Review of the book by I. Andreev “Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius”

See also: Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius, Professor Ivan Dmitrievich Andreev Ivan Andreev. Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius. (Chronology of these patriarchs and sketches of the life and work of the most important of them). First issue. Chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius and sketches of the life and work of Sts. Anatoly, Gennady and John the Faster. Sergiev Posad. 1895 Chronological research in the field of historical science, due to the special properties of the subject under study, is very complex and very difficult, but at the same time very desirable and necessary. Without an accurate determination of historical and chronological dates, it is impossible to imagine the proper and true sequence of facts, and often to understand their true meaning. Therefore, establishing the chronology of historical facts has always been one of the first concerns of every historian, but not always and not everywhere this concern has been crowned with success. There are sections of history in which, due to faulty, confused and generally poor-quality sources, as well as some other reasons, the exact chronology of facts has not yet been established by proper review. By the way, this department of historical knowledge, which is called Byzantology, cannot but be included here. A feeling of deficiency in this regard takes possession of everyone who devotes himself to a special study of this or that era of Byzantine history and this or that aspect of Byzantine life. The need to eliminate this shortcoming among scientists has long been recognized, and it cannot be said that no measures have been taken to eliminate it. Our Imperial Academy of Sciences back in 1809, at the suggestion of Academician Krug, proposed the topic of complete Byzantine chronology for a prize. But a more or less satisfactory answer appeared only 40 years later, when the topic was repeated. This is “The Experience of Byzantine Chronography” by Muralta. The first part of this “Experience” from 395 to 1057 was printed at the expense of the Academy in 1855, and the second, from 1057 to 1453, by Muralt himself in 1871. In Muralt’s work, reviewers at one time pointed out its significant shortcomings, and now with the development of the scientific study of documents relating to the Byzantine history of such shortcomings Even more is revealed. At the same time, of course, the need for new chronographic research in this area is being realized more and more vividly. Book Iv. Andreeva to some extent meets the urgent need and is, by the way, something very desirable. True, for his chronological research the author takes a relatively short period of Byzantine history from the half of the 5th century. up to half IX, i.e. only four centuries (457 - 846), and even in this period he allocates himself a very limited area, setting the task of establishing the dates of the beginning and end of the government of the church of each of the Patriarchs of Constantinople of this period; but even in such a limited field, serious work and achievement of results important for the entire Byzantine chronography in general are possible. If the author managed to accurately establish several dozen dates in the space of the indicated period that were previously doubtful, then this is already a very big gain for science, for each precisely established date becomes, as it were, a kind of basis for further research, for correcting and establishing other related, but doubtful dates, as well as generally for improving the chronological network of Byzantine history. G. Andreev undoubtedly managed to do this and this is his merit. Let's see what exactly he gives in his research. Mr. Andreev's study consists of only four chapters, preceded by an introduction. The first chapter is devoted to a review of the manual for studying the chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius. For some reason, this author begins the review with later manuals, namely: Experience of Byzantine chronography by Muralta (1855) and Πατριαρχιϰοί πίναϰες Gideon (1884). This is followed by works from the first half of the 18th century: “Treatise on the Patriarchs of Constantinople” by Le Quesne in his work Oriens Christianus, “Bandurius’s Notes on the Catalog of Nicephorus Callistus” in his Imperium Orientale and “Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople” by Bollandist Cooper in Asta Sanctorum. August. And then the author again moves on to the later works of Gergenroeter and others, presenting, however, almost only a simple list of them. All of the named manuals have obviously been studied very carefully by the author, and he gives us a detailed analysis of those that he considers more important. Without hiding their merits, in accordance with his goals, he carefully notes their shortcomings and mistakes, confirming his instructions with examples and at the same time trying to find out the reasons that caused these or those shortcomings and mistakes. Muralta's “Experience” seems to the author to be one of the best tools for familiarizing himself with the chronology of the patriarchs, which he took to study the period. The material for this chronology, which consists of various kinds of chronicles and histories, that is, the most valuable material, has been almost completely exhausted by Muralt. But for all that, this chronology is very far from scientific perfection, from the desired accuracy and infallibility, since it does not evaluate the dignity and significance of the chronological testimony of the sources