The Church and Social Reform: The Policies of the Patriarch Athanasios of Constantinople

In 1261, under the vigorous leadership of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Byzantine empire regained its capital, Constantinople, after 57 years of Latin occupation. The city retained only a hint of its former glory and prominence. The Byzantine Orthodox Church, although perhaps the strongest institution in the empire after the "reconquesta", was also in a state of turmoil, racked by the persisting schism of the Arsenites and by moral and disciplinary decay - the after effects of the hated Union of Lyons (1274). In spite of what has been characterised as the "disastrous reign" of Andronikos, the Orthodox Church managed to produce the most aggressively reform-minded patriarch of its history - Athanasios. "The Church and Social Reform" studies the nature and extent of his social reforms and political involvement during his two tenures on the patriarchal throne of Constantinople. The traditional influence, power, and authority that resided in the patriarchate of Constantinople made the involvement of an aggressive patriarch in the social affairs of the empire virtually inevitable. What Anthanasios sought in terms of social and political reform is viewed in terms of the relationship between the church and the empire, the role of the church in his reforms, the ideological foundations of his reforms, the specific measures by which he sought to meet immediate social and political needs, and the expansion of the patriarchate into new areas as state services declined. One thing is clear: for Athanasios the idea of reform was part of the renewal of the centralised institutions of the empire, and was rooted in the commitment to Christian baptism, cenobitic mututalism, and Israel's covenant with Yahweh. There is nothing simple about Athanasios' reform; nor was his thinking systematic, and this text aims to avoid historical distortion in an attempt to systematise what is inchoate.