudien. Beiträge zu einer Geschichte des spätantiken Kapitells im Osten von vierten bis siebenten Jahrhundert, Berlin-Leipzig 1936, pp. 193-96, pl. 38, 644 a-b). Of the numerous bronze doors, special mention is due to the so-called Door of the Horologium, bearing inscribed at the top and in monograms damascened in silver, a technique later imported into Italy, the names of the emperors Theophilus and Michael, and of Theodora, and the date 841 substituted for that of 848, erased. Composed of fragments of diverse origin, E. H. Swift (The bronze doors of the gate of the Horologium at Haghia Sophia, in The art. bull., 19 [1937], pp. 137-47) attributes four pieces to an ancient door of the first Constantinian basilica, several others to a Justinianic one, and the rest to the reworking of 838-41 (see also Curtis and Aristarchus, Note on inscription of bronze lintel of great royal gate, in Ἑλλην. φιλ. σολλ. παχάρ., 16 [1885], p. 34).

The rest of the decoration was in mosaic, alternating gold backgrounds with blue ones, against which stood out motifs of foliage in scrolls or of flowers, crosses, stars and monograms, figures of the Virgin and of Christ flanked by angels, saints, imperial personages, dignitaries of the Church.

In 1453, only three days after the conquest of C., Mehmed II ordered that Hagia Sophia be transformed into a mosque; everything was covered with coats of paint, except the floral and geometric motifs and the wings of the seraphim painted on the pendentives of the dome, whose faces had however been entirely covered.

Many of these mosaics were momentarily brought back to light on the occasion of vast restorations ordered by the sultan 'Abd ul-Megid' and directed from 1847 to 1849 by the Ticinese architect G. Fossati. They were then freed from the coat of lime, restored and then covered again with canvases, but at the same time recorded, so that later Fossati himself (Haghia Sophia, London 1852) and W. Salzenberg, who had then been able to study them (Alchristische Bandenkmäler von Constantinopel, Berlin 1854), could give notice of them. In other points, instead, the paint had faded with time, so that the underlying mosaic had ended up showing through, allowing the scenes depicted there to be glimpsed. Kemal Atatürk, in 1934, designated Hagia Sophia as a museum of Byzantine art, thus authorizing initiatives to bring its mosaic decoration back to light. The work, directed since 1931 by Th. Whittmore and undertaken by the American Byzantine Institute, is still in progress. Three reports have been published (Th. Whittmore, The mosaics of S. Sophia at Istanbul. Preliminary report on the first year's work, 1931-32: The mosaics of the narthex, Oxford 1933; id., Second prel. rep. work done in 1933 and 1934; The mos. of the southern vestibule, ibid. 1936; id., Third prel. rep. work done 1935-38: The imperial portraits of the south gallery, ibid. 1942. See also by the same author, The mos. of S. Sophia at Istanbul, in Amer. journ. of arch., 42 [1938], pp. 219-26).

The periods to which the mosaics belong are various. Certainly Justinianic is the decoration of the vault of the narthex with Latin crosses with dark outlines on a gold background, eight-rayed stars, monograms and geometric motifs of Coptic derivation, brought back to light in the narthex, where, above the royal door, the mosaic of the lunette above was rediscovered. Contrary to what was hitherto believed, these mosaics do not go back to Justinian, but were commissioned by his successor Justin II. Neither Procopius nor Paul II Silentiarius in his description after the reconsecration of 562 in fact mentions such decoration; a passage of Theophanes, on the other hand, attests that Justin II adorned the churches founded by Justinian and especially Hagia Sophia and the Holy Apostles. Aug. Heisenberg, who has given proof of this (Die alten Mosaiken der Apostelkirche und der Haghia Sophia, in Ξένια, Hommage internat. à of the National University of Greece, Athens 1912, pp. 121-60; cf. L. Bréhier, L'auteur des mosaïques des SS.-Apôtres et les mosaïques de Ste-Sophie, in Journ. des savants, new series, 10 [1912], p. 468 ff.), further advances the hypothesis, also based on stylistic data, that the artist responsible for the decoration of St. Sophia is that same Eulalius already established for the Holy Apostles and that a poem by Theodore Prodromos, discovered by A. Maiuri (Cod. Vat. 1823, f° 95, in Byzantinische Zeitschr., 21 [1912], p. 654 ff.; 23 [1914-19], p. 360 ff.), mentions him among the "princes of painting." Christ holds in his left hand an open book with the inscription in Greek: "Peace be with you; I am the light of the world"; on the left an emperor prostrates himself, wearing a diadem and halo, his hands in supplication. At the sides of Christ are two medallions, on the left the bust of the Virgin, on the right an angel. The emperor prays or implores, the Virgin intercedes and the angel stands guard over the church. However, the objections raised against this interpretation by C. Osieczkowska (La mosaïque de la Porte Royale à Ste-Sophie de Constantinople et la litanie de tous les Saints, in Byzantion, 9 [1934], pp. 41-81) do not seem unfounded; cf. J. D. Stefanescu, Sur la mosaïque de la Porte Imperiale à Ste-Sophie de Constantinople, ibid., pp. 517-23; F. Dölger, Justinians Engel an der Kaisertür der H. Sophia, ibid., 10 [1935], pp. 1-4; Ch. Martin, Les mosaïques du narthex de Ste-Sophie à Constantinople, in Nouv. revue théologique, 62 [1935], pp. 639-44); the Emperor prays or implores, the Virgin intercedes and the Angel, anonymous, turned almost to the front as if extraneous to the rest, stands guard for the protection of the church.