themselves. Having an insufficiently clear understanding of the comparative merits of chronological sources, Muralt sometimes makes completely unnecessary and useless quotations from sources that have no significance, and does not value truly valuable indications. The author accuses Gideon of the same deficiency to an even greater extent. In his opinion, Gideon did not take advantage of all the evidence from all sources of the chronology of the patriarchs of the indicated period, and what he used, he used in his case without proper critical processing. Relying on the dates he accepted is very dangerous for the patriarchs. The same dominant lack, i.e. Our author finds the absence of any critical treatment of sources in Le Quesne, Banduria, and Cooper. This state of affairs, in his opinion, depended entirely on those “views on the methods of processing chronology that prevailed among scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries, when the idea of ​​​​investigating the competence of chronological sources was still in its infancy, when all evidence, no matter what authors it belonged to, was accepted as equal. In such a state of affairs, mistakes inevitably crept in; but there was even more room for arbitrariness: often what was chosen and accepted as true was not that evidence that was recorded under circumstances favorable to its accuracy, but another simply because it was still evidence from a source” (p. 35). Only in Cooper does he find glimpses of scientific criticism and careful verification of some evidence by others; but this depended on a fortuitous circumstance, on the extraordinary (comparatively) abundance of materials that he could have at his disposal, as a member of the Bollandist society, which published the famous Acta Sanctorum and owned such book treasures that an individual scientist does not even dare to dream of, and not on a living consciousness of the need to improve critical techniques. As a result, according to Mr. Andreev, “the very circumstance that in some places of the treatise helped Cooper to correct the shortcomings of his predecessors, to find new, better methods of relating to sources - we mean the abundance of materials - in other places only more clearly demonstrates the author’s inability to understand the mass of evidence, only more reveals the stretches that he allows himself, only makes more unpardonable the arbitrariness with which he sometimes bypasses the contradictions of sources in favor of an unfounded preconceived date” (p. 37). “Some of his valuable notes remained random thoughts that did not receive proper development and influence on the course of his work” (39). Expressing such a judgment about his predecessors, Mr. Andreev confirms this judgment with many very expressive examples. In general, of course, he is right, but then what kind of “help” could the treatises he so carefully studied and analyzed provide him? It seems to us that almost none. He himself says this about some of them, for example, about the works of Gideon, Hergenroeter and even Le Quesne; in others he finds something useful for himself, but to a very small extent. Thus, about Muralta, he says that “some of his guesses may be important in establishing a particular date, but that his work is especially important as a conscientious collection of material, which in many ways facilitated the work” of our author. Bandurius's "Notes" are an excellent auxiliary tool for him when using the extensive interpretations of Baronius and Paga on the chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. About Cooper Mr. Andreev says that his essay will be useful for his purpose mainly in the sense that from it he will draw this or that evidence that he is not able to borrow from the original sources and of which Cooper has quite a lot. In addition, Cooper has many ingenious techniques for reconciling differences in various chronological evidence, which also provided our author with considerable assistance. From these reviews it is not difficult to notice that only Cooper provides some significant assistance to the author in those cases when he replaces inaccessible primary sources. The help of other scientists, as well as Cooper, in other respects other than those indicated, is completely insignificant. And in fact, with the method that the author outlines for himself for research, what help could he be provided by scientists to whom such a method is completely alien? The most essential aspect of the method proposed by Mr. Andreev for his research is not to obey “manuals” in his conclusions, but to be based solely on “primary sources”, moreover, first thoroughly examined in terms of their chronological value or the reliability of their chronological testimony. But since, according to the author, on this side the sources he needed have not yet been examined in science, and their assessment in this regard exists “more in idea than in reality,” he was forced to take on this work entirely, along with the complex grunt work (see introductory pages 9 – 12). This task was completed by Mr. Andreev in the second chapter of his work, which contains a “Review of sources for the chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople from the time of the Council of Chalcedon to Photius.” This chapter is the largest in the work and dominates over all other chapters by its size and the wealth of matters treated in it. The author here, with greater diligence, performs the task that none of his predecessors found necessary to perform - he makes a critical assessment of the sources containing chronological evidence, decides the questions of which of these sources deserve more