Orthodoxy and the imperial idea : the transformation of the Orthodox Church in late Byzantium / Norman Russell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Russell, Norman, 1945- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Church and state--Byzantine Empire--History--To 1500.

Church and state.

Orthodox Eastern Church--Byzantine Empire--History.

Orthodox Eastern Church.

Byzantine Empire--Politics and government--1081-1453.

Byzantine Empire.

Byzantine Empire--Church history.

Physical Description:

x, 244 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : The Lutterworth Press, [an imprint of] James Clarke & Co., [2025]

Summary:

"For those living in the East Roman Empire, it was God-protected, immune from the impermanence of other states. But in late Byzantium, intellectuals began to reconsider this assumption: could the East Roman Empire be vulnerable, even temporary? And what would that mean for the Orthodox Church? Through his engagement with influential intellectuals at the time, principally Philotheos Kokkinos, Demetrios Kydones, Cardinals Bessarion and Isidore, George Gemistos Plethon, Mark Eugenikos and George Scholarios, Norman Russell explores the strategies and responses to this seismic shift in the imagination and conceptualisation of the Church and the Empire. By exploring the details of such crucial events as the Hesychast Controversy, the ecclesiastical revolution that followed, and successive attempts to attain ecclesiastical union with the West, Norman Russell considers how the Orthodox Church adapted to survive and flourish under Ottoman rule. This is an important new contribution to the scholarship of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine period, of interest to scholars of Byzantine civilisation, the East Roman Empire, and the Orthodox Church."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Strategies of religious and cultural survival

The recovery of Constantinople from the Latins

The ecclesiastical revolution of 1347

Political hesychasm : Philotheos Kokkinos and his successors

Siren voices : Demetrios and Prochoros Kydones

Salvation through philosophy : Nikephoros Gregoras and George Gemistos Plethon

Apostles of union : cardinals Bessarion and Isidore

Opponents of union : Mark Eugenikos and George Scholarios

Orthodoxy on the eve of imperial collapse.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-232) and index.

ISBN:

9780227178911

0227178912

9780227178904

0227178904

OCLC:

1342985993

Publisher Number:

90103250967