The Very Model of Orthodoxy?

Abstract

This chapter examines whether Byzantium was an “Orthodox society.” Orthodoxy in Byzantium was always vaunted but also always contested. The constant performance of Orthodoxy took many forms: they included imperial ceremonial, liturgical repetition and display, visual representation, public debates, formal anathemas and recantations, declarations of deposition, and the public reading of documents. Yet the actual evidence for the various councils that supported or condemned religious images shows clearly that in Byzantium as elsewhere ecclesiastics changed sides, negotiated their positions, and adapted their views. In many areas under Byzantine rule a practical multiculturalism prevailed, especially where populations had moved or political control fluctuated, and this too is part of the story of Byzantine religion. Yet the very word “orthodoxy” means correct belief, and the articulation of correct doctrine remained a central issue throughout Byzantine history. Indeed, rules and prescriptions characterized Byzantine Orthodoxy.