trust, which deserve less, how corrections should be made in known places in the sources, how to reconcile conflicting dates, how to convert different ancient calendars to a new one, etc. (see introductory page 8). In this chapter, the following sources are subjected to critical examination in this type: Chronicle of Marcellinus, Chronicle of Victor of Tunun, Chronography of John Malala, Easter Chronicle, Church History of John of Ephesus, Chronicle of Theophanes, Brief History of Patriarch Nicephorus, Chronicle of the successor Theophanes and Genesius, Historia miscella, Historiarum compendium of Kedrin, Chronicle of John Zonars, Catalogs of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Menology, etc. All these sources are obviously studied by the author with no less care, like the above manuals, and about all of them he gives very detailed information, about some large, about others smaller, depending on the size and nature of the source. He does not ignore even those that have no significance; such, for example, is the Historia miscella, about which the author, having provided the necessary information on page 130, notes that it “cannot be of any use in writing the chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople.” Therefore, there was hardly any need to talk about it. But as for other, especially important sources, a thorough study of them from the point of view of reliability is of course highly desirable. We now have such a study in Mr. Andreev’s book. He begins his review with two little-studied ancient Latin chronicles of Marcellinus Comite and Victor Bishop of Tunun. Both chroniclers were successors of Jerome, who translated the chronicle of Eusebius into Latin, and both lived under circumstances that gave them the opportunity to reliably know the chronological data regarding some of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. From Marcellinus, whose chronicle continues to cover the time period from 379 to 566, Mr. Andreev finds it possible to take the eight dates he needs, “the reliability of which is affirmed on very solid grounds and satisfies all the conditions under which the date cannot raise doubts” (p. 48). But as for Victor of Tununsky, who brought his chronicle from 444 to to 566, then in view of the fact that all the researchers who started talking about this chronicle complain about the confusion of its chronological testimony, and also in view of the fact that Victor, drawing his chronological material sometimes from unreliable sources, must have made mistakes in his work, the author finds it possible to use his testimony only to the extent that he agrees with the testimony of other sources, and does not consider himself to have the right to give them preference over others sources; Our author considers only two dates for Victor, or rather one, to be undoubtedly accurate, namely 565, that is, the year of the exile of Eutyches and the erection of John Scholasticus. Since both chroniclers calculate chronology in a way that has long gone out of use, according to consuls and indicts, the author finds it necessary to indicate the rules on how to proceed in order to find the exact designation of years according to our and other chronology. The above two ancient Latin chronicles are followed by two also very ancient Greek chronicles - Malala and Easter, each giving the author the five dates he needs. In the paragraph about Malala, the author is mainly concerned with determining the time when the chronography known under his name was written. Contrary to the opinion of Godius, who attributed this chronography to the 9th century, Andreev, in agreement with Kave, Geltzer and Krumbacher, proves that “if not with certainty, then with high probability it can be argued that the chronography of Malala was written not long after Justinian,” i.e. at the end of the 6th or at the beginning of the 7th century. Some of his evidence is very ingenious and new. The paragraph on the Easter Chronicle also raises the question of the time of its origin and whether it belongs to two authors. According to Andreev, “if the ownership of this chronicle by two authors is still sometimes disputed, then it seems that there can be no longer a dispute about the writing of its second part during the time of Emperor Heraclius.” To confirm this, a significant amount of very strong evidence is provided, and in conclusion, the relationship is established between the numbers - ours and those used by the author of the Easter Chronicle. Having then made a remark about the few, but extremely important chronological indications in the “History” of John of Ephesus regarding the patriarchs - Eutyches and John III the scholastic, Mr. Andreev proceeded to a detailed analysis of the chronicle of Theophanes. The study of Theophanes' chronicle occupies a whole half, and even not much more, of the second largest chapter in Mr. Andreev's work. The author deals with this “chronicle” with special care and even love. He goes into all sorts of details and does not leave without attention a single question of any importance related to her chronological testimony. This is explained by the fact that Feofan for Mr. Andreev is essentially the main source, since it contains dates for all the Patriarchs of Constantinople of the period he studied, but the source is no longer primary in all parts, significantly distorted by various amendments and additions, and as a result in need of careful critical verification and restoration. In accordance with these, the author set himself two tasks: 1) determine the conditions under which the chronicle was compiled; 2) determine, if possible, what undoubtedly