Some see in the emperor Basil I (867-86); Whittmore, on the other hand, identifies him with Leo VI the Wise (886-912) and thinks that the present mosaic replaced an older one. The lunette restored in the southern vestibule has, between two medallions with the monograms ΜΡΟΥ, the Madonna seated on a throne. She supports the Child with her left arm, while she rests her right hand on his shoulder. On either side two emperors approach reverently and with halos, their names and titles written behind them. On the right is Constantine "great king among the saints." He approaches the Virgin holding up in his hands the model of a city. The other emperor, on the left, is Justinian "king of illustrious memory." He offers the model of St. Sophia. Whittmore dates it to the end of the 9th century and thinks that the image of the Virgin is one of the first in St. Sophia after the struggles with the iconoclasts (cf. F. Dvornik, Lettre à M. H. Grégoire à propos de Michel III et des mosaïques de Ste-Sophie, in Byzantion, 10 [1935], p. 5 ff.; he cites two homilies from which it may be inferred that in that period [842-867] icons were still few in St. Sophia, if the patriarch, in the form of a prayer, formulates in them the vow that the sovereign persevere in the pious work of restoring the images), perhaps for the return to Constantinople of the image of the Theotokos after the victory of John Tzimiskes over Sviatoslav (971); therefore slightly earlier than the restorations carried out between 986 and 994. At the beginning of the 11th century, however, Ch. R. Morey would assign it (The mosaic of Haghia Sophia, in The art bulletin, of metropolitan museum, 2 [1941], pp. 201-10); an opinion not accepted by T. Whittmore (On the dating of some mosaics in Haghia Sophia, ibid., 5 [1946], 1, pp. 34-46), who mentions an unpublished Deesis scene, in the south balcony, to which belongs a beautiful figure of St. John the Baptist. Style, costumes, and content distinguish this mosaic cycle from the following one, with imperial pairs and long inscriptions. These follow one another in the southern gallery, and it seems there were others.

The first of them shows, as can be gathered from the inscriptions, the empress Zoe and her husband Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-54), at the sides of Christ, ΙΟ ΧΟ, with a cruciform halo. On the same side is the emperor, elderly, with a beard, moustaches and crowned. Zoe holds a tied scroll, on which the text of the inscription relating to Constantine is repeated. Whittmore supposes that originally the emperor represented was Michael V Kalaphates, Zoe's second husband (1041-42); after his death and her remarriage to Constantine, the empress would have had not only the text of the inscriptions modified but also the very face of the emperor. The second mosaic panel, partly destroyed, bears at the bottom center the Theotokos ΜΡΟΥ standing, with the Child in arm. At his right is the emperor John Comnenus (1118-43), as the inscription indicates. On the opposite side is the empress Irene. She too holds out the usual scroll.

After a few years, in all likelihood, the same unknown artist added the image of Alexius Comnenus. The mosaic is slightly later than 1122, whereas that of John and Irene must have been executed in the autumn of 1118, for their accession to the throne.

Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. It was certainly begun after 527, in the reign of Justinian, and is mentioned for the first time in the acts of the Synod held in C. in 536; immediately next to it, and, as one would infer from Procopius (De aedificiis, I, 4), a short time earlier another church dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul had arisen. The two buildings thus came to share the atrium and the narthex and depended on a single hegumen, placed over the convent of which they formed part. Again from Procopius it is known that the first church, which soon disappeared, was basilical in form; the second, today converted into a mosque (Küçük Aya Sofia Gâmi'), has come down to us in a good state of preservation. From the name by which it is now known it appears that for a long time it had been compared to St. Sophia, not so much for its architectural configuration as for the devotion with which it was always regarded by the emperors and for the richness of its decoration.

The plan of the building is exceedingly singular; it is preceded by a narthex from which the staircase giving access to the matroneum begins; the church proper consists of an outer square, with four large niches at the corners, within which the central octagonal nave is inscribed, oriented differently, so that the axes of the two spaces are oblique to one another. It is probable that this expedient was required by the need to adapt this new church to the one already existing; nevertheless the architect, by adopting it, succeeded in increasing the dome by four metres, compared with the one that would have resulted if the whole construction had had a single axis. At the same time, however, he took care to place on one and the same line the centres of the main access between the narthex and the interior of the church, of the dome and of the apse, which for this reason is not in the middle of the wall in which it opens. Thus there is immediately inside a peribolos of varying width, covered with vaulting, communicating with the central hall through the intercolumniations placed between the eight piers supporting the dome, of which those corresponding to the oblique sides of the octagon are curved, giving rise to as many hemicycles, which, because of the anomaly noted above, do not coincide with the niches of the outer wall. Each intercolumniation has two columns (16 in all) of verde antico breccia and red breccia in alternating pairs, to which correspond as many in the matroneum, supported by a continuous architrave, in place of the arcades by then used everywhere in other contemporary buildings, such as St. Sophia and St. Irene. On these second columns there are successively set straight arches and the hemispherical caps of the hemicycles. The entablature of the lower order follows the same sinuous movement as the walls, breaking off at the apse; richly decorated with vegetal elements carved almost in openwork, which cover it as with a fine lace, it bears carved on a band of the frieze, in raised capital letters 20 cm. high, the long inscription of 12 verses, with the praise of St. Sergius, of Justinian who venerated him as his particular protector, and of Theodora. "Other sovereigns — it says — have honoured mortals whose work was vain; our Justinian, invested with the sceptre, to nourish piety honours with a superb building Sergius, servant of Christ, the Creator of the universe, he whom neither flames nor sword nor other tortures could shake and who for love of Christ God has defied death and merited with his blood the heavenly dwelling. May he in all things protect the Empire of the sovereign of the watchful eye and increase the power of Theodora, crowned by God, of her whose piety makes the spirit shine, whose work is tireless in its efforts to feed the poor."

Great is the variety of forms and ornaments of the capitals — ribbed basket-work, crater-shaped, cubic and Ionic — also worked in openwork, often bearing, within circles formed by the foliage itself that adorns them, the monograms of Justinian or of Theodora. The dome, of light material, is joined to the base octagon with a movement of sixteen segments narrowing towards the top, until they meet in a central medallion; of these eight are concave and rest on the piers, the other eight, with flat ribs, rest directly on the four arches and on the four caps, and at their base semicircular windows open. The dome therefore, unlike earlier monuments, does not rest directly on the outer walls, but transmits its thrust to these by an ingenious system of buttresses and arches concealed in the vaults of the lower galleries and of the tribunes.

Nothing more appears of the marbles, the gold and the mosaics which, according to a chronicler, "eclipsed the sun" and must perhaps be considered lost. But the original architectural conception, so many times evoked in comparisons with other similar solutions — let that of St. Vitale in Ravenna suffice for all — and its fanciful and flowing sculptural decoration still make it the closest competitor of St. Sophia, even if the latter remains by far the greatest realization of the genius of Justinian and of the artists of his time.

