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Quaderni 2004
p. 151
Viorel
Achim,
“Nicolae
Iorga” Institute of History at Bucharest
At the end of the twelfth century, when South-Eastern
Europe was embarking upon an era of great political and territorial changes,
the denominational picture of the region was not much different from the one
set around the year 1000, when two major changes had occurred: on the one hand,
the Christianizing of the Hungarians and the organization in Panonia and in the
neighbouring Carpathian regions of the Hungarian Church in subordination to
Rome; on the other hand, the reestablishment of the authority of the Byzantine
Empire in the west and north of the Balkan Peninsula, and the ecclesiastic
reorganization of this space in subordination to the Patriarchate of
Constantinople.
The two processes occurred before the “Great Schism”
of 1054, which sanctioned the different courses taken for centuries by the two
branches of (Western and Eastern) Christianity, and deepened the discrepancies
between them. The Christianizing of the Hungarians occurred around the year
1000. The Hungarian Church was organized at the time of King Stephen I (Saint
Stephen). It had ten bishoprics, among which the bishopric of Esztergom and
that of Kalocsa were raised to the rank of archbishoprics. The Archbishopric of
Kalocsa exerted jurisdiction over the eastern and southern parts of the
Hungarian Kingdom. The regions lying at the Balkan border also belonged to this
bishopric. From the very beginning, the Archbishopric of Kalocsa played an
important role in the propagation of Latin Christianity among the Southern
Slavs. Another center, which had come under Hungarian suzerainty, rallied to
the mission: the Archbishopric of Spalato (Split). The latter exerted its
jurisdiction over the Dalmatian region. Most of the territory of the Kingdom of
Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, which had come into dynastic union with the
Kingdom of Hungary since the beginning of the twelfth century, belonged to the
bishopric of Zagreb, which was subordinated to the Archbishopric of Kalocsa[1].
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152
The Byzantines returned to the Danube at the
north-western limit of the Balkan Peninsula in 1002, when Emperor Basil II
conquered Vidin. In 1018, he occupied the Bulgarian State of Samuil, with the
capital at Ochrida. Basil II ordered an ecclesiastic reorganization of the
region. By his Chrysobul of 1019-1020, he suppressed the Bulgarian Patriarchate
of Ochrida and reduced it to the rank of an archbishopric. The center and north
of the Balkan Peninsula were placed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric
of Ochrida[2].
The latter had an autocephalous character. The underlying reason of the adopted
formula was to bestow upon the new archbishopric larger prerogatives of Church
organization beyond the borders of the Empire. During the Byzantine period, the
Archbishopric of Ochrida –as shown in the bishopric lists– had 22 bishoprics,
to which the bishopric of the Vlachs, later to be attested, was added[3].
Until about 1200, the separation line between the
Archbishopric of Ochrida and that of Kalocsa corresponded to the political
border between the Byzantine Empire
p. 153
and the
Hungarian Kingdom. It also corresponded, grosso
modo, to the denominational border between the Catholic and Orthodox
worlds.
However, the situation was far more complicated, for a
large number of Christians belonging to the Eastern rite lived in the Hungarian
Kingdom[4].
A Metropolitanate of Greek rite functioned in Hungary for a long period of time[5].
The Metropolitanate of Greek rite of “Turkey” (=Hungary) is mentioned in the
deeds of the Patriarchate of Constantinople starting with 1028. It functioned
until the end of the twelfth century. There are no further records after 1181,
a few years before the Vlach-Bulgarian rebellion. The establishment of this
Metropolitanate was very likely a consequence of the direct relations between
the Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom, and was related tot he conversion of Achtum,
at Vidin, in 1002. At that time, its jurisdiction is assumed to have been
stretching all over the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom[6].
In the eleventh-twelfth centuries, belonging to the
Christianity of Eastern rite was not a limit to the Slavs and the Romanians in
the regions at the southern and eastern borders of the Kingdom. Part of the
Hungarian population embraced the Eastern rite, and remained faithful to it.
Denomination pluralism, as well as ethnic and linguistic pluralism was among
the basic traits of the kingdom of Saint Stephen, accepted as such by the
Árpádian kings who, for a long time, did not consider a denominational
unification. The relations of the Hungarian kings to the Orthodox Byzantium
were positive as a whole. The closest intertwining of the interests of the
Hungarian and Byzantine courts was recorded in the second half of the twelfth
century, when Béla III (1163-1196) was within an ace of climbing on the throne
of the basileums.
