Michail Konstantinou-Rizos | University of Patras (original) (raw)

Uploads

Conference Organizing by Michail Konstantinou-Rizos

Byzantinisches Archiv – Series Philosophica 2, 2018

Prochoros Cydones' Translation of Thomas Aquinas' Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio... more Prochoros Cydones' Translation of Thomas Aquinas' Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis Method and Purpose Unlike Demetrios Cydones, whose life and work is well documented and has been extensively studied,¹ not much is known about his brother Prochoros' life.² Most of our information comes from Demetrios' Letters and the Synodal Tome of 1368 that condemned him. Demetrios' younger brother by almost eleven years, Prochoros, was born c. 1333/4. Sharing his brother's intellectual interests and spiritual pursuits, he traveled to Mount Athos sometime after 1350. There he was tonsured and later ordained priest, before he was elected abbot of the Great Lavra. We do not know in what way he learned Latin, though it is possible that he was taught by his brother, who had learnt the language from a Dominican friar in Pera, probably Philippo de Bindo Incontris.³ His admiration for Latin scholastic thought and his expressed anti-Palamite theological convictions proved incompatible with his position within the strongly pro-Palamite community on Mount Athos. Soon, his anti-Palamite convictions reached the ears of the Patriarch Philotheos. In 1366, some of Prochoros' fellow monks complained about his attitude. A year later, on the first Sunday of Lent in 1367, although Prochoros was required to read out and sign at the synaxis the Synodal Tome of the Council the hesychasts had held the previous year, he continued expressing his hostility against Palamas' teachings. His cell was subsequently searched and Prochoros was found to possess "heretical books". On this pretext, he was expelled by his superior, Jacob Trikanas. His condemnation led his brother Demetrios to go public against the Palamite version of hesychasm, officially sanctioned by the Byzantine Church (1341; 1351; 1368), as is evident in some of his letters. Prochoros himself wrote a letter to Philotheos in the early summer of 1367, complaining about the dishonourable defamation (συκοφαντία) and injustice (ἀδικία)

Papers by Michail Konstantinou-Rizos

Byzantinisches Archiv – Series Philosophica 2, 2018

Prochoros Cydones' Translation of Thomas Aquinas' Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio... more Prochoros Cydones' Translation of Thomas Aquinas' Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis Method and Purpose Unlike Demetrios Cydones, whose life and work is well documented and has been extensively studied,¹ not much is known about his brother Prochoros' life.² Most of our information comes from Demetrios' Letters and the Synodal Tome of 1368 that condemned him. Demetrios' younger brother by almost eleven years, Prochoros, was born c. 1333/4. Sharing his brother's intellectual interests and spiritual pursuits, he traveled to Mount Athos sometime after 1350. There he was tonsured and later ordained priest, before he was elected abbot of the Great Lavra. We do not know in what way he learned Latin, though it is possible that he was taught by his brother, who had learnt the language from a Dominican friar in Pera, probably Philippo de Bindo Incontris.³ His admiration for Latin scholastic thought and his expressed anti-Palamite theological convictions proved incompatible with his position within the strongly pro-Palamite community on Mount Athos. Soon, his anti-Palamite convictions reached the ears of the Patriarch Philotheos. In 1366, some of Prochoros' fellow monks complained about his attitude. A year later, on the first Sunday of Lent in 1367, although Prochoros was required to read out and sign at the synaxis the Synodal Tome of the Council the hesychasts had held the previous year, he continued expressing his hostility against Palamas' teachings. His cell was subsequently searched and Prochoros was found to possess "heretical books". On this pretext, he was expelled by his superior, Jacob Trikanas. His condemnation led his brother Demetrios to go public against the Palamite version of hesychasm, officially sanctioned by the Byzantine Church (1341; 1351; 1368), as is evident in some of his letters. Prochoros himself wrote a letter to Philotheos in the early summer of 1367, complaining about the dishonourable defamation (συκοφαντία) and injustice (ἀδικία)