Rev. tudes Sud-Est Europ., XLV, 14, p.

7385, Bucarest, 2007

ESCHATOLOGY AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY
IN THE LAST CENTURIES OF BYZANTIUM
PETRE GURAN
An important change of eschatological beliefs in the last centuries of Byzantium
mirrored a transformation of the Byzantine society and power structure. The political
decline of the empire asked for a new cosmological paradigm. Thus what we call in this
paper ecclesiastical eschatology represents the effort done by Byzantine scholars to
respond to the new political reality. In order to evaluate the transformation we will draw
an outline of early imperial eschatology and compare it with the later eschatological
literature.
In a brief reflection on the end of History, Gennadios Scholarios, the first
ecumenical patriarch after the fall of New Rome, evokes with astonishment the
constant irony that history offers to those who try to understand its mysteries: the
first bishop of the imperial city was Metrophanes and the last one who died in the
city before the conquest was also Metrophanes; the first Christian emperor was a
Constantine whose mother was Helen, and the last Christian emperor of
Constantinople was also a Constantine whose mother was Helen
1
. Scholarios then
continues with several more or less obvious prophecies of the Last Days, but
because of these two coincidences the impression of the end of a historical cycle
was striking.
For Scholarios, who retired from the patriarchate twice on account of the
incessant intrigues of his compatriots, chronology supported his view that the
world was coming to an end. He proposed two possibilities for the last year of the
creation: 1492 or 1513. In both cases it was close enough to abandon history to the
last manifestations of evil. Nevertheless he was the one who inaugurated a new
epoch in the life of the Christian community of the former Byzantine state as first
ecumenical patriarch in the Ottoman Empire. He even tried to convert the Turkish
conqueror Mahomet II to Christianity, but failed. Scholarios feeling was that the
restoration of the empire was a mere illusion, but that the Church still remained to
defend and guide its flock in these last years
2
.

1
M-H. Congourdeau, Courants de pense apocalyptiques Byzance sous les Palologues,
et Scholarios, Chronographie. dition corrige, traduction, annotation, dans B. Lellouch et
S. Yerasimos ed., Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople (Actes du
colloque dIstanbul, avril 1996), Varia Turcica XXXIII, Paris 1999.
2
F. Tinnefeld, Gennadios Scholarios, La thologie byzantine, Paris, 2001.
Petre Guran 2

74
Since the furthest Antiquity human societies have needed, even at the climax
of their growth, a story, or even an explanation, of their end. This need might
possibly be linked to the influence of the biological reality of death, religious
patterns, or the unbearable terror of History. My purpose is not to search for an
explanation of this need, but to analyze the content and particularity of this general
pattern in the case of a dying empire. Furthermore I will attempt to find elements
for understanding how Byzantine society prepared itself for its end.
Byzantium, one of the most successful empires in world history, with more
then 1100 years of history from 330 (Constantines inauguration of the new capital)
to 1453 (the death of the last Greek emperor), also offers a good example of a
political structure and ideology that survived 250 years after the first conquest of
its capital in 1204. What was the political thought produced during this period
(1204-1453), when Byzantium was reduced to a second rank state in the eastern
Mediterranean without officially abandoning its claims to universal power?
Common historiography taught that Byzantine society was never capable in those
last centuries of adapting its ideological discourse to the political and military
realities until the final day of its history. I would like to put forth a different
interpretation of Byzantine intellectual movements in the 14th century. I believe
that a view discordant with official political thought was produced in this age, and
that this was not a unique occurrence at the periphery of society.
Imperial eschatology
The main Christian eschatological scheme (eschatology as representation and
theories about the end of the world) in Byzantium had already been elaborated in
the first Christian centuries. This initial eschatology attempted to establish a
chronology in keeping with the expectations of an immediate end of history, or to
explain the delay of the end, for which Saint Paul had offered a mysterious key in
his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. The apostle said that someone or
something would oppose evil until the end of the world, which would occur when
God decided. The identity of this opponent of evil (ho katechon or to katechon)
was left open for further interpretation. Whether one was awaiting the millennium
(the belief in a thousand years reign of Christ on earth, as it is stated in the
Apocalypse) in the same generation, or allowing a future for history by explaining
the reasons of the delay, the universal Roman Empire was a reality to be taken into
account: either it was the supreme evil to which the Epistle of John gave the name
of Antichrist, or, on the contrary, its worldly opponent. It was the second tendency
formulated by Christian thinkers since the second century that opened the way to
a positive integration of the empire in Christian eschatology. Progressively,
beginning with the fourth century eschatology concentrated on the person of the
3 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