belongs to Theophanes in it and what to the interpolators. Both of these tasks are very complex and absurd, especially since after the critical publication of this “chronicle” by De-Boor, special attention was paid to it and they began to study it a lot, as a result of which, on various issues related to it, many different opinions and reasoning emerged, often contradictory and not entirely substantiated. The author must take these opinions into account, which is why his work and the size of his research had to increase. In fulfillment of his first task, the author gives biographical information about Theophanes, about the time of his life, in order to see which patriarchs he was a contemporary and what events he witnessed - about his upbringing, character and direction, in order to know how capable he was of being accurate and prudent. The conclusion from the biographical facts is that Theophanes was in quite favorable conditions, both in his education and in his external position, for carrying out such work as writing his chronography. Even more: “on Feofan’s part, all the conditions for the successful completion of the chronicle he undertook were in place. True to the behest of his predecessor George Sincellus, who brought his chronicle only to Diocletian, Theophanes in his chronography sought to “denote years with all possible accuracy” and “to place each event clearly in its chronological place... Meanwhile, whoever starts talking about Theophanes’ work considers it their duty to be the first to say that his chronological network is extremely confused, contradictory, and suffers from inaccuracies” (p. 75). Since a significant part of the contradictions and confusion must be attributed to Theophanes’s copyists and readers, hence the need for the second task - to determine which of the chronological indications he has belong to him and which belong to interpolators. The author believes that if we set ourselves such a task in relation to the entire chronological apparatus of the Theophanean Chronicle, then solving it is fraught with almost insurmountable difficulties, but fortunately for him there is no need for this, and in the part of this testimony that interests him, the situation is even more favorable, since a document has been preserved that makes it possible to make an accurate verification of the Theophanean dates. This document is a Latin translation of the Chronicle of Theophanes, made by Anastasius the librarian no more than 60 years after the publication of the original, when this original, in all likelihood, had not yet had time to undergo significant distortions and be filled with third-party additions. The author places the significance of Anastasius’ translation for criticism of the original very highly, contrary to De-Boor, who says that “the significance of translation for criticism of the original text is not entirely great.” Mr. Andreev tries to confirm his idea on the most accurate data with the help of a detailed comparison of the translation with the original. From this comparison it is clear that Anastasius’s translation serves as a precious source for verifying the chronological evidence of the modern original of Theophanes’ chronicle. True, when translating the “chronicle,” in accordance with his purpose, Anastasius shortened it, making significant omissions, but these omissions relate only to civil events, and not church ones; Anastasius retained all the church-historical information from the original in his translation. This is not even contradicted by the absence of a chronology of the first Patriarchs of Constantinople in Anastasius’s translation, since this absence, which does not correspond to the chronological tables of the modern text, is explained by the fact that only part of these tables belongs to Theophanes, that these tables are interpolated on the basis of the chronography of Patriarch Nicephorus, and Theophanes himself led them undoubtedly differently from the way they exist now. The author proves all this in great detail and draws the conclusion that it is indisputable that only those dates of the Patriarchs of Constantinople that are in Anastasius’s translation belong to Theophan, the same dates that are not in this translation, extra dates, can be taken into account only on the assumption that even if they do not belong to Theophan, they are still the works of readers and copyists who could obtain very detailed sources for the chronology of their patriarchs; in any case, these dates are not necessary without verification from other sources. In addition to the translation of Anastasius, according to Andreev, in some cases the testimony of Theophanes himself can serve to verify the chronological testimony of Theophanes. True, not everything can be checked this way; however, the dates of the 12 patriarchs, starting with George (from November 679) and ending with Tarasius, can receive special strength through such verification. In this case, this verification is possible because Theophanes mentions these patriarchs twice in different places in his chronicle. But no matter how firmly the text of Theophan’s chronicle relating to church-historical events and the chronology of the patriarchs is established through verification, the difficulties in using it are far from completely eliminated. There are still many and important difficulties arising from the way Feofan kept his chronicle. In view of this, Mr. Andreev considers it very useful to note and explain these features of Feofan’s chronography. He finds two such features that can mislead or bewilder the researcher - this is, firstly, the custom of designating the duration of the reign of