Church of St. Irene. Intimately connected with St. Sophia, it shared in a certain way its fortunes. A small sanctuary even before Byzantium was raised to the rank of capital, so much so as to be distinguished by the appellation "ancient" in comparison with others that arose later with the same title, it was enlarged by the emperor Constantine: the denomination does not refer to any person, but, as with St. Sophia, it was inspired by the same concept of glorifying God, and by reflection the emperor on earth, in his various manifestations. In 360 it served as the Cathedral of the city, but at the same time it shared with St. Sophia the atrium and the clergy, so as to constitute almost a single sanctuary, called "the Great Church." It therefore did not escape the fire of 532 either, following the Nika revolt. It was accordingly included in Justinian's reconstruction plan, who had his monogram of basilèus and that of Theodora carved on the capitals, and it had grandiose proportions, inferior only to those of St. Sophia. Having escaped the fire of 564, it was instead sorely tried by the earthquake of 740, during the reign of Leo III the Isaurian; examination of the masonry of the monument reveals in fact that the entire upper part then collapsed. It cannot be said when the Church was rebuilt: in any case it was too important to be long neglected. Judging from the surviving mosaics, devoid of figures, the restoration must have been carried out while the influence of the iconoclasts persisted. From this era it does not appear that the building underwent other substantial modifications: the Turks did not convert it into a mosque, but made of it a military arsenal, today a museum of arms. It has therefore come down to us substantially in the form it assumed in the middle of the 8th century. The church, preceded by the atrium and the narthex, has the form of a basilica, with the side aisles separated from the central one by a successive series of a first pier (a remnant of the Constantinian church?), a column, a pier, four columns and again a pier, after which, with the interval of a vaulted passage, begins the curve of the apse, polygonal on the outside, while on the inside a high flight of steps for the clergy is set against it, beneath which a narrow passage runs. Two domes rise above the central nave: the one toward the apse is round on pendentives, the other at the façade is oval. The doors present the characteristic profiles of St. Sophia: this suggests that they date from the same period. What remains of the mosaic decoration is reduced to ornamental motifs, geometric and floral, in some stretch of vault of the narthex, on the triumphal arch, where arranged in fascia they enclose a double inscription, and as a frame of the apse conch, in which, on the gold background, stands out a Latin cross outlined in black with the tips of the arms in mother-of-pearl, resting on a three-step support. If the cross, as seems probable, replaced, through the work of Leo the Isaurian, figurations that he had erased, the other decorative parts can instead be considered Justinianic, fresh in tone, where greens and blues dominate; the same inscription, allusive to the Resurrection, presents great epigraphic analogies with that of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. The architecture of St. Irene, with its two domes, buttressed by the barrel vaults extended to the outer walls, represents a type of transition: it recalls the earlier monuments and announces those that will follow, especially the type with the Greek-cross plan, whose structural system it has already realized.

Of the very numerous churches existing in C., only those described above have been preserved down to our own time in such a way that the ancient architectural forms and, at least in part, the original decoration can be recognized in them. All the others, damaged more or less seriously and then restored or rebuilt, when they were not altogether abandoned and destroyed, can only in some cases be identified with certainty through the few remains of their original appearance. Especially the transformation into mosques, after the Turkish conquest, has for the most part so profoundly altered the character of many Byzantine churches as to render them unrecognizable.

One can nevertheless still list, with full knowledge of the matter, for the 7th century the church of St. Andrew of Krissi and that of the Virgin Diaconissa; for the 8th century the southern one of the Theotokos Panachrantos (Immaculate), and that of the Theotokos Pammakaristos; for the 9th century that of St. Theodosia and that of Sts. Peter and Mark; for the 10th century the church of the Myrelaion and the northern one of the Panachrantos; for the 11th the churches of St. Thecla, of St. Saviour in Chora, of St. Saviour Pantepoptes and of the Pantokrator; for the 12th century that of St. Theodore and that of St. John in Trullo. Finally, insofar as they refer to one of the most ancient monuments, mention must be made of the mosaics with which, after the countless damages inflicted on the city by the conquest of the Latins, the church of St. Saviour in Chora, "outside the walls", was decorated in the 14th century, several times renovated but still preserving part of the ancient Justinian structures. The work of two different artists, but almost contemporaries, the numerous scenes elaborated by them are noteworthy for the excellence of the drawing and the softness of the colours in shaded tones, against which stands out the decadence of miniature painting in the same period (A. Muñoz, I mosaici di Kahrië Giami in Costantinopoli, in Rass. ital., Constantinople, March 1906, where the preceding bibliography is also found). - See plates XLI-XLIV.

Renato Baroccini