75
emperor
3
. His basic role, before the end of the world, was to oppose evil. I fancy
calling this development imperial eschatology.
Nevertheless, the two eschatological trends, millenarian and katechontic,
both believe that in the last act of history the imperial power will eventually
become the manifestation of evil, the Antichrist. The Antichrist was best
personified by an emperor. Thus successive eschatological crises in Byzantine
history identified a bad emperor with the Antichrist. The most striking example is
the portrait of the emperor Justinian drawn by the sixth century historian Procopius
of Caesarea
4
. Latter examples are the iconoclastic emperors such as described by
the worshipers of icons. This eschatology marked the function of political power
until the very end of the empire.
Coming back to the positive trend of imperial eschatology, another legendary
character arose between the fourth and the seventh century: the last good emperor.
The clearest description of the last good emperor appears in the Vision of Pseudo-
Methodius of Patara, written in the context of the Arabic conquest of the eastern
part of the Byzantine Empire around 690 AD, to support the hope of the Byzantines
that their lost territories would be recovered. Eschatology presented this comeback
of the empire as a necessity because Jerusalem was the chosen place for the last
action of the good emperor: he would depose his crown on the holy cross on
Golgotha whence the cross and the crown would ascend to Heaven in anticipation
of the Second Coming of Christ. The legend of Alexander the Great was integrated
into the scenario of the last good emperor. Thus the impure people, locked out by
Alexander behind the iron gates, were identified with the biblical people of Gog
and Magog. The final victory of the Roman emperor was certain, at the price of a
subsequent quick end to history.
After the seventh century, the firm installation of the Arabs in the new
territories produced another shift in eschatological discourse. Constantinople,
already acknowledged as New Rome, began to acquire the features of Jerusalem,
so as to concentrate in one central place the whole scenario of the end. The
emperors themselves, in search of a renewed sacred status after the iconoclastic
crisis, entered into an eschatological mentality. The development of the imperial
palace in Constantinople, and the display there of sacred relics as a reminder of
Christ and his followers were intended to place Jerusalem symbolically at the
center of political power. Some of these attempts to anticipate a final scenario were
criticized by members of the clergy, but the political role of eschatology was
already firmly established. The visions of Daniel and the latter prophecies

3
B. McGinn, Visions of the End, Apocalyptic traditions in the Middle Ages, Columbia University
Press, New York, 1998.
4
P. Magdalino, The history of the future and its uses: prophecy, policy and propaganda,
The Making of Byzantine History. Studies Dedicated to Donald M. Nicol on his Seventieth Birthday,
ed. R. Beaton and C. Rouech (Aldershot, 1993), 334.
Petre Guran 4

76
ascribed to the emperor Leo the Wise continued to build on the same imperial
eschatology
5
.
What is striking in this type of eschatology is the absence of any role of the
Church in the Last Days. Even in the final confrontation with the Antichrist, in
order to encourage the last groups of believers, the main role was given to two
prophets of the past, Enoch and Elijah, whom God received directly in paradise.
A variation occurs in the Apocalypse of Andrew the Fool, who adds Saint John the
Theologian to their company, but there is no attempt to involve any contemporary
clerical figure in the scenario. The Church as an institution was never seen as a
civitas opposed to the earthly empire, as in the West on the Augustinian model.
Another main preoccupation of eschatology was to deconstruct the oppression
of the immediate end. It thus built up a complex chronology to keep the end at a
reasonable distance from the current generation. Already at the beginning of the
third century, Hippolytus proposed a chronology based on the six days of creation
interpreted as six millennia of world history. His calculation proposed a possible
end of history in the first half of the sixth century
6
. Nevertheless the question of the
millennium arose anew with the Christianization of the empire. Eusebius of
Caesarea, founder of the political theology of the Christian empire, suggested the
idea that the Roman empire could be the millennium, as an epoch of diffusion of
the Christian faith and organization of the Church. But this point of view never
prevailed and apocalyptic expectations and new eschatological literature
systematically tormented society. The last Byzantine chronology developed on the
seven days scheme, delaying the end of world history until around 1500.
Nevertheless, already in the fourth century, another concept appeared in
connection with the days of creation: that of the eighth day, the symbol of the
transfigured world after the Second Coming of Christ (Basil the Great mentions it;
the octagonal basilicas of the 4th century could also be linked to this conception).
Completely unhistorical and rather millenarian, this concept emerged together with
the development of the holy liturgy and signifies a vision of the other world during
earthly existence. The liturgy was later interpreted as the 8th day by Maximus
Confessor, the patriarch Germanos and Symeon the New Theologian (+1028).
Ecclesiastical eschatology
The military events of the last decades of the 12th century and the conquest of
Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders and the Venetian fleet caused the break-
up of the Byzantine empire into several political entities competing for its

