The Projection of Self in the Homilies of Emperor Leo VI and Their Use as a Source for His Reign (original) (raw)
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A group of hagiographical texts, written during the period from 886 to 976, contains valuable information about Leo’s VI (886-912) marital adventures, intellectual concerns and administrative skills. Although the condemnation of the wise ruler, because of his turbulent life and the problems that it caused between Church and State, would be expected, the authors showed particular interest in the restoration of his image. It cannot be supported with certainty that all of these texts, about Leo VI, were composed with the encouragement or guidance of imperial authority. This, however, is the first, chronologically, attempt to restore the image of a member of the Macedonian dynasty. Several years later, a similar effort will take place, under the direction of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, through historiography, in order to justify the crimes that Basil I committed, attempting to displace the Amorians. The numerous flattering mentions, in which the roots of Leo’s VI legend can be traced, indicate not only the interest of the hagiographers, about the wise emperor, but the audience’s as well.
2017
In: Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin & des Cinq études sur le xie siècle, quarante ans après Paul Lemerle, éd. par B. Flusin & J.‑C. Cheynet (Travaux et mémoires 21/2), Paris 2017, p. 187-233. The study offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of the literary personality and works of the emperor-author Leo VI the Wise. Although he nowadays emerges as a pivotal figure in the revival of letters of the ninth and tenth centuries, Leo is nearly absent from P. Lemerle’s classic book on the “First Byzantine humanism.” After suggesting an explanation for this apparent paradox and briefly reviewing subsequent scholarship on the emperor, the present author, building on her previous work, attempts to disprove the hesitance with which Leo is still approached when it comes to his literary output, and to highlight those issues which indicate and stress two themes that run through it: renovation and cultural synthesis. In particular, the article examines the following issues: Leo’s culture, classical and Christian, on the basis of mainly internal evidence; his hagiographical metaphrases and other works to which rewriting and reworking applied and which reveal his realization of the need for literary and cultural renovation and the ways in which he dealt with it; certain aspects of his personality as traced mostly, but not exclusively, in his own works; his role as a “Christian humanist” within the cultural phenomenon of the “First Byzantine humanism”; and, finally, some remarks on the influence his literary works exercised, as illustrated by their Byzantine reception. An epilogue sums up the results of this investigation, which underlines the emperor’s significant literary achievement and contribution to the revival of his time.
Nea Rhome , 2015
The paper presents a literary line that leads from the ninth to the twelfth century, and from the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, to another capital, the Norman Panormos. It is argued on the basis of a series of arguments that in composing the ecphrasis of the Palatine Church in his homily 27, Philagathos Kerameus knew and was inspired by an as yet unidentified source, that is Emperor Leo VI's Homilies 31 and 37, especially the latter, which also include ecphrases of churches and demonstrably circulated in Philagathos' environment. Philagathos successfully transferred the specific Constantinopolitan rhetorical-homiletic and imperial ideological framework of the prose church ecphrasis to the Norman court, serving the legitimation and exaltation of the Norman monarch.
Emperor Leo VI the Wise wanted the application of special consideration (oikonomia) for his status. He was a widower whose previous three marriages had not produced a male heir. A son was born as a result of his fourth marriage, but the marriage itself had yet to be recognized by the Church in order to secure the succession rights of Leo’s son, Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos. Since Byzantine canon law permits a maximum of three marriages, the ‘oikonomist’ attitude of first Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos (d. 925) and subsequently the Patriarch Euthymios (d. 917) elicted opposition from the two groups of ‘akribeists’, creating a new rupture of ecclesiastical communion between them and the patriarchate. In order to justify breaking communion, each party had to prove that the other had ceased to conform to Orthodox opinions in matters of faith. Both parties employed the rationale of Canon 15, but without referring to it directly. Thus, this proves my hypothesis that this canon reflects a profound theological truth: in order to cease communion with a superior, one has to be pronounced a heretic.
"Part One: Byzantino-Slavica 1 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. The Theoretical Impossibility of the “Russian” Approach 3 1.3. Wortley’s Hypothesis 5 1.4. The Christian Community in Kiev in the Time of Patriarch Euthymius 5 1.5. A South Slavic Alternative 6 1.6. The Original Meaning of the Feast of Pokrov According to Pachomius Logothetos 7 1.7. BHG 1136d: a Greek Homily on Pokrov 8 1.7.1. The Greek Original and Its Pseudepigraphic Authorship 9 1.7.2. Liturgical Setting and Contents: Pokrov Vigil 9 1.7.3. Author: Patriarch Euthymius 11 1.8. The Prolog sermon on Pokrov 11 1.8.1. Contents 12 1.8.2. Relation to the Life of Andrew the Salos 13 1.8.3. Author 14 1.9. Conclusion to the Byzantino-Russian Dossier 14 Part Two: Armeno-Byzantina 15 2.1. Introduction 15 2.2. The Discovery of the Relics of St Gregory during the Patriarchate of Photius 16 2.2.1. Historical Context 16 2.2.2. Precise Place: τὰ Καριανοῦ monastery near Blachernae 17 Note 1: van Esbroeck’s identification of the monastery τὰ Καριανοῦ with the monastery of Staurakios 19 2.2.3. Date: between 862 and 867 19 2.2.4. The Date of the Liturgical Commemoration 20 2.3. Gregory the Illuminator and Isaac the Parthian as the Saints of the Macedonian Dynasty 23 2.3.1. Isaac the Parthian in Photius’ Cult of St Gregory the Illuminator 23 2.3.2. St Gregory the Illuminator in the Cult of St Patriarch Stephen 25 2.3.3. The Cult of St Gregory the Illuminator under Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos 27 2.3.4. An Alternative to the Vision of St Sahak: the Apocalypse of Andrew the Salos 27 2.4. The Veneration of “Pokrov” before the Feast of Pokrov 29 2.4.1. Photius, 860: the Discovery of “Pokrov” 29 2.4.2. When “Pokrov” Becomes “Omophorion/Maphorion” 31 2.4.3. A Secondary “Pokrov” Cult: The Maphorion of St Theophano 32 2.4.4. How “Pokrov” Becomes “Omophorion/Maphorion” 34 2.4.5. The Bishop’s “Maphorion” of St Gregory the Illuminator 35 2.4.6. Why “Pokrov” Becomes “Omophorion/Maphorion” 36 2.5. Conclusion to the Armeno-Byzantine Dossier 37 Note 2: A Tentative Reconstruction of a Liturgical Cycle Possibly Related to the Vision of St Andrew within the Life of Andrew the Salos 38 Part Three: the Feast of Pokrov within the Cycle of St Gregory the Illuminator 39 3.1. The Marian Relics and the Wives of Leo the Wise 39 3.2. The Symbolic Nature of the Date 1 October 41 3.3. The Autumn Commemorations of St Gregory the Illuminator and His Companions in Constantinople 42 3.4. The Choice of 1 October for the Pokrov Feast 43 Excursus: St Gregory the Illuminator’s Feast on 30 September 44 1. Peeters’ Hypothesis 44 2. The Dormition of the Theotokos and the Dedication of the Cathedral of Etchmiadzin 46 3. The Dates of the Baptism of Armenia in the Agathangelos 47 4. Two Remnants of Earlier Commemorations of St Gregory: 20 Sahmi and 20 Hoṙi 47 5. The Pentecost after the Dormition of the Theotokos 48 6. The New Year on 1 Navasard and the Dormition of the Theotokos 49 "