The Patriarchate of Alexandria: From Equality with the Old Rome to the “Shadow” of Constantinople (original) (raw)
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This dissertation seeks to understand the relations between the Ottoman central administration and the Eastern Patriarchates. Against the current literature submitting these patriarchates to the authority of the Constantinopolitan patriarchs in the period following the Ottoman conquest, we suggest that such exclusive focus on the role of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate prevents one from seeing the true networks of power in which the Eastern Patriarchates were engaged. To that end, in addition to the major patriarchal and missionary sources a large corpus of unpublished and unused Ottoman archival documentation has been consulted. During the first centuries of the Ottoman rule the Eastern Patriarchs benefited largely from the local Ottoman legal and administrative bodies, semi-autonomous provincial rulers, and foreign courts. In early 18 th century, alongside the rise of Catholic missions among the Orthodox flock and hierarchy, and of a wealthy and powerful lay class supported by the central administration, a patriarchal elite class with close affinities to Istanbul began to interact with the Eastern Patriarchates. Getting closer to the offers of the central administration, in both administrative and economic terms, these patriarchates' relations which were formerly dependent on local and foreign dynamics were largely replaced by the new networks supported by the central administration.
Alexandria and Antioch in the First ʿAbbāsid Century
Al-Masaq, 2021
By using several contemporaneous compilations now embedded in the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, and by putting these in conversation with parallel texts produced in Syriac, this article explores the revitalisation of the contacts between the Severan patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch in the context of the late Marwānid and ʿAbbāsid periods. It argues that, while the commitment to communion was a shared inheritance of the late Roman period, the same commitment was renewed and refashioned in a quite different context, wherein the shifting distribution of power within the caliphate had placed the Alexandrian patriarchs in a position of distinct disadvantage and discomfort, far removed from the centres of patronage and of power.
The religious identity of Alexandria in some ecclesiastical histories of Late Antique Egypt (2015)
2015
This paper is afurther step in along-term research which began in 2000 and is based at present in the universities of Hamburg¹ and Rome ("Sapienza")² about the documentation, the archives, and the self-presentationofthe see of Alexandria as referred to in the histories producedwithin the bishopric or in the circles close to it.The starting point of this research was the identification by Alessandro Bausi of ah istorical narrative, enrichedw ith documents and list of names, within an ancient canonical collection attested by an Ethiopic manuscript.Thisn arrative turned out to be paralleled, at least in part,b yt hree already-known documents concerning the church of Alexandria, preserved in aLatin collection. In addition, the whole was easilyproven to belong to alost Greek Historyofthe Episcopate of Alexandria³,tobedistinguished from both the later Coptic Historyoft he Church and Copto-Arabic Historyo ft he Patriarchs of Alexandria⁴. Asien-Afrika-Institut,H iob Ludolf Zentrum für Äthiopistik. Dipartimento di Storia, culture, religioni. The list of our preliminary studies on this text is now considerable. The first official announcement of the discovery was made in Bausi 2002 and 2006.Some portions of my commentary,inpreparation, can be consulted in the followingp ublications:C amplani 2004,2 006a, 2006b, 2007,2 009,2 011a, 2011b, Bausi /C amplani 2013.A tt he base of this research is the work of four scholars.The first of them is Tito Orlandi, who devoted several contributions,c ommentaries,a nd editions to the history of the church written in Coptic (CHC) as wellastoother texts, such as the Apologia secunda of Athanasius and the Historyo ft he Patriarchs. The second is Annick Martin, whose historical commentary on the Historia acephala is apoint of reference for the reconstruction of the historiographyofthe patriarchate and its ideological position (Martin 1985). The third is Ewa Wipszyckawhose contributions to the institutional church in Egypt and to the staff of the patriarch made possible acomprehension of the milieu which produced these histories. The fourth is Philippe Blaudeauwhose book about Alexandria and Constantinople has provided the theoretical frame in which my contribution finds its place(Blaudeau2 006). In particular,t he notion of "geo-ecclesiology" proves to be productive of new results in the studyofthe histories written in the episcopal circles. In J.-M. Carrié'sintroduction to Blaudeau'sb ook (Blaudeau2 006,x iv)w ef ind this interesting judgment about this concept: "Ce terme de géo-ecclésiologie par lequel l'auteurdésigne sa perspective de recherche n'est pas un simple jeu métaphorique, pour faire "chic",encore moins un jeu de mots:c'est en réalitéunmodèle de lecture de la confrontation entrechrétientés orientales qui mobilise et guide toute une stratégie herméneutique. Il permet d'appliquer àdes questions historiques souvent traitées et débattues une grille de questionnement productive,expérimentée et validée par les résultats. Par sa dynamique,l ec oncept mobilise toute une géographie (cartes àl'appui) des espaces de présenceetd'intervention en fonction des objectifs jugéss tratégiques,d es zones de tension et des théâtres d'opération". See referenceb ibliography in the notest ot he paragraphsc oncerned with each of these histories. The followinga bbreviations will be used: HEpA =H istory of the Episcopateo fA lexandria CHC =C hurch History in Coptic
Wipszycka, Patriarchs of Alexandria and their bishops
We possess a substantial amount of knowledge about how the Patriarch of Alexandria wielded power over his subordinate bishops. This picture can be now enriched thanks to the present thorough study of the lists of episcopal delegations to councils which took place both in Egypt and outside it. The study's result allows us to state that, as time went by, the participation of bishops in the dioceses of the Delta increased at the expense of bishops from the Thebaid. To explain this shift in participation, the author examined the information about the Church of the Delta contained in an enormous corpus of 2,000 letters of Isidore of Pelusium (the first half of 5th c.). Isidore maintained correspondence with Cyril of Alexandria, thirty-one bishops, and numerous members of the clergy, mainly originating from dioceses in the eastern part of the Delta (province Augustamnica I). The article also provides information on the duration of travel from different cities to Alexandria, which is helpful to determine the extent to which travel time inclined patriarchs to favour the bishops of the Delta over their colleagues from the Nile Valley.
