Series | Alterum Byzantium
Review | Byzantium and Its Neighbours
Chapter | Theological and Political Reasons in the Anti-Armenian Polemics in Byzantium (Ninth-Twelfth Centuries)
Theological and Political Reasons in the Anti-Armenian Polemics in Byzantium (Ninth-Twelfth Centuries)
Abstract
Byzantium had an ambivalent attitude towards the Armenians. On the one hand it aimed to condemn the alleged Monophysitism of the Armenian Church, based on theological considerations consolidated by polemical writings. On the other hand, however, Byzantium sought points of conciliation also due to the importance of the Armenian ethnic element, both within the empire and on its borders. My contribution aims to highlight the evolution of the Byzantine positions towards the Armenian Church, from the time of Photios until the twelfth century. Byzantium was careful to affirm its orthodoxy, but also to avoid increasing the reasons for friction and disputes with the Armenians. In the twelfth century, however, the tendency to find points of contact and conciliation emerged, in order to affirm the ties between Byzantium and the Armenians both of Cilicia and Greater Armenia.
Submitted: June 14, 2024 | Accepted: Aug. 27, 2024 | Published Forthcoming | Language: en
Keywords Byzantine Church • Theological debates • Armenian Church • Official epistles • Polemical treatises • Political reasons
Copyright © 2024 Gioacchino Strano. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-837-8/005
