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‘D'une manière générate, on peut dire que les littératures chrétiennes de l'Orient sont largement tributaires de la littérature grecque.’ This statement of the late Paul Peeters concerning oriental hagiographical literature may equally well be applied to that of the Slavs. At the same time it does not in any way detract from the merits of original Slavonic hagiography to admit its debt to the Byzantine influences which it preserved and enriched. The principal channels by which these influences were transmitted were Slavonic translations of Greek works, mainly ecclesiastical, which were made from the late ninth century onwards. Among these translated works, which formed the nucleus of early Slavonic literature, were the most important Byzantine hagiographical compilations and ascetical treatises produced between the fifth and seventh centuries: theApophthegmata Patrum;the Ἀνδρν γων ββλος (=The Book of Holy Men); theLausiac Historyof Palladius; theHistoria Monachorum;theHistoria Religiosaof Theodoret of Cyrus; thePratum Spiritualeof John Moschus; and theScala Paradisiof St. John Climacus. There is also evidence that theParaenesisof Ephrem the Syrian was translated, and at least one treatise by, or attributed to, Evagrius, as well as the LatinDialoguesof Gregory the Great, this last from its Greek version.

The council of Constance, convened by Sigismund, king of the Romans, in 1413 had as its primary aim the reform of the western church in head and members. Its most urgent task, which in fact took almost three years to accomplish, was to end the schism which had divided the western church since 1378; it also took measures to combat the ‘Wycliffite heresy’, which resulted in the condemnation and burning of John Hus, and later of his friend and supporter, Jerome of Prague. However, the problem of relations with the eastern, or Orthodox church was not forgotten, though it played only a marginal role in the council’s activities. This subject was kept before the notice of the council by the presence of delegates from Constantinople, who were among the first to arrive, and by some sermons on the subject. For the Byzantines, some kind of understanding with the western church seemed to offer the only hope of securing effective military aid from the west, which might yet save Constantinople from the Turks; and indeed it was the belief that Sigismund would place this topic on the agenda of the council that induced the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos to send representatives to Constance.