5
G. Podskalsky, Reprsentation du temps dans leschatologie impriale byzantine, dans Le Temps
chrtien de la fin de lAntiquit au Moyen ge, IIXIII sicles, Paris, 1984, p. 439450.
6
Richard Landes, Lest the Millenium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of
Western Chronography 100800 CE, in W. Verbeke, D. Verhelst, A. Welkenhuysen eds., The Use
and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, Leuven University Press, 1988, p. 137156.
5 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

77
succession. But the harshest issue was the continuation of the Byzantine Church. In
1208, the metropolitans came to the conclusion that an ecumenical patriarch could
be elected and installed in Niceea. Thus the function of patriarch of Constantinople
gained the same universality as the emperor. The image of Moses and Aaron
leading Israel through the desert, used in a eulogy of patriarch Michael
Autoreianos, brought the patriarch to the same level as the emperor. Three other
major crises of the thirteenth century contributed to the development of a
separation of Church and empire: the conflict between the emperor Michael VIII
Paleologus and the patriarch Arsenios over the deposition of John IV Lascaris, the
Union with the Roman Church in Lyons (1274), and the reforms of patriarch
Athanasius (13031310).
As a consequence new monastic movements arose in the fourteenth century
in connexion with political issues of central importance for the empire. After the
more political Arsenite movement, which contested the legitimacy of all the
patriarchs almost half a century after the deposition and banishment of Arsenios
(1262), arose what is generally called the Hesychast movement. At its origins it
was a purely mystical doctrine, based on a particular form of prayer whose
conceptual starting point lies in the great mystics of the fourth century (Evagrius,
Macarius, and some writings of Origen under the name of Nil), but which took a
particular shape with the writings of Symeon the New Theologian (11th c.),
Nikephoros the Solitary (13th c.), the metropolitan Theoleptos of Philadelphia
(13/14th c.), and particularly Gregory Sinaites and Gregory Palamas in the 14th
century. Hesychia (silence standing here for the ascetical practice linked to the Jesus-
prayer) seems to have already been generally practiced on Mount Athos when the
polemic broke out between Barlaam of Calabria, who accused these monks of heresy,
and Gregory Palamas, who took their defense as bearers of particular sainthood. This
was the occasion to give a theological foundation to the mystical aspect of
Hesychasm
7
. The practice of the prayer of the name of God, accompanied by physical
exercise (askesis: similar to Yoga practices) was said to produce the vision of a
heavenly light identified with God himself, called the uncreated light or uncreated
grace of God. Palamas attempted to explain how it was possible to see, to know or to
experience God while He remained essentially unknowable to His creation. He
distinguished between the essence of God, who is beyond any knowledge, and the
manifestations or energies of God, through which God communicates with His
creation. This theology was first banished as a new heresy by leading Byzantine
intellectuals and several bishops until it was recognized as orthodox after several local
church councils held in Constantinople (1341, 1347, 1351, and 1368).
This theological dispute provoked a series of monks to leave their deserts
(monasteries and hermitages mostly on Mount Athos) and to follow Gregory
Palamas to the open political stage, in order to defend his theological opinions.
After the first victory of Palamas theology in 1347, these Palamite monks were
promoted by the emperor John VI Kantakouzenos to the most important metropolitan