The Creation of The Episcopal Power in Late Antiquity. The Case of Athanasius of Alexandria
The authors of Church histories from the first half of the fifth century had presented in their work a triumphal view of the Christian success over paganism in the fourth century. In all these works, a man was glorified as the defender of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy; that is Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. A central figure in the above-mentioned ecclesiastic histories, Athanasius had achieved a great attention by the modern scholars, justified by the role played by the bishop as a central actor in the context of the fight against the Arian heresy, between 328 (the date of his election as bishop of Alexandria) and 373 (the date of his death). The present paper intends to analyze the bishop's power in the fourth-century Alexandria. Also, the analysis of the bases of patriarchal power, both legally and informally, represents an important part in the economy of the discussed subject.
Aethiopica
This article connects two events that occurred in 1881: the arrival of four Coptic bishops in Ethiopia and the attempt by the Copts to remodel the Dayr al-Sulṭān monastery in Jerusalem. First, connecting these two events contradicts the idea that the Copts agreed to appoint four bishops without any compensation—on the contrary they sought a compensation in Jerusalem. Second, it sheds light on Yoḥannǝs’s diplomatic policy, which enabled him to thwart the Coptic ambitions in Jerusalem and to kill two birds with one stone: he obtained four Coptic bishops, while preserving the rights of the Ethiopians in Jerusalem, and this without any compensation to be given in exchange to the Copts or anyone else. This article shows that behind a friendship demonstrated at the time by Ethiopians and Copts were hidden elements of deep discord. It therefore suggests the need, in the future, to rethink the place to be given to the 1881 agreement in the history of relations between Copts and Ethiopians a...
Towards the Coptic Church: The Making of the Severan Episcopate
Millennium
This article concerns aseminal moment in the history of eastern Christianity:t he creation of the Severan episcopatei nE gypt (from A.D.5 75), and with it the radical bifurcation, for the first time, of the ancient Egyptian church. Updating the classic account of Jean Maspero in the light of more recent publications, it first examinesthe rapid decline of the Severan episcopateinthe period after the Alexandrian patriarch Theodosius' exile (536), and the intense competition to replace him in the period between his death (566) and the consecration of Peter (575). Exploiting a wide rangeofevidence related to anew episcopatethen created under Peter and his successor Damian, this article then examines the presenceofcertain Severan bishops in rural monasteries,and the origins of an unprecedentedoffice,the patriarchal vicarate, in the context of the competition created through the creation of araft of rival sees. Understanding these processes, it is argued, is crucial to appreciating the explosion of evidence which accompanies the patriarchateo fD amian.
Eastern Pre-Constantine Church Heritage of Alexandria
It is exciting to discover how the life of the postmodern Church has been shaped by the remarkable contribution of Eastern pre-Constantine Church of Alexandria. Our purpose in this article is to reflect on the dynamic of the Eastern pre-Constantine Church heritage of Alexandria in the daily life of postmodern Church by stressing the importance of the dialogue between the Gospel and postmodern cultures. The Eastern pre-Constantine Church heritage of Alexandria is a paradigm for postmodern intercultural witness to the Gospel of Christ. In a postmodern world influenced by science, technology and social deconstruction, how do we proclaim the Gospel by respecting the inherent dignity of postmodern cultures as holy grounds of God's work? We will address this issue by using the insights of two ecclesiastic writers of the third century, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, in their ways of dialoguing with the Greek culture of their time as the paradigm for intercultural witness to the unchangeable message of the Gospel in postmodern cultures.