Biskupi i mnisi w Kościele Wschodu pod panowaniem Sasanidów = Bishops and monks in the Church of the East in the Sassanian period

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between Church hierarchy and monastic groups in the Syriac Church of the East in late antiquity (during the period of the Sassanian rule). Previous scholarship on this subject assumed the existence of a ‘natural’ conflict between the bishops and the monks in the East Syriac world of late antiquity. In this respect, it followed the early medieval eastern Syriac sources, which were created by monks themselves – and in all probability, these authors significantly rewrote the earlier history of their own Church. In this study, instead of relying on later sources, I propose to focus on the evidence that actually survives from late antiquity, that is the normative sources. These are collections of canons produced by the synods of the Church of the East that took place between ad 410 and ad 605. A detailed analysis of these sources leads to the conclusion that the relationship between the bishops and the monks in this particular Church was not characterized by a permanent, ‘natural’ conflict. Rather, subsequent policies that the bishops pursued vis-à-vis the monks were part of larger projects of church reform, that occurred almost one generation after another. These reforms had to do with the dynamic growth of the Church of the East, its integration into the Sassanian society, but also with the increasing challenge posed by the eastward expansion of the Monophysite West-Syriac Church structures and monastic communities, which in many places in Iraq and Iran seemed to threaten the very existence of the Church of the East.