The
Placidia Palace
was the official residence of the
papal
apocrisiarius
, the ambassador from the
pope
to the
patriarch of Constantinople
, and the intermittent home of the pope himself when in residence at
Constantinople
.
[1]
[2]
The
apocrisiarius
held "considerable influence as a conduit for both public and covert communications" between pope and
Byzantine emperor
.
[3]
The residence of the
apocrisiarius
in the Placidia Palace dates to the end of the
Acacian schism
in 519.
[3]
The ambassador was usually a
deacon
of Rome, and held an official position in the Byzantine imperial court.
[3]
Anachronistically, the building can be referred to as the first
nunciature
.
[4]
Construction and localization
[
edit
]
The palace was built by
Galla Placidia
, near the
ta Armatiou
quarter in the tenth district of the city between the
Gate of the Plataea
and the
Monastery of the Pantokrator
.
[1]
The palace of Galla Placidia was one of several aristocratic residences (
oikoi
) built in the city's northwestern region during the late 4th and early 5th centuries. The tenth district included the palaces built by the
Augusta
Aelia Eudocia
, the
nobilissima
Arcadia (sister of
Theodosius II
), while the nearby eleventh district included the house of
Augusta
Pulcheria
and the Palace of
Flaccilla
(
palataium Flaccillianum
).
[5]
These mansions formed a counterpart to the old-established aristocratic center of the eastern parts of the city, formed around the
Great Palace
; however, Most of these
mansions
in the northwestern districts seem to have been only in use as seasonal retreats.
[5]
The tenth district also included 636
domus insulae
all together. Other landmarks of the tenth included the
Baths of Constantius
and the
Nymphaeum
.
[5]
Papal use
[
edit
]
Vigilius
[
edit
]
The palace was occupied by
Pope Vigilius
, the first pope of the
Byzantine Papacy
, in 547 during a papal visit to Constantinople.
[6]
In 550, Vigilius decided that the Placidia Palace was not secure enough for his needs, and moved into the
basilica of St. Peter of Hormisdas
.
[7]
From the basilica, Vigilius drafted a document of excommunication of
Patriarch Menas
and his followers, signed by another dozen Western bishops.
[7]
Upon its publication,
Comitas Dupondiaristes
, the
praetor of the Plebs
, was dispatched to the basilica to arrest Vigilius and the African bishops with him.
[7]
According to one account, Vigilius clung to the altar, and as the guards attempted to drag him, it toppled, nearly crushing him.
[7]
The praetor withdrew, leaving several bishops injured.
[7]
The next day, a group of Byzantine dignitaries convinced Vigilius that no more harm would be done to him if he returned to the Placidia Palace, which he did.
[7]
There, Vigilius was more or less placed under
house arrest
.
[7]
On the night of December 23/24, 551, Vigilius fled across the
Bosporus
to the
Church of St. Euphemia
in
Chalcedon
.
[7]
In February, the other bishops, but not Vigilius, were arrested.
[8]
On June 26, the pope and the emperor reconciled and Vigilius returned to the Placidia.
[8]
Although he was in the "immediate neighborhood" during the
Second Council of Constantinople
(553), Vigilius refused to either attend or send a representative.
[9]
Claiming illness, Vigilius refused even to meet with the three Oriental patriarchs who travelled from the council to the Placidia Palace.
[9]
The next day, Vigilius conveyed to the council a request to delay for 20 days—a request that likely would have struck the council as "strange" because the matter had been under discussion for seven years, during which Vigilius himself had been in residence in Constantinople.
[9]
The emperor's second delegation to Vigilius—of bishops and lay officials —was similarly unsuccessful.
[9]
From Constantinople, Vigilius published a
Constitutum
(or memorial to the emperor), condemning the council.
[10]
Gregory
[
edit
]
The future
Pope Gregory I
resided in the Placidia Palace during his apocrisiariat, where he was eventually joined by a group of monks from his order—making the palace "virtually another St. Andrew's."