patriarchs in round numbers and, secondly, the custom of starting to count the years of the reign of a particular patriarch, sometimes completely incorrectly, from the year following the death of the previous patriarch, even if he ascended the throne in the same year in which his predecessor died. De-Boor is very strict about such confusion, finding in it a reason to suspect the good quality of the entire chronology of Theophanes. But Mr. Andreev does not agree with such a strict conclusion and, through examples, shows that this confusion can easily be eliminated with careful attention to the matter. Further, the author explains what era Theophanes uses, and how to convert Theophanes’ years to our years, he also talks about chronology by indicts, about the relationship between indicts and years from R. Chr. in the chronography of Feofan. At the same time, he especially notes the strange fact, which attracted the attention of many scientists, that in a significant part of Theophanes’s chronicle there is a discrepancy between the indict number and the year number by one, so that one year seems to be missing. This discrepancy begins with 602 and ends with 775. In order to explain this oddity in science, a hypothesis arose that in the era of the Isaurian dynasty The Greeks had a special chronology, which, relative to the generally known and generally accepted one, contained a difference of one year. The creators of this hypothesis were the learned jurists Tsakhariye and especially Heimbach. About 17 years ago, Professor V.G. Vasilievsky touched upon this hypothesis in passing and rejected it as unfounded, proposing to explain this discrepancy simply as an error. But Mr. Andreev says about this hypothesis of Heimbach (pp. 108 - 109) that this “statement of his he recognizes, although with some limitations, as completely correct,” contrary to the review of Professor Vasilievsky, against whom he expresses strong displeasure under the lines. However, then, having begun to make restrictions, he himself comes to the conclusion that in this case Theophanes does not have any other chronology, then “a violation of the usual relationship of indicts and years is only Theophanes’ mistake - an error caused by the omission of one year” (p. 125), and that, therefore, for a certain period in Theophanes’ chronicle, preference should be given to the designation of indicts over the designation of years from the creation of the world and from R. Chr., for an error touched only the latter, not the former. By explaining the importance of the conclusion he reached, the author ends his discussion about Theophanes. The value of the chronological testimony of the “short history” of Patriarch Nicephorus, and the “chronicles” of the anonymous successor Theophanes and Genesius, is further explained. In Nikephoros, the author finds dates for the five patriarchs of the period he is studying, and, in his opinion, the historical value of these dates “should be placed above all doubt.” But as for Genesius and the successor Feofanov, both of these authors are very stingy with chronological evidence and, moreover, do not always borrow them from good-quality sources, and therefore some of the dates they report are not clear, others are random and raise doubts. The chronicles considered end the series of primary sources for the chronology of the patriarchs of the period studied by Mr. Andreev. What follows are chronicles of a compilation nature. The chronological instructions contained in them are mostly copied from earlier and above-mentioned authors, and therefore their significance is not great. Thus, the Historia miscella cannot be of any use in writing the chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople; the Historiarum compendium of George Kedrin has some significance only for criticizing the text of Theophanes’ chronicle, in no way complementing the value in this regard of Anastasius’s translation. The chronicle of John Zonara is more valuable, since Zonara subjected his sources to such significant processing that it is not possible to reduce them to the works that have reached us, as a result of which it is a very likely assumption that most of the historical works that he used are now lost. Zonara undoubtedly used Theophanes, but what he used besides Theophanes is very difficult and even hardly possible to determine. As a result, his testimony receives special significance. As a 12th-century author, he could have at hand more abundant and more accurate sources for the chronology of the patriarchs of his hometown than those that have come down to us. Its significance is also increased by the fact that he very clearly sets himself, among other things, a special task - to keep track of “which persons occupied the See of Constantinople, how long each of them... and when any of them died,” and then from the fact that dates are indicated in his chronicle not by numbers, but by words and therefore could be less subject to damage. After the compilation chronicles, Mr. Andreev examines the “catalogues” of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. This is a very important source for him and, moreover, a specifically chronological source, and therefore he dwells on them with special attention. He considers these catalogs to be a very important source, but is sure that “it is impossible to write chronologies with them alone, since, unfortunately, there are many conditions that greatly limit the significance that catalogs could have for writing an accurate chronology of the patriarchs.” These conditions stem: 1) from the impossibility of indicating for most catalogs the sources on the basis of which they