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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 1613: (Mis)Recognising and (Mis)Representing Heresy: Defining the Christian Faith in Byzantium

Thursday 16 July 2009, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Nicky Tsougarakis, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 1613-aThe Perception of the 'Right Faith' in the Writings of a Constantinopolitan Patriarch in Exile
(Language: English)
Elisabeth Schiffer, Institut für Byzanzforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Sermons and Preaching
Paper 1613-bOrthodoxy and Heresy in the Publication of Medieval Heresiology: The Case of the Dogmatike Panoplia in the 12th Century
(Language: English)
Hisatsugu Kusabu, Department of History, University of Chicago, Illinois
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Medieval, Historiography - Modern Scholarship
Paper 1613-cDefying Emperor, Pope, and Patriarch: Late Byzantine Women and the Religious Controversy over the Union of Lyons (1274)
(Language: English)
Petra Melichar, Institute for Early Christian & Byzantine Studies, KU Leuven
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Lay Piety, Women's Studies
Abstract

This session draws together papers that define different religious groupings in different faiths through what are nonetheless related kinds of intervention, whether in the fields of theology or law.

Paper -a:
Germanos II, oecumenical patriarch of Constantinople (1223-1240) with seat in Nicaea, is known as opponent of the union of the Greek and the Latin church. Apart from treatises concerning the main subjects of this controversy he touches in his still largely inedited writings also upon inner-Eastern church topics. To gain knowledge of Germanos' perception of the 'right faith' some of his letters and sermons will be presented. A matter of particular interest is his response to some cases of conversion from and to Islam and the Latin church.

Paper -b:
The publication history of the Dogmatike Panoplia, a Byzantine heresiology by Euthymios Zigabenos (c. 1115), reveals the specific characteristics of conceptualization of Orthodoxy and Heresy. Although no critical edition has been constructed, historians have referred to its contents as a 'Byzantine' encyclopaedia of heresies exclusively. However the editorial and publication history of the Dogmatike Panoplia in Eastern and Western Europe reveals to us the various views of medieval heresies and 'orthodoxies'. Each one of its Greek manuscripts and the Latin or Greek printed versions has received editorial changes and revisions to meet contemporary needs.

Paper -c:
Although the Union of Lyons and its main participants have been widely discussed in scholarly literature, little has been said about the part Byzantine women played in its reception back in the Empire. Rarely involved in political affairs, several women of noble origin nevertheless challenged the imperial efforts to promote the Union even at the cost of persecution. In my paper, I will feature the most important of these women, the means they employed to achieve their goals and their ensuing fates.