ST. EMPEROR JUSTINIAN AND THE DISPUTE ON THE THREE CHAPTERS

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to elucidate some aspects of the Church politics of theemperor Justinian on the eve of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). The main issue at thattime was the dispute on the Three Chapters in which many forces and groups were involved.The dispute was caused by the necessity of reconciling with the Monophysites ― at that timethe most numerous and influential dissident Church group in the Empire. In the condemna-tion of the Three Chapters the emperor saw the means to appease the Monophysites ―indeed, it was the measure, which the latter had been demanding since the beginning of thestrife about the issues of the Council of Chalcedon (451).The necessity to come to agreement with the Monophysites led Justinian to the con-frontation within the Orthodox camp ― a great number of Western clerics were decidedlyagainst any innovations, which would bear on the Council of Chalcedon and would impair theauthority of the Pope Leo the Great. Thus, it was the emperor’s main task to break the oppo-sition of the Western clergy. In order to achieve that, he deployed many forces and recurred to measures, varyingfrom written polemics to rude compulsion. In the article only theological arguments of theemperor and those of his opponents are being discussed. The emperor is represented as a lead-ing force of the dispute, whereas the opinions of certain scholars, according to which Justinianwas just a toil in the hands of crafty intriguers (his wife Theodora and Theodore Ascidas), arebeing analyzed and discarded.