@article{
author = "Цветковић, Милош",
year = "2023",
abstract = "Текст је посвећен улози Цариградске цркве у христијанизацији и византинизацији варварских и паганских скупина у Ромејском царству од VII до XI века, са посебним нагласком на улози „етничких епископија”, односно црквених катедри унутар Константиопољске патријаршије, које су осниване с циљем покрштавања и интеграције одређених неромејских и нехришћанских скупина у византијско друштво. Истраживање је засновано првенствено на анализи садржаја нотиција Цариградске цркве и аката црквених сабора, затим сигилографске грађе, као и наративних извора., Christianization had a prominent place in Byzantine policy. By converting barbarian groups that lived outside of the Empire’s borders, Constantinople brought those peoples into its civilizational circle, and they gradually accepted the cultural models and judicial traditions of the Eastern Roman Empire. As for the communities within its own borders, Byzantium tended to manifest a higher degree of political and military domination, but that was not always enough to completely integrate various non-Rhomaic ethnic groups (ethnoi) into the Byzantine society. Hence, the state relied on the activities of the Church, whose instruments in the process of Byzantinizing barbarians played an important role. In that field, the Church of Constantinople acted through an organized network of bishoprics, autocephalous archbishoprics, and metropolitanates, some of which are particularly notable in this regard: first of all, the newly formed episcopal sees whose names testify to the distinctive ethnic composition of their flocks. The most informative sources about them are Notitiae Episcopatuum of the Church of Constantinople and the documents of ecclesiastical councils. In those sources, they appear in the last decades of the 9th century. The bishoprics in question are Drougoubiteia, Smolaina, Bagenitia, and Mainē, as well as Bardariōtai Tourkoi (of the Hungarians) and Sagoudaneia, which appear slightly later. In the preceding centuries, the Christianization process was generally launched from existing ecclesiastical centers, whose primates gradually expanded their jurisdiction to include neighboring areas. Alternately, cathedrae could be restored or founded in the Church of Constantinople, but they had no formal ethnic qualifiers, such as the autocephalous archbishopric (and later metropolitanate) in Patras. Aware of the importance that a particular system of church organization could have in pacifying the non-Byzantine population, the ruling political and ecclesiastical circles in Constantinople began establishing ethnic bishoprics in the second half of the 9th century. That took place shortly after the end of the century-long Iconoclastic Controversy and the final triumph of Orthodoxy, which allowed the Empire to consolidate itself on the inside both on the political and religious level, and already in the mid-9th century, it launched a sweeping missionary campaign that targeted various non-Christian peoples within or beyond its borders. Ethnic bishoprics were mostly formed in areas where there were ethnic archontiai. The synchronized activity of the church and state in the subsequent process of integrating non- Rhomaic peoples is also evidenced by the evolution of the administrative status of ethnic archontiai, on the one hand, and the almost parallel development of ethnic bishoprics in the territorial-administrative system of the Church of Constantinople, on the other hand. More specifically, from the second half of the 10th and especially in the 11th and 12th centuries, the archontiai transformed into provinces, i.e., themes, losing the hallmarks of autonomy that they, as distinctive institutional forms, had had in the theme system. After the 11th century, more or less concurrently with the gradual dissolution of ethnic archontiai, the ethnic bishoprics that once existed in the same areas disappear from the sources. Given that the archontiai represented a transitional institutional form of governance, established with the aim of gradually integrating barbarians into the Byzantine administrative system, and that their transformation into provinces marked the end of the main stage in that process, it can be assumed that the ethnic bishoprics in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople had a similar role. Their establishment marked the beginning of the last stage in the Christianization and Byzantinization of non-Rhomaic and pagan groups in the Empire, which was mostly – at least in Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, where the ethnic bishoprics were active – completed in the 11th century, consequently removing the need for separate ethnic sees. Finally, it should be noted that, within the Patriarchate of Constantinople, also functioned the church organization in Crimea with a Gothic cathedra – a church unusual in many aspects and based on ethnic principles. It started as a bishopric and then became a metropolitanate (envisaged as a big diocese intended to include a larger number of barbarian groups in Crimea, southern Russia, and Transcaucasia), and finally an autocephalous archbishopric, equalizing its status with other ecclesiastical sees of the Church of Constantinople on the Crimean Peninsula.",
publisher = "Ниш : Центар за црквене студије, Ниш : Међународни центар за православне студије",
journal = "Црквене студије",
title = "О „етничким епископијама” Цариградске цркве од VII до XI века, On the “Ethnic Bishoprics” of the church of Constantinople from the 7th to the 11th centuries",
pages = "285-299",
volume = "20",
doi = "10.18485/ccs_cs.2023.20.20.17",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_13835"
}
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