Especially the regions neighboring upon the south-eastern
borders of the Hungarian Kingdom, where the Southern Slavs and the Romanians
were predominant, shared this denomination. In the eleventh-twelfth centuries
numerous “Greek” monasteries functioned here, which testifies to the presence
in this region of a considerable number of believers of Greek rite. Information
about these monasteries comes from a later time, namely from the first decades
of the thirteenth century, when
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the
issue of their integration into the Catholic Church arose[7].
At the time, the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hungary had ceased to operate.
The ecclesiastic authority over the communities of
Greek rite in these regions of the Hungarian Kingdom was exerted by local
bishops, whose headquarters were in monasteries or on the estates of the feudal
lords who had offered them protection, or by chore bishops (missionary
bishops). Several documents dating from the first years of the thirteenth
century mention such cases in which “Greek” bishops became the target of the
policy of the papacy and the Hungarian king, in the attempt to bring them –one
way or another– under the authority of the Catholic Church. This was also the
case of the bishopric of the land of the sons of Cnez Bela, which makes
the object of the Papal letter of 3 May 1205[8].
As long as the Empire was located on the Danube, such
bishops were under the canonical authority of the Byzantine Church. The
documents of the time mention in the region north of the Danube several
ecclesiastic structures subordinated to the Archbishopric of Ochrida. The
Chrysobul of Basil II lists both the bishopric
seats subordinated to the new archbishopric and the secondary centers
subordinated to each bishopric. At the Danube border with Hungary, there were
the bishoprics of Niš, Belgrade and Braničevo. Among the bishopric castles of
the bishopric of Braničevo (Branitza)
is mentioned Dibisiskos (Dibiskos, Tibiskos)[9],
most probably identifiable with the ancient Tibiscum (nowadays, Jupa), in
nowadays Banat[10]. A
secondary bishop had his headquarters here, as there must have been others in
the regions inhabited by Orthodox, beyond the Danubian border of the Empire.
The ecclesiastic jurisdiction of the Byzantine bishoprics at the Danube over
the territories beyond the river which were inhabited by the Orthodox was also
exerted by the aforementioned bishoprics. In addition, in this regions
neighboring upon the Hungarian Kingdom, the bishopric of Vidin operated, an
important ecclesiastic center that may have exerted its authority over the
neighboring territory lying north of the Danube as well. In the Byzantine time,
and also sometime later, the Christian population in the north-Danubian
territories, even if under the political domination of the Hungarian Kingdom or
of the Cumans, must have been subordinated ecclesiastically to the
South-Danubian Church.
This picture of the denomination organization would
alter with the decline of the Byzantine rule in the Balkans. At the end of the
twelfth century and the beginning of
p. 155
the
thirteenth century there was a radical transformation of the political map of
South-Eastern Europe. After the death of Emperor Manuel Comnen (1180),
there was a massive dislocation in the area of Byzantine domination in the
northwest of the Balkan Peninsula, to the benefit of Hungary, as well as of
Serbia, and the Vlach-Bulgarian State, the latter founded after the rebellion
of 1185, led by the Asens. The Byzantine authority in the Balkans reached its
lowest in 1204, with the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders, and the establishment
in those parts of the Latin Empire. With the withdrawal of the Byzantine power,
the ecclesiastic organization subordinated to the Byzantine Church crushed.
Most of the territory of the Archbishopric of Ochrida was incorporated into
Serbia, into the Vlach-Bulgarian State and into Hungary. The Orthodox
Patriarchate of Constantinople, which had jurisdiction over most of the
Peninsula, was forced into exile at Nicaea. For many years, its authority in
South-Eastern Europe was restrained to the possessions of the Greek states
(first of all, to the Despotate of Epirus). Only around 1230 would the Orthodox
Patriarchate become an ecclesiastic authority in the Balkans again and would
recover part of its lost territories, but in a new formula.
The Balkan states created in the area formerly under
Byzantine rule (the Empire of the Asens and Serbia), showed a tendency for
creating national Churches, albeit under canonical subordination to
Constantinople. The Serbian and Vlach-Bulgarian monarchs targeted the structuring
of a Church hierarchy subordinated to themselves, under the authority of a
local patriarch, or at least of an autonomous archbishop. In fact, they adopted
the Byzantine model. As a consequence, the ecclesiastic reorganization of the
country was undertaken. New dioceses were created. The diocese borders were
modified. The political capitals became the ecclesiastic centers of the
country. The effort of ecclesiastic reorganization by the Balkan sovereigns
also reckoned with a new element, namely with church union.