[11]
During Gregory's tenure, the palace was the site of a trial conducted by
Tiberius II
of a group of alleged Satan worshipers, including Gregory,
patriarch of Antioch
, and Eulogius, the future
patriarch of Alexandria
.
[12]
When they were acquitted, perhaps as the result of bribery, a riot involving 100,000 persons erupted in the city.
[12]
The Placidia Palace, as well as the palace of
Patriarch Eutychius
, were attacked by the mob, requiring the emperor himself to intervene and restore order.
[12]
Anastasios
[
edit
]
One of the complaints of the
Lateran Council of 649
against the patriarch of Constantinople read: "
He has done what no heretic heretofore has dared to do, namely, he has destroyed the altar of our holy see in the Placidia palace.
"
[2]
The anathema alludes to the "reign of terror" to which the Roman church had been subject from 638 to 656: Roman clergy had been exiled, the treasury plundered, and the
apocrisiarius
himself kidnapped and exiled.
[13]
The altar was destroyed in 648 or 649.
[13]
Pope Martin I
's
apocrisiarius
, Anastasios, was prohibited from
celebrating Mass
in the palace in the mid-seventh century.
[6]
This sanction was imposed by Patriarch Paul II as a result of disagreements over
Monotheletism
.
[14]
Agatho
[
edit
]
The palace was used by the large delegation of
Pope Agatho
at the
Sixth Ecumenical Council
(680?681).
[6]
The emperor provided the delegation with a variety of luxuries, including a string of saddled horses to convey them to the
Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae
.
[15]
They participated in a procession at that church on the first Sunday after their arrival.
[15]
Constantine
[
edit
]
Pope Constantine
occupied the palace in 711, during the last papal visit to Constantinople in 1250 years.
[6]
End of papal use
[
edit
]
The popes continued to have a permanent
apocrisiary
in Constantinople until the time of the
Byzantine Iconoclasm
edict of 726.
[4]
Thereafter, popes
Gregory II
,
Gregory III
,
Zacharias
, and
Stephen II
are known to have sent non-permanent apocrisiaries to Constantinople.
[4]
The office ceased having any religious role in the 8th century, although it continued to be regularly occupied well into the 10th century.
[4]
Circa 900, the office began being referred to as a
syncellus
.
[4]
A permanent envoy may have been re-established after the reconciliation of 886.
[4]
A
syncellus
, unlike an
apocrisiarius
, was a representative to the emperor, not the patriarch.
[4]
These ambassadors continued into the 11th century, even after the
East-West Schism
.
[4]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 9.
- ^
a
b
Dolan, 1910, p. 144.
- ^
a
b
c
Herrin, 1989, p. 152.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Silas McBee, "
Normal Relations
," p. 651-53 (PDF).
- ^
a
b
c
Paul Magdalino
. Nevra Necipo?lu (Ed.). 2001. "Aristocratic
Oikoi
in the Tenth and Eleventh Regions of Constantinople" in
Byzantine Constantinople
. pp. 53-72.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 30.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Browning, 2003, p. 148.
- ^
a
b
Browning, 2003, p. 149.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Dolan, 1910, pp. 120-121.
- ^
Dolan, 1910, pp. 121-121.
- ^
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 10.
- ^
a
b
c
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 13.
- ^
a
b
Foley, 1992, p. 98.
- ^
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 130.
- ^
a
b
Ekonomou, 2007, p. 217.
References
[
edit
]
- Browning, Robert. 2003.
Justinian and Theodora
.
- Dolan, Thomas Stanislaus. 1910.
The papacy and the first councils of the church
(PDF).
- Ekonomou, Andrew J. 2007.
Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes: Eastern influences on Rome and the papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, A.D. 590-752
. Lexington: Lexington Books.
ISBN
0-7391-1977-X
- Foley, William Trent. 1992.
Images of sanctity in Eddius Stephanus' Life of Bishop Wilfrid
.
- Herrin, Judith. 1989.
The formation of Christendom
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Emereau, A. "Apocrisiarius et apocrisiariat."
Echos d'Orient
17
(1914?1915): 289?97.
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