were compiled and 2) from the easy possibility of damage to the chronological evidence contained in them by copyists, as a result of which in the catalogs there are great discrepancies in the designation of the reign of many patriarchs. In order to have the right to refer to catalogs when such difficulties exist, you need to 1) form an idea of ​​how they could have gotten their start, and whether the material for compiling them was drawn from a reliable source; 2) determine when and under what conditions those catalogs that are at our disposal were written and 3) establish and highlight those cases when the distortions of scribes were especially frequent, and, if possible, bring these cases under several more or less constant rules. Trying to fulfill the first of the intended tasks, Mr. Andreev enters into polemics with Fischer (De patriarch. Constantinop. Catalogis. Lipsiae 1884), who proves that the patriarchal catalogs originated from diptychs. Andreev believes that they originated from city official records like our calendars, only compiled for more than one year, and that they got their beginning from Patriarch Nicephorus, and before that time catalogs in the form we see them now did not exist at all. This statement seems to us risky and insufficiently substantiated. The author does not explain what kind of official records such as our calendars are and loses sight of the fact that the ancient universal church always attached particular importance to the continuity of succession in the church hierarchy and strictly followed it. Was this possible without catalogs? Having then given information about the formation of each of the catalogs at his disposal, the author gives us a very interesting overview of the most common mistakes of catalog copyists. In his opinion, all these cases can be reduced to the following 8 kind of rules: 1) there are omissions of the actual years of the reign of the patriarch and their replacement with a number indicating the reign of the next patriarch, 2) it is very common to replace the number ά with the number δ́ 3) the number ί is very often omitted. 4) changes of the number γ́ by the number ς́ and vice versa are very common, 5) there are cases of transformation of ά and γ́ into ϰ́ 6) changes of γ́ into β́ and vice versa occur, 7) quite rare, but there are transformations of ζ́ into ς́ and ϑ́, 8) sometimes ά changes into ή. These observations are not without significance not only for those studying chronology, but also history in general based on handwritten sources. A further chronological source in the history of the patriarchs should be recognized as “menologies” and liturgical “synaxari”. Using this source, according to Andreev, is extremely tempting, since the dates found here are distinguished by an irreplaceable advantage - accuracy. But nevertheless, using them is not safe and encounters many difficulties. Some of these difficulties are indicated by the arch. Sergius in his Complete Monthly Book of the East (vol. I, pp. 15, 16); some are established by the author himself. The difficulties turn out to be quite significant indeed; but, despite this, our author considers the use of menologies for his own purpose possible and legal, provided, of course, only certain special conditions are met. Further, he defines these conditions themselves and gives examples. At the conclusion of the chapter, the author states that, in addition to the sources he listed, there are quite a lot of others that are very useful in determining this or that single date, such as lives, private notes in the acts of the councils and especially letters, but he refuses a general review and assessment of them, promising to make comments about each of them when writing the chronology itself. Everything we have stated above is contained in the first two chapters of Mr. Andreev’s work and is essentially only an introduction to the third chapter or the author’s report on the great labors he undertook to study sources and manuals with the aim of writing a chronology of the Patriarchs of Constantinople for the period he chose, i.e. the third chapter in which this chronology is placed. This third chapter undoubtedly constitutes the center of the entire work, and all the author’s works are naturally directed towards the most solid and scientific justification for it. But by the very nature of its subject and presentation, it is such that any abbreviated transmission of it is extremely difficult and even impossible. The author shows us here the very process of obtaining exact dates with the help of the sources and manuals he studied - a very difficult and intricate process, which the author himself in the introduction (p. 12) compares with the process of solving complex mathematical problems, when, in addition to knowledge of the rules, ingenuity is also required, noticing when solving each problem what is characteristic of this particular problem, and seeing the initial knot from which only one can begin to unravel the complex combination. Using this, as he calls, “conjectural criticism,” as well as other techniques he developed, the author, on the basis of his sources, establishes in his third chapter two dates for each patriarchate, starting with Anatolius (449) and ending with Methodius (842), a total of 86 dates for 40 patriarchs, of whom three were patriarchs twice. For each patriarch, only two dates are taken - the date of accession to the throne and the date of his abandonment or death, as a result of which almost every section dedicated to this or that patriarch ends like this: “So, such and such occupied the department from such and such a date, month and year to such and