7
J. Meyendorff, Introduction l'tude de Grgoire Palamas, Paris, 1959.
Petre Guran 6

78
dioceses of the patriarchate of Constantinople. Their role was decisive in the
Council of 1351 and significant in the intellectual debate that followed during the
next three decades. Members of this group occupied the patriarchal throne until the
end of the 14
th
century (Kallistos, Philotheos Kokkinos, Anthony IV). Philotheos
Kokkinos played the most important role among them in assuring the final victory
of Palamism (1368) and in creating a new conception of the patriarchal function.
Another concern of this group was to spread information about Hesychast
spirituality in other Orthodox territories which no longer belonged to the Byzantine
empire, the eastern patriarchates and the Slavic countries. On the ecclesiastical
level, their strategy was to choose new metropolitans from among their disciples
for the new dioceses in eastern and southeastern Europe (Cyprian and Photius for
Kiev, Anthimus and Chariton for Walachia). The activity of these agents of the
Hesychasts is visible at every level. They were involved in politics, reformed
liturgical practices, influenced the iconography of their age, which is an aspect of
the so-called Paleologan renaissance in art, and spread a particular spiritual
literature in the Slavic commonwealth of Byzantium.
Above all, their political activism is linked with a new perspective on
eschatology, which finds its most powerful expression in Gregory Palamas
writings. This particular accent on eschatology is linked with a new definition of
time. Palamas had to explain how it was possible for the apostles on Mount Tabor,
for instance, as for his friends, the Hesychasts, to have a mystical experience of the
transfigured world of the Second Coming of Christ during their lifetime. His
solution was to consider this event outside any historical context, including even
the apocalyptic scenario of the Last Days. The Second Coming is thus already a
fulfilled reality, which was opened to mankind precisely with the Transfiguration
on Mount Tabor. From that moment Palamas speaks of the consummation of
time and the presence of the kingdom of God among men. When a Christian in
the 14
th
century received the vision of divine light, he automatically became a
contemporary of the apostles on mount Tabor, of Saint Stephen during his
martyrdom, and of the end of History. In order to give a general theological
dimension to the mystical experiences he was describing, which were rather
specific for monks, Palamas showed other ways of obtaining the vision of the
Second Coming: martyrdom, now once again an actuality with the conquest of
Byzantium by a Muslim power, the celebration of the divine liturgy culminating in
the communion, and philanthropic actions.
Nevertheless the understanding of time is radically different for the pious
believer and for the sinner. The former has direct access to the end of history by
using one of the paths of piety Palamas described. The sinner on the contrary is
condemned to fully experience the terror of time. He never meets God during his
lifetime, because he has already suffered the first death, that of the soul. The death
of the body is for him the natural consequence of the first death, after which
follows a long wait for the final resurrection. But even the resurrection is only a
7 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

79
third death, because he cannot experience any more the vision of God. For him the
resurrection is only a condemnation.
Palamas avoids discussion of the first individual judgment after death and the
Last final Judgment, because for him there is no judgment at all for the pious
believer, and only one condemnation for the sinner, at the moment when he rejects
repentance and provokes his first death, that of the soul. Meanwhile in repentance
and prayer, liturgy and Eucharist, the Christian already lives in the Kingdom of
Christ, and the difference between his earthly life and the final transfiguration is
only a matter of intensity of this initial experience. Even if Palamas writings are
basically mystical and built upon the particular experience of the uncreated light in the
Jesus-prayer, in his Homilies he develops several aspects of a liturgical mysticism.
But these experiences of transfiguration, which are of course purely spiritual,
also produce a visible or material manifestation, and he gives the example of
miracle-working relics. The particular power of these earthly remains of saints to
generate spiritual effects is a kind of hint from God regarding the transfigured
reality of this body in the heavenly Kingdom.
The heavenly Kingdom thus runs parallel to earthly history, and at any time
each individual as well as large Eucharistic communities can shift from the torment
of history to the eighth day, the transfigured creation.
The liturgical aspects of this reinterpretation of mystical experience of holy
men were further developed by Nicolas Kabasilas
8
and Symeon of Thessalonica
9
.
Both were disciples of the Hesychasts, with the particularity that the first was a
layman who never took the monastic garment, the second the metropolitan of
Byzantiums second largest city in the most tragic moment of its history (14171429),
when the last Byzantine governor rendered the city to the Venetians during the
Turkish siege. He nevertheless encouraged his compatriots to defend the city and to
be ready to die rather than surrender.
Nicolas Kabasilas (who probably died in the last years of the 14th c.) wrote
the most famous mystical interpretation of the Byzantine liturgy as a direct and
unique experience of the Kingdom of God. He compares, for instance, the
communion with the eschatological experience of God, saying that now and then
the Christian discovers the same reality and the same taste, distinguished only by a
difference of intensity.
Symeons interpretation is more symbolic, but he is equally concerned with
showing the real presence of Christ, not only as Eucharist, but also as high priest
personified by the bishop. In this aspect he follows the classical interpretations of
the liturgy. Nevertheless, his insistence on this aspect shows a more precise interest

8
Nicolas Cabasilas, Explication de la divine liturgie, traduction et notes S. Salaville, S.C. 4bis,
2
e
dition par R. Bornert, J. Gouillard, P. Prichon, Paris, 1967.
9
Symeonis Thessalonicensis Archiepiscopus, De sacra liturgia, PG 155, col. 253304; idem,
De sacra precatione, PG, 155, coll. 536669, traduction anglaise, Saint Symeon of Thessalonike,
Treatise on prayer, translated by H.L.N. Simmons, Hellenic College Press, Brookline, Massachusetts,
1984; idem, De sacris ordinationibus, PG 155, col. 361469; idem, Expositio de divino templo, PG,
155, col. 697749, idem, Responsa ad Gabrielem Pentapolitanum, P.G. 155, col. 829952.
Petre Guran 8