The most severe consequences in points of denomination
of the political-territorial changes were borne by the Christians of the Greek
rite in the regions which were or had newly come into the possession of the
Hungarian Kingdom, as well as in the territories lying north of the Danube,
which were at least formally under Cuman authority[11].
The withdrawal of the Byzantines from the Balkan provinces marked the fall of
the administrative structure of the Orthodox Church in the Hungarian Kingdom
and north of the Danube. The population of Eastern rite in the southern and
southeastern regions of the Hungarian Kingdom was left without an ecclesiastic
organization of its own. There were no more titular bishops, as there were no
more means to keep the
p. 156
ecclesiastic
establishments in good condition. There are many records of the poor condition
of these structures at the beginning of the thirteenth century, when to the
disorganizing caused by the loss of the Byzantine protection added the
offensive of the Catholic Church against the “schismatic”. The letter sent by
Pope Innocent III on 16 April 1204 to the bishop of Oradea (Nagyvárad)) and the
abbot of Pilis resumes a letter of King Emeric on the subject of the
monasteries belonging to the Greek (=Orthodox) monks, which were falling to
ruin[12].
It is true that after the withdrawal of Byzantium, some Orthodox bishops
survived in their position for a while. Such was the case of the bishop of the
land of Cnez Bela, mentioned in 1205.
The ecclesiastic reorganization was part of the
process of state organization in the space inhabited by the Serbs, the
Bulgarians, and the north-Balkan Vlachs. In the Vlach-Bulgarian State, Tărnovo,
the capital of the Asens, the Church became the center of the new state. From
the beginning, the brothers Peter and Asen transferred the seat of the
Bulgarian Archbishopric from Ochrida to Tărnovo, and replaced the Greek bishops
with Vlach and Bulgarian ones. The subordination of the bishoprics in the
region was passed over from Ochrida to Tărnovo. Also to Tărnovo were
subordinated the Bulgarian eparchies, which had formerly belonged directly to
the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nevertheless, the Archbishopric of Ochrida
was not dissolved by Ioannitsa Asen, when the latter took over Macedonia. It
continued to operate, albeit with a smaller number of bishoprics. In Stephen
Nemanja’ Serbia, in 1220, the bishoprics previously belonging to the
Archbishopric of Ochrida were subordinated to the new Serbian autocephalous
archbishopric. Subsequently, the Archbishopric of Ochrida preserved only ten of
the 22 bishoprics it previously owned. The bishopric of the Vlachs was no
longer mentioned; it must have been dissolved[13].
(After the fall of Constantinople, except for the rule of Ioannitsa Asen, Ochrida
belonged to the Despotate of Epirus).
Therefore, in the time of Ioannitsa Asen and Boril, a
hybrid formula of ecclesiastic organization, at first sight, operated in the
Vlach-Bulgarian State, which ensured the coexistence of the two ecclesiastic
centers, Tărnovo and Ochrida, both directly linked to the Vlach-Bulgarian
suzerain. Initially, this formula may have told of the Asens’ concern not to
break all ties with the Byzantine Church and the Byzantine Empire, a possible
source of recognition of their authority. Ioannitsa Asen, under the reign of
whom was perfected the administrative, ecclesiastic, etc. organization of the
new state, preserved this duality at ecclesiastic level. He linked the church
of Tărnovo to Rome, acknowledged the primacy of the Pope, and thus earned his
recognition as a king, and the quality of Archbishopric for his Church. This
was the union of the Bulgarians
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and
Vlachs with the Roman Church in the first decades of the thirteenth century.
However, the church union only involved the eparchies belonging to Tărnovo, and
not to those subordinated to the Archbishopric of Ochrida. Ioannitsa preserved
the independence of the Archbishopric of Ochrida in relation to the Roman
Church. Ochrida, which kept its relations with the Byzantine emperor and the
Orthodox Patriarch (who after 1204 had taken refuge to Nicaea), became in this
way a bastion of the Orthodoxy in the Balkans, and subsequently played an
important role in the resistance put up against union[14].