such a date, month and year.” He does not explore any other dates relating to the patriarchs he elected, to church-historical and other important events that took place during their patriarchate. He does not introduce any biographical or church-historical element here, so each patriarch is presented to the reader in the form of a name and only two numbers. It seems to us that the author, skilled in chronological calculations and conjectures, would have done better if he had given his so difficult, but also so useful, art a more significant area for application, if, for example, he had expanded the area of his chronological research at least in breadth, i.e., examined not only the extreme dates of each patriarchate, but also intermediate and secondary ones, and would have given us a chronological list of church-historical events in which he took part or another patriarch, or who were contemporary to him. Such a list alone would give each patriarch a more or less specific image. The introduction, at least in the most moderate amount, of a biographical and historical element would have further enlivened the dry presentation of the third chapter, with which the entire work should naturally end. This work would then have received a harmonious, holistic appearance and a completely special character, and from the expansion of the chronological network it studied it would have received greater scientific significance, especially if the author had provided it with an index and a chronological table or a list of dates established by him in their sequential order. Such an index or list should have taken place now at the end of the third chapter. But the author decided to reward his readers, embarrassed by the unusual dryness and brevity of the third chapter, in a different way. He added another fourth chapter, under the title: “Essays on the life and work of St. Anatoly, Gennady and John the Faster” (pp. 205 – 286). This chapter is of a completely different nature and seems to be a random appendix taken from a completely different work. But it is very interesting and deserves careful reading. Despite the comparative paucity of materials for compiling the biographies of the mentioned patriarchs, the author was able to vividly outline both their individual images and the main nature of the activities of each of them. In the section on Anatolia, Mr. Andreev draws special attention to the duality of his behavior, especially in relation to popes and heretics. The author finds justification for such duality, for which he was often and cruelly reproached by both old and new Catholic writers, in his unusually subtle and insightful mind, which gave him the opportunity to deeply understand the essence of modern church and political relations. It is known that Anatoly had to deal with Monophysitism, and Monophysitism was as much a religious as a political party, and, moreover, an extremely dangerous party politically. Monophysitism was the motto on the banner of all separatists and eventually tore away a good half of it from the empire. The terrible danger to the integrity of the empire from the spread of Monophysitism was understood very early by all the best people of the Byzantine government. Hence a whole series of union attempts that began shortly after the Council of Chalcedon, hence the type of church policy that was characteristically designated by the term: οίϰονομία. “Οίϰονομία - this is the direction that Anatoly could only follow in his activities. By its very essence, such a policy excludes the possibility of pre-drawn plans, sharply defined programs of activity and their straightforward implementation. Listening carefully to the demands of life, which are always capricious and changeable, she, of necessity, had to change the Forms of attitude towards reality under different circumstances and at different times, having in mind only one goal - the preservation of church peace” (pp. 232, 233). This explains the suspicious attitude of Pope Leo towards Anatoly, who, reasoning independently of local circumstances and needs, was always ready to be surprised and perplexed by the delicacy with which dissenters were treated in the East, and to interpret in a bad way every case of moderate attitude towards the Monophysites on the part of Anatoly. In the section about St. For Gennady, the moral height of his personality stands out with particular clarity. “Gennady was dear,” says the author, “to his contemporaries and his offspring mainly for his moral merits, his moral influence, the example of his impeccable life, that side of his activity that is made up of a continuous series of exploits, which cease to be and seem to be these exploits precisely because of this continuity and merge into one ideal image, in which it is difficult to notice particulars, but which as a whole evokes a feeling of love and reverence.” In the consciousness of Byzantine society, Gennady was always “the ideal of piety and everything beautiful” - τῆς εύσεβείας χαί χαλοΰ τύπος and no more than half a century after his death his personality was depicted in the consciousness of Byzantine society entirely, as the bearer of all those qualities with which this the ideal of a holy, morally high life was presented to society (p. 242). This character of Gennady’s personality explains his energetic concern for the church world in the East, for raising the moral level of Christian society and especially the pastors of the church, for satisfying moral needs and for eradicating deviations from the moral Christian ideal. Clear traces of such activity are preserved in the monuments of legislation of that time, ecclesiastical and civil. In