80
in describing the liturgy as a real manifestation of the Kingdom of God. He uses
the Palamite concept of uncreated energies to explain the action and the presence
of God in liturgy. This special application of Palamas theology opened a new
perspective to what was initially only a particular mystical vision of a few hermits
on Mount Athos and eventually became the core of Orthodox spirituality.
Another old preoccupation of the Byzantines was their relation with the
Muslims and, as a corollary, the Jews. In the fourteenth century the Byzantine
empire and the Church were confronted with a new reality: the Muslim Turks had
conquered almost all of Anatolia (only a few districts and towns survived, but
without a strong link to the empire, such as Philadelphia), and began from the
middle of the 14th c. to establish their control over the Balkans. The recovery of all
these territories was nothing more than a dream; meanwhile large Christian
communities continued to live under the new conqueror. Even a successful war
could not bring about the conversion of the Muslims. Thus the disciples of Palamas
imagined that the Christian communities in infidel territories and their pastors were
charged with a new mission: to convert the Muslims from the inside. In the sermon
in honor of Gregory Palamas (enkomion) Philotheos Kokkinos clearly states that
Palamas captivity to the Turks in 1354, as he was sailing from Thessalonica to
Constantinople to mediate between Kantakouzenos and Palaiologos, was a decision
of God to send him to the Turks as an apostle. Palamas himself, in a letter written
from captivity, exposes his theological debates with representatives of the Muslims
and with a Judeo-Christian sect, explaining that this mission was necessary in order
to accomplish Gods will that before the end of the world the whole mankind
should have been instructed about Christ
10
.
John Kantakouzenos, in a collection of his works (Parisinus gr. 1242), copied
and illuminated under his control, draws an ideal portrait of the new carrier of the
Christian mission. The manuscript contains four polemical works: against those
who oppose Palamas theology, against the Latins, against the Muslims and against
the Jews. In front of the eight discourses against the Muslims the manuscript
displays a double portrait of the John VI, one as emperor, the other as monk
11
.
While the emperor is in a hieratically inexpressive position, the monk points
dynamically his hand to an image of the Trinity above the double portrait and holds
in his other hand a scroll with the incipit of his writing, Great is the God of
Christians. The image of the Trinity stresses the presence of Christ in the scene of
the visitation of Abraham at Mambree, because the central angel has a cruciform
nimbus
12
. The image is clearly a condensed explanation about the author of this
writing. Thus for Kantakouzenos, it is the monk who glorifies God and assumes the
universal mission through the demonstration of the true faith. But there is another

10
A. Philippidis-Braat, La captivit de Palamas chez les Turcs: Dossier et Commentaire, Travaux
et Mmoires, 7, 1979, p. 136137, p. 160161, 29.
11
P. Guran, Jean VI Cantacuzne, lhsychasme et lempire. Les miniatures du codex Parisinus
graecus 1242, in Lempereur hagiographe. Culte des saints et monarchie byzantine et post-byzantine,
eds P. Guran, B. Flusin, Bucharest, 2001, 73122.
12
H. Belting, Das illuminierte Buch in der sptbyzantinischen Gesellschaft, Heidelberg, 1970, p. 85.
9 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

81
detail in Kantakouzenos dialogue with the Jew Xenos, which confirms the shift in
the eschatological view of the epoch. When they come to discuss the promise of
God to send a Messiah, Kantakouzenos mentions the role of Enoch and Elijah, as
forerunners of His Coming and explains to Xenos, that this prophecy regards their
role in the Second Coming of Christ, when they are to assume the mission to
convert the Jews before the end of the world
13
. He thus reaffirms the primacy of the
spiritual signs of the last days over any fixed chronology and restores the initial
meaning of this prophecy, to preach the coming of Christ to the Jews and not to the
New Israel, the Christians, as it was interpreted in classical Byzantine eschatology.
He also eliminates another previous interpretation, which identified Elijah with
Saint John the Baptist. Simultaneously, he denies any imperial role in the
conversion of the Jews, as several emperors of the past had tried to impose it. This
change operated by Kantakouzenos could also be understood as proof that his
dialogue was real, or at least responding to real questions of his Jewish
contemporaries. As far as I know the only Church father of the past who proposed
this interpretation on Enoch and Elijah was Augustine, whose De civitate Dei could
hardly have been known by Kantakouzenos
14
.
These commentaries of Kantakouzenos recall a text, written most probably
by Gregory Palamas himself and signed by a great number of abbots and highly
venerated monks of Mount Athos in defense of the vision of the uncreated light of
God, known as the Tomos of the Holy Mountain. There the monks are presented as
the new prophets. As in the Old Testament the prophets announced to Israel the
first Coming of Christ, the monks now announce through their visions of the
Kingdom of God the Second Coming of Christ. In a way they are playing the role
of Elijah and Enoch for the whole of mankind.
Taking monastic vows under the name of Josaphat was for Kantakouzenos a
statement of political theology. During his thirty years of monastic life he
continued to remember that he was once emperor, but chose the angelic way of life
under the name of Josaphat. Josaphat was the main character of the legend of
Barlaam and Josaphat, which attained to hagiographic status only late in the
thirteenth century. This legend exalted a prince who not only converted his
kingdom to the Christian faith but also abandoned political power and took to the
desert to lead a hermits life. Kantakouzenos was in a way this Josaphat: he
converted Byzantium to Palamas theology, established the reign of the monks in
the Church and abandoned power for a new mission as a Hesychast monk, in order
to spread the knowledge of Palamas theology and convert heretics, schismatics,
Muslims and Jews to Orthodoxy. Like his fellow Hesychasts he was a prophet of
the Second Coming, which was no longer at the end of an awesome future, but
within the past, present and future mystical experience of the Transfiguration on

