Shaping sacramental authority: «The power to bind and loose» as a subject of discussion between the Byzantine Church hierarchy, monasticism, and the state (11th–12th centuries)

Abstract

The paper examines the situation of growing attention to the practices of confession, which took place at the turn of the 10th–11th centuries and which lasted until the end of the 12th century. The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the statements by representatives of the Middle Byzantine canonical thought and discover methods (concepts, categories, hierarchical systems) by which they integrated the phenomenon of secret confession into a complex system of relationships in Byzantine society, and to evaluate their compatibility with the discourse of the time. The article consists of two parts which trace the situation during the 11th and 12th centuries, respectively. Each of these is further divided into two sections: in the first one the positions of the main authors of the period are described, while in the second they are analyzed and provided with historical contextualization. Part One compares historical narratives concerning the development of the institution of confession developed by three authors: St. Symeon the New Theologian, Patriarch John IV the Oxite of Antioch, and ex-chartophylax Nicephorus. It turns out that all three see the situation in a similar way, although they differ in their evaluation of it. The juxtaposition of these stories and their historical context allows us to conclude that the interests of the state and church authorities coincided on the issue of regulating confessional practices. This part serves as context for the subsequent assessment of the views of 12th-century authors. Part Two of the article describes and examines the phenomenon of a significant increase of the occurrence of the concept of «power» (ἐξουσία) in texts containing reflections on confession. The positions of key 12th-century church canonists are analyzed: Alexius Aristinus, John Zonaras, Theodore Balsamon, and Anonymous, the author of an unpublished commentary on Nomocanon contained in the Codex Sinaiticus 1117. Their ideas about how the «power to bind and loose» arises, exists, and is transmitted in the Church are reconstructed. The correlation of these ideas with the discussions of the 11th century allows us to assert that although Balsamon’s model was the most detailed, it also turned out to be the least organic to the views of its time, which predetermined its fate. In conclusion, a connection is made with the subsequent late Byzantine period, in which the ideas of the previous time were partly adopted and partly abandoned.