The Serbian lands, which at the end of the twelfth
century were for their greatest part under the leadership of the Great Župan of
Rascia (Raška), Stephen Nemanja, were under different ecclesiastic
jurisdictions[15]. The
territory of Stephen Nemanja partially fell under the jurisdiction of the
Archbishop of Ochrida, and partially under that of the Archbishops of Ragusa
(Dubrovnik) and Antibari. The Archbishopric of Ragusa had in subordination the
bishoprics of Trebinje, Stagno, and the bishopric of Bosnia. The Archbishopric
of Antibari exerted its jurisdiction over the land of Zeta (Dioclea,
corresponding nowadays to the Montenegro). The territories lying west of
Neretva, temporarily included into the Serbian State, were under the
jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Spalato. The territory of Stephen Nemanja
was therefore crossed by a line separating Western and Eastern Christianity.
This situation was rooted in the history of the region, featured by the
existence of several territorial units led by Serbian princes, often in
rivalry. The option for Orthodoxy was made later, in 1219. Serbian princes seem
to have been hesitating over Catholicism before that date, as well as later on.
In fact, throughout the thirteenth century, Serbia swung between Catholicism
and Orthodoxy. The two competitors for supremacy in the Serbian world at the
turn of the twelfth century recognized Papal authority: Vukan, Prince of
Dioclea, in 1198, and Stephen Nemanja, the Great Župan of Rascia, in 1202. In
1217, Pope Honorius III bestowed the crown and the royal title upon Stephen
Nemanja.
On the backdrop of the ecclesiastic organization, such
gestures did not produce significant changes. The two princes were seen by the
Papacy and the Hungarian king as belonging to the Roman Church. It was hoped
that, together with them, their lands would embrace the Latin denomination. In
1198 the Pope recognized the Metropolitan (archbishopric) seat
from Antibari. (There had been only a bishopric there in the previous
times.) An ecclesiastical restructuring would only intervene subsequently, in
1219, when the autocephalous Serbian Archbishopric canonically subordinated to
the Byzantine Patriarchate of Nicaea is recognized[16].
This marked the removal of the Serbian territories from under the authority of
the Archbishopric of Ochrida. The restructuring of the eparchies was made by
Metropolitan Sava in 1220. Beside the older
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bishoprics,
which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of
Ochrida (Raška, Lipljan and Prizren), he created new bishoprics with their headquarters
in monasteries. But the Serbian Archbishopric also encompassed territories
previously belonging to the Archbishopric of Ragusa. With the coming into being
of the Serbian Archbishopric, the Latin Bishop of Sagno was transferred to
the island of Curzola, and the Bishop of Trebinje took refuge in Ragusa, where
he obtained the small island of Mrkan. With the creation of the autocephalous
Serbian Archbishopric, the border between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in this
western part of the Balkan Peninsula was pushed further to the west. However,
at that time, under the influence and jurisdiction of the Pope, it also
stretched further to the east, reaching as far as Constantinople. As a result,
the developments in the small Serbian state did not elicit any reaction from
the Catholic Church[17].
The general offensive of Catholicism in South-Eastern
Europe in the first decades of the thirteenth century, especially the expansion
in this direction of the Kingdom of Hungary, the great Catholic power in the
region[18],
triggered the creation of new Catholic bishoprics. The bishopric of Syrmia
(Srem, Szérem) counted among the first. In 1181, the coming under Hungarian
authority of the Byzantine province of Sirmium, lying between the Danube and
Sava, was accompanied by the organization here of a Catholic bishopric, which
in fact was replacing the Orthodox one. Since this territory, turned into a
county (Szérem), was to be kept under the rule of the medieval Hungarian
Kingdom, the bishopric of Syrmia, with its headquarters at Bač (Bács) and
subordinated to the Archbishopric of Kalocsa, remained one of the dioceses of
the Hungarian Church[19].
However, this would be the only case of a Byzantine
Orthodox bishopric turned into a Catholic bishopric and coming under the
authority of the Hungarian Church. No such thing ever happened after 1200, when
the Hungarians wrested new Balkan territories, to the detriment of the
Vlach-Bulgarian State. The “Greek” bishoprics in the conquered territories were
not turned automatically into Latin bishoprics. The policy of church union
promoted by the Papacy, with which the Hungarian kings had to comply, had in
view a different treatment to be applied to the Orthodox ecclesiastic
structures.