13
Ch. G. Soteropulos, Ioannou VI Cantacuzinou kata Ioudaion Logoi ennea (to proton nun
ekdidomenoi). Eisagoge, keimenon, scholia, Athens, 1983, p. 213.
14
Saint Augustin, De civitate Dei, XX, 29 et 30.
Petre Guran 10

82
Mount Tabor. One of the four images chosen by Kantakouzenos to adorn his
manuscript was precisely the Transfiguration.
It is striking to discover in this particular conception of the monk put forth by
the Hesychasts a resemblance with the eschatological aspects of Western
spirituality, in the works of Joachim da Fiore, Peter Olivi, and Master Eckhart. It
would be wrong to ascribe solely to Western influence the importance of the
Hesychast movement in the last centuries of Byzantium. Hesychasm is deeply
rooted in Byzantine spirituality, and it would thus be more appropriate to see in this
parallel phenomenon an internal logic of Christian spirituality which developed a
systematic tendency to take refuge in eschatology in the face of the challenging
realities of history. It is nevertheless remarkable that our Byzantine mystics
preferred to avoid any prophecy of an immediate end and even to refute any
possibility of calculating the end of the world. They thus repeated the old strategy
of postponing the end for several generations.
As the fatal date, 1492, the year 7000 in Byzantine chronology, drew nearer
at the turn of the 15
th
century, the apocalyptic fears grew more intense. The
emperor Manuel Paleologus questioned an Athonite monk about the end of the
world, the conquest of Constantinople and the holy emperor to come and desired
to know about the seventh millennium, if the time would be prolonged, or if the
end would come
15
. Was 1492 an unavoidable deadline? Joseph Bryennios,
Palamite monk and imperial chaplain in the 1420s, and Symeon of Thessalonica,
decidedly answered in the negative
16
. Not only could no one foretell the end, but
also God had the freedom to continue the material existence of the world until the
number of elected would be fulfilled. In any case, each individuals end is an
eschatological term certain enough to make any discussion about the general end of
the world superfluous, as Joseph Bryennios proclaimed in front of the emperor and
the court. But if Gods Kingdom is the divine light experienced by the monks, what
greater joy could a Christian expect than the coming of this kingdom? Far ahead or
during this generation, the fear of a dreaded end of the world did not exist for these
mystics.
In the series of Palamite personalities who spoke against a world end
chronology Gennadios Scholarios represents the only exception. In his late days,
upset by the intrigues of his compatriots against his leadership in the Church, he
wrote, around 1471, a chronological calculation, which confirmed a possible date
of the end in 1492 or in 1513 and announced the beginning of the eighth eternal
millennium. He also exchanged the more classical scheme of the four successive
universal empires, derived from the dream of the prophet Daniel, with seven empires,

15
M-H. Congourdeau, Courants de pense apocalyptiques Byzance sous les Palologues,
B. Lellouch et S. Yerasimos ed., Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de
Constantinople (Actes du colloque dIstanbul, avril 1996), Varia Turcica XXXIII, Paris 1999.
16
A Rigo, Lanno 7000, la fine del mondo et lImpero cristiano. Nota su alcuni passi di Giuseppe
Briennio, Simeone di Tessalonica et Gennadio Scholario, La cattura de la fine. Variazzione
dellescatologia in regime di cristianit, Marietti, 1992.
11 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

