THE BYZANTINE CHURCH

The Byzantine Church is indeed one of the most prolific in the Christian world. Not only was it the center of Christendom for over a thousand years, but its academic contributions through the University of Constantinople remains the groundwork of Western Thought. The Byzantine Church composed great works of history, theology, medicine, law, philosophy, science, and literature. Moreover, the vast span of time that it encompasses has no parallel in either the east or the west. Most of these documents were financial supported by the Imperial administration or the Byzantine church, which was a well-funded institution during its zenith in the 11th century. The initial seven ecumenical councils were also conducted within the organizational apparatus of the Byzantine church, and held patronage from the Emperor. Moreover, the Byzantine church has had several luminaries during its millennium long tenure: St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Gregory Palamas, as well as controversial figures that would goon to shape the character of Christendom through schism, like the patriarchs Nestorius and Photius.

For the purposes of categorizing the limits of the 'Byzantine Church', the date of 330 AD is assigned, as it is the traditional date of the consecration of the city of Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine I. The terminus point of the end of the Byzantine church is perhaps a bit more nebulous, not stopping specifically with the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1453, but continuing for some time with the wake of Turkish domination for several remaining decades.

The provenance of some of these texts is split. Those that are derived from a Medieval Greek texts are more commonly derived from monastic manuscripts taken and are frequently internal documents from within the ancient Church of Greece. The limited scholarship on these text is a historical function of the Latin-Greek language barrier. Conversely, Latin manuscripts of Byzantine texts are largely derived from 15th and 16th century translations, directly following the conquest of Constantinople by the armies of the Turks. In most cases, these texts were collected under the French Jesuit, Fr. Jacques Paul Migne during the mid-19th century. These represent more scholarly accessible, but textual flawed works, as they were compiled with a specific bias towards the Latin church.