Another Catholic bishopric which now came into being
was the bishopric of the Cumans, founded in 1228 in the territories newly
fallen under the control of the Hungarian Kingdom and lying outside the
Carpathian arch, that is in nowadays Muntenia and the south of Moldavia[20].
The Cuman bishopric was a key-element in the
p. 159
Papacy’s
project to Christianizing the entire space inhabited by the Cumans in Eastern
Europe, and this is why it was linked directly to the Apostolic See on 13
September 1229[21]. In the
Bârsa Land a new ecclesiastic structure was also created, the Decanate of the
Bârsa Land, at a time when the territory was under the control of the Teutonic
Order. The first records date back to 1224. It was a structure subordinated
directly to Rome, and not to the Hungarian Church. Subsequently, the Bârsa Land
was integrated into the Cuman bishopric[22].
In 1238, a new issue was taken under consideration, namely that of organizing a
Catholic bishopric in the Severin Land, a territory bordered by the Carpathians,
the Danube, and the River Olt to the east, which a few years before had come
under Hungarian rule. However, the project of creating a bishopric of Severin
was abandoned[23]. These
territories lying north of the Danube were Orthodox, and inhabited predominantly
by Romanians. As testified by the sources of the time, the population living in
the region of the Carpathian arch, “Cumania” included, was mainly Romanian.
Once the policy of ecclesiastic union launched, the
Hungarian Kingdom ceased to create Catholic bishoprics at its Balkan borders by
restructuring the existing Orthodox dioceses. Canonically speaking, the
decision to create new dioceses belonged to the Papal See. Pope Innocent III
subordinated the structuring and restructuring of dioceses in the South-Eastern
European territories inhabited by “schismatic” to the long-term interest of
Papacy, which was to win over to Catholicism the population living there. The
issue of the ecclesiastic organization lay at the core of the policy of this
Pope, who after 1204 employed himself to apply a formula that ruled out any
brutal interference with the preexisting structures. These structures had to be
maintained and, at the same time, made liable to meet the requirements of
unification. The integration of the “schismatic” was to be made by preserving
according to possibilities the old bishoprics, and even the hierarchs
themselves. To the concessions as to the rite and dogma, which the Catholic
Church had made to the “schismatic”, would add those on the level of diocesan
organization put into practice by Pope Innocent III. Another facet of the Papal
policy of ecclesiastic organization of the region was the principle of placing
the new Catholic dioceses, regardless of how they were created, under direct
authority of the Papal See.
p.
160
The issue of how to proceed with the ecclesiastic
structures of the Orthodox was of great consequence. In fact, it turned into a
bone of contention between Papacy and the Hungarian king[24].
Theoretically, there were several solutions for the ecclesiastic structures of
the “Greeks” in the region: total dissolution; preservation, on condition that
the respective hierarchs should accept the union, but in subordination to the
Hungarian Catholic Church through a bishop vicar; also, provided they accepted
union, these structures could have been allowed to operate in dependency to the
Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople. The interests of Papacy and the Hungarian
kings were different. By the creation of dioceses subordinated to the Hungarian
Church, the latter sought the recognition by the Papacy of the territorial
expansion of the kingdom to the detriment of the Asens’State. The Pope
contemplated the long-term success of the union and the preservation of good
relations with the Asens, at a time when the Asens and the Church of their
country were in contact with Rome. The solutions eventually adopted were of
course in relation to the practice of the Catholic Church, and the canons of
the Lateran Council IV (1215). But here, in the Balkan-Carpathian space, the
situation was far more complicated than in the Christian East. This mainly
because of the political implications and nature of any denominational and
ecclesiastic action. The expansionist tendencies of Hungary in the Balkan and
extra-Carpathian space, the territorial and ideological Hungarian-Bulgarian
rivalry, the dependency of the Latin Empire of Constantinople on the aid of
Papacy, and the military intervention of Hungary against the Asens, who target
the control of the former capital of the basileos, counted among the factors
which made Innocent III and his successors to be extremely careful as to
ecclesiastic organization.
The first region to which the Papacy tried to apply
the new formula lay at the border which separated the biggest two states in the
region: the Kingdom of Hungary and the State of the Asens. Naturally, the
Hungarian kings had the tendency to integrate the newly conquered regions as
fully as possible into the structures of the Kingdom. In points of ecclesiastic
organization, this could only be done by dissolving the Orthodox bishoprics
and, if possible, creating new bishoprics or extending the authority of the
neighboring Hungarian bishoprics over the new territories. In letters to the
Pope by Hungarian kings and several higher Hungarian prelates, this wish to
incorporate the new territories into the Hungarian Church is recurrent.