83
of which the last was the Roman empire, which had already come to its end. The
eighth empire is the eternal Kingdom of Christ. The text of Gennadios is more a
brief sketch than a developed eschatological theory and it is difficult to explore it
further, especially because he contradicts his former opinion, written in 1464, in a
Refutation of the Jewish Religion
17
. In this earlier work he expresses the view that
even if astrological calculations and the prophecies of the Scriptures coincide to
announce the end in the seventh millennium, this end may occur earlier, or at the
precise moment of the year 7000, or afterwards; no one could foretell it. One thing
is nevertheless certain: the Christian empire has come to an end, and no other
empire or continuation of the Roman empire was to be expected. From Gennadios
point of view a Third Rome was no longer possible.
Gennadios is one of those who changed their minds about the union with the
Roman Church, on the way back from Ferrara-Florence
18
. Having taken the
monastic vows, he became in the 1440s the successor of Markus of Ephesos, the
Palamite theologian who had refused to sign the Union of Florence, as leader of the
anti-unionists of Constantinople, denouncing the union as a betrayal of the Church.
In his eschatological considerations he explains the fall of the empire as a
consequence of the fall into heresy of the Church. Two leaders whose names began
with I, the Greek interjection woe, Ianns and Isph, accomplished the ruin of
the Church and of the empire. When he wrote these lines, around 1471, Gennadios
was apparently minded to reject the legitimacy of his successors on the patriarchal
throne. He knew of course that the Church continued to exist after the fall of
Constantinople, that it had rejected the union of Ferrara-Florence and was thus
orthodox again. It is important to note that the idea of a possible betrayal of the
Church by an emperor had already circulated in Byzantium. Almost two centuries
before Gennadios, the monk Kosmas Andritzopoulos prophesized the end of the
empire because of the Union of Lyons (1274), linking to this historical event a
numerological argument (the addition of the letters of the cross giving 1271),
which reckoned the number of years after Christ, allocated by God to the Christian
empire
19
.
The last centuries of Byzantium did not produce any new text in the genre of
imperial eschatology. Instead, the oracular literature, like the Oracula Leonis (12th

17
M-H. Congourdeau, Courants de pense apocalyptiques Byzance sous les Palologues,
B. Lellouch et S. Yerasimos ed., Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople
(Actes du colloque dIstanbul, avril 1996), Varia Turcica XXXIII, Paris 1999
18
Marie-Hlne Blanchet, Georges Gennadios Scholarios a-t-il t trois fois patriarche de
Constantinople?, Byzantion 71, 2001, p. 6072 ; eadem La question de l'Union des Eglises
(XIII
e
XV
e
sicle): historiographie et perspectives, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 61, 2003, p. 548 ;
eadem, Les divisions de l'Eglise byzantine aprs le concile de Florence (1439) d'aprs un passage des
Antirrhtiques de Jean Eugnikos, dans Hommage Alain Ducellier. Byzance et ses priphries,
d. B. Doumerc et Ch. Picard, Toulouse 2004, p. 1739.
19
M-H. Congourdeau, Courants de pense apocalyptiques Byzance sous les Palologues, in
B. Lellouch et S. Yerasimos ed., Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de
Constantinople (Actes du colloque dIstanbul, avril 1996), Varia Turcica XXXIII, Paris, 1999.
Petre Guran 12

84
and 13th century
20
), replaced the more ancient apocalyptic models of the Visio
Danielis. Nevertheless the only new piece of oracular literature in the 14th century
is the Centon on the poor emperor
21
, a puzzle of eschatological themes turned to
historical oracula and conceived to nourish the Byzantines hope of a miraculous
restoration of the empire. But the Hesychasts rejected precisely any necessity of the
empire for the salvation of mankind. For Palamas, Joseph Bryennios, Symeon of
Thessalonica and Scholarios, the end of the world could occur without a last good
emperor. This important eschatological theme (built upon the verses of the Psalm
68, 31)
22
was reconfigured into the legend of the poor or sleeping emperor, whose
task was, after 1453, solely to deliver Constantinople.
The diminishing of the production of imperial eschatological literature in the
last centuries of Byzantium finds its counterpart in the mystical eschatology of
Gregory Palamas and his followers. The consciousness of a universal role of the
Church in an oikoumene that was largely outside the borders of the empire arose
already in the thirteenth century, but it was strengthened by the mystical
eschatology of Palamas. As we have said, eschatology was a central point in the
political theology of Eusebius of Caesarea. Once the empire and the emperor lost
their role in eschatological perspective, the ground for political theology vanished.
Meanwhile, the more significant definition of the Church as an eschatological
community placed its leaders at the summit of Christian society.
As the question of the Union with Rome deeply divided the Byzantine elite,
their interpretation of the events that followed Ferrara-Florence was divergent. The
Unionists mostly choose exile and continued to long after the fallen empire, even if
they saw its fall as a punishment for the betrayal of the Union. Those who opposed
the Union accepted the end of the empire as legitimate punishment for their sins
(Scholarios cites several examples of such sins), and took the responsibility of
organizing the Christian community in the Ottoman empire. Thus the former,
continuing the classical political eschatology of the Byzantine empire, recognized
in Mahomet II the Antichrist (Isidore of Kiev and Doukas), while some of the anti-
Unionists who stayed in Constantinople saw in him a possible successor to the
empire (in return for conversion to the catholic Church even pope Pius II might
have acknowledged him as Roman emperor).
The fall of Constantinople accomplished the separation of Church and
empire, but the conceptual construction of this separation has been already prepared
by the Hesychasts in the 14th century. A spiritual elite took over the leadership