the section about St. John the Faster, the author puts forward several very interesting, but little known, individual traits of his character, resulting from his extraordinary mercy and asceticism, and then examines in great detail the question of the imaginary title he assigned to himself: universal. Having analyzed the opinions of Western scientists on this subject, especially Hergenroeter and Geltzer, the author comes to the following conclusion on this issue: 1) “The ecumenical titles, as can be seen from its use during the period before Lent and from the attitude towards it of those who best knew its real meaning, was not a symbol of claims to supremacy in the church, as Pope Gregory the Great interpreted it. 2) But since this title was still a pompous epithet and its adoption indicates, if not ambition, then a lack of humility, then from this side, Geltser’s conclusions are of great importance that the Faster: a) never called himself “ecumenical patriarch” and b) allowed only others to call himself that, without making innovations in this last respect, because his predecessors were also titled that way” (p. 283). All three patriarchs, whose lives are described by the author, were not only administrators and holy men, but also writers. Therefore, the author does not ignore this side of their activity, although, probably due to the complexity of the subject, he dwells on it relatively briefly, without entering into a discussion of special issues related here. Thus, he refuses to talk about Anatoly’s literary activity at all, stipulating in a footnote that the stichera attributed to him “hardly belong to him.” When discussing the literary activity of St. John the Faster, he is also interested almost exclusively in doubts about the authenticity of his epithyme or penitential, doubts put forward by many Western and some Russian scholars. He talks in more detail about Gennady’s literary activities. He diligently makes inquiries about the number of homiletical, dogmatic-polemical, exegetical and other works of Gennady, mostly lost or preserved in insignificant fragments. Based on the surviving fragments of Gennady’s interpretations of Holy Scripture, he even tries to determine “the nature of Gennady’s exegesis” (p. 248) and to explain his thoughts, he cites some of Gennady’s interpretations of the book of Genesis and the epistle to the Romans in its entirety. It is a pity that he did not mention at all the famous “Rule on Christian Faith and Life” or the Stoglavnik, which is often found with the name of Gennady Patriarch of Constantinople in Slavic and Russian manuscripts. By Gennady here we cannot mean Gennady II Scholarius, since some manuscripts containing the mentioned work, for example, of the Trinity Lavra, date back to the time of Gennady II in the 14th century. At the same time, in terms of its content, this work, as could not be more consistent, corresponds to the high moral character that is outlined in his biography. Mr. Andreev’s essay ends with the biographies of Patriarchs Anatoly, Gennady and John the Postnik. These biographies, in comparison with previously known ones (for example, those of the Rev. Philaret of Chernigov), undoubtedly have high merits. But, the question arises, why are only these three patriarchs honored by the author of a special study? If the first three chapters of Mr. Andreev’s work do not represent a completely special and independent work, and the last chapter is not an accidental addition to it, if the three chapters mentioned are only an introduction to the history of the patriarchs of a certain period, then it is natural to expect, after the third chapter, a consistent history (even if only a biographical one) of the patriarchs, and not just three biographies. The author himself foresaw this objection and in his introduction tries to eliminate it with the following arguments (which means that, in addition to the indicated biographies, the author wrote four more: Herman, Tarasius, Nicephorus and Methodius): “all (the patriarchs who were honored with a biography) with the exception of one of them, John the Faster, were the most educated people of their time; all of them, without exception, were sensitive guardians of the church needs of their age; all of them, without exception, showed themselves to be high moral characters; each of them made a significant contribution to church history through their lives and activities.” In addition, the author was prompted to make this choice by “an even greater amount of information about these patriarchs than about all the others during the time from the Council of Chalcedon to Photius” (p. 13). However, the author hardly believes that only those patriarchs deserve biography who seem to be outstanding personalities. The life of the patriarchs, as patriarchs, deserves study and completely independently of their mental or moral merits, mainly due to one or another, positive or negative, sluggish or energetic, church-historical activity. As patriarchs, they are all equally worthy of attention. The author is obviously aware of this himself when he adds at the end: “of course, it would be more convenient to present a consistent series of biographical sketches of all the patriarchs of the period we are studying.” Why doesn't he do what is more convenient? Answer: quod potui feci. This argument cannot be argued against; One can only note that the ability to thoroughly complete one or another scientific task is determined not only by knowledge, talents and hard work, but also by time: what cannot be done in a year can be done in two, three, etc. But there may be special incentives to publish unfinished works. ...