20
E. Legrand, Les oracles de Lon le Sage, Paris, 1875; C. Mango, The Legend of Leo the Wise,
Zbornik Radova Vizant. Inst., VI (Belgrade, 1960) p. 5993.
21
C. Mango, The Legend of Leo the Wise, art. cit.
22
Psalm 68, 31 (let Ethiopia stretch out her hands to God) and Saint Pauls Epistle to the
Corinthians 15, 24 (Christ delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, after deposing every
sovereignty, authority and power) include the image of handing over the power to God. In the Psalm
this gesture is ascribed to Cusheth, Ethiopia, and in Pauls verse it is the Son of God who renders
universal kingship to the Father.
13 Eschatology and Political Theology in the Last Centuries of Byzantium

85
of the Church: the bishop-monks. Their teachings on the real presence of Christ
with his flock replaced the earthly emperor, once considered an icon of Christ, with
the heavenly emperor, whom the bishops now represented in liturgy. The
Hesychasts theology about the real presence of Christ found an application in
iconography. A new icon was created in the last decades of the 14th century:
representing Christ clad with the imperial and the episcopal garments. This image
took a central space in the naos of orthodox churches
23
.
After this long development of the theological content of Hesychasm, I
would like to insist on the political influence of this doctrine. As we have seen, this
doctrine no longer relied on the necessity of a political katechon, personified by the
emperor. The end of the world was not, in the hesychast doctrine, primarily a
material and collective end, but an individual spiritual event
24
. Thus in the beliefs
about the historical end of the world we note a shift from the theologico-political
role of the empire to the spiritual guidance of the Church.
Thus the importance of the empire is dramatically reduced with respect to the
end of history. This latter became a matter of spirituality and the Church took the
leading role in eschatological thought. This new representation of the end of the
world was the only conceivable one given that the empire was undoubtedly coming
to its end, while the material world was likely to go on. A new pattern explaining a
radically different scenario of the end was a necessity for the Christian society of
that time. For the Byzantine Christian it was of fundamental importance to
understand the world in which he existed. This implied understanding where the
world was headed, that is, the end of the world. Christians needed an explanation, a
representation to make the political events they were witnessing comprehensible
and acceptable. This is why the issue of the end of the world was so important and
was part of political ideology.
Hesychast spirituality recreated in the context of Byzantiums decline and fall
the Augustinian theory of the two cities; and as in Western ecclesiology, the
Church identified itself with the city of God. Christian society was thus depicted as
a community of saints crossing through history from an impossible Third Rome to
the Heavenly Jerusalem
25
. Byzantium left to its post-Byzantine successors a
political theology which inhibited any revival project of Byzantium.

23
This iconographical theme, also called the royal dsis, represents generally the Christ on a
throne between the Holy Virgin and Saint John the Baptist, the first example is an icon, of Byzantine
or Serbian origin, now in the Dormition cathedral in the Kremlin of Moscow, Vizantija, Balkany,
Rus, Ikony XIIIXIV vekov, catalogue de lexposition loccasion du Congrs international des tudes
byzantines, Moscou, 1991, n
o
49 et p. 229 ; E. Ja. Ostaenko, Ob ikonografieskom tipe icony
Predsta Carica Uspenskogo sobora moskovskogo kremlja, Drevne-russkoe iskusstvo, Akademia Nauk
SSSR, Moscow, 1977, p. 175186, see also P. Guran, Le Christ empereur et prtre, Revue Roumaine
dHistoire, 2007.
24
P. Guran, Leschatologie de Palamas entre thologie et politique, Etudes byzantines et
post-byzantines , Bucharest, 5, 2006, p. 291320.
25
Such might be the sense of a large icon called Cerkov vojnstvujuaja (the militant
Church), supposedly displayed above the throne of Ivan the Terrible in the Kremlin of Moscow.