However, over approximately three decades, the Papacy was able to impose its
own formula. It is nonetheless true that, for a long time, the Papacy had to
mediate between Hungary and Bulgaria, at clutches in a terrible territorial
dispute over the borderlands. The solution was reached on many occasions
–namely the placing of the bishoprics in the respective regions under the
direct jurisdiction of Rome– was not a mere compromise, meant to avoid giving
complete satisfaction fully to one party or another, but a decision expressing
one of the principles
p.
161
of the
Papal policy in the ecclesiastic organization of the regions inhabited by the
Orthodox.
The first such decision aimed at the monasteries of
Greek rite in the region of Belgrade–Braničevo. In a letter that has not been
preserved, but which is resumed in a Papal letter of 16 April 1204, the
Hungarian King Emeric informed Innocent III on the degree of decay of “some
churches belonging to the Greek monks” (=Orthodox) in his kingdom (quaedam ecclesie monachorum Graecorum in
regno Ungariae constitutae), because of the lack of interest showed by the
diocesan bishops and monks. He requested that the Pope should create there an
Orthodox bishopric under the direct authority of the Papacy, or to appoint at
the head of these churches Latin abbots and clerics, able to reform them (ut auc[toritate]
n[ostra] unus fieret episcopatus ex ipsis, qui nobis
nullo mediante subesset; vel abbates aut praepositi Latini constituerent in
illis). In his letter addressed to the bishop of Oradea and the abbot of
Pilis, Innocent III express his intention to take under the direct control (nullo mediante) these churches that were
to be administered by the two prelates[25].
King Emeric is assumed to have formed to wish to
create an Orthodox bishopric in the regions at the southern border of the
Kingdom, but the Papacy denied it[26].
This might have occurred before the conquest of Constantinople, when the
denominational policy of the Hungarian king had not yet reached its subsequent
Catholic and anti-schismatic firmness.
The solution envisaged by the Pope for the bishopric
of the land of the sons of Cnez Bela (quidam
episcopatus in terra filiorum Beleknese) of 1205 –which is presented in the
letter of Pope Innocent III to the Archbishop of Kalocsa of 3 May 1205[27]–,
reflects the same policy of putting the Orthodox ecclesiastic structures under
the control of the Papacy, and not under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian
Church. King Emeric had asked from the Pope the leave to put this bishopric, of
which is said that it was not submitted to any Metropolitanate, under
subordination to the Apostolic See, and to place it under the jurisdiction of
the Archbishopric of Kalocsa. Innocent III admitted the king’s request, under
the reserve that the bishopric in question should not have previously belonged
to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In this case, the bishopric had to be
maintained in dependency to the Patriarchate, which now had become Latin. The
direct or indirect (in this latter case, through the Archbishopric of Ochrida)
affiliation of a bishopric, lying in the North-West area of the Balkan
Peninsula, to the Patriarchate of Constantinople was compulsory, and therefore
the reserve expressed by the Pope was equivalent to a rejection of the king’s
proposal. Subordination to the Latin Patriarchate of
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Constantinople
also involved the exertion of a control by the Papacy over this diocese, and
prevention of its coming into subordination to the Hungarian Church.
Innocent’s III scruples concerning the “rights” of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople can be explained, I believe, by his interest to
prevent the extension of the Hungarian Church’s jurisdiction –and implicitly
that of the Hungarian kings as well– over a region also under claim by the
Asens, whose winning over to Catholicism was essential to the enduring success
of church union. The Pope was in fact trying not to offend the Vlach-Bulgarian
State.
During the Pontificates of Innocent III and Honorius
III, the Papacy continued to apply this policy. When the failure of the church
union in Bulgaria became evident, and when there was no hope to ever persuade
this land back into the union, Pope Gregorius IX gave up his position as a
mediator between Hungary and Bulgaria in their disputes over territories and
ecclesiastic jurisdiction. Now the Pope yielded to the request of the Hungarian
Church concerning the ecclesiastic organization of the Orthodox.
In January 1229, Pope Gregorius IX granted the request
of the Archbishop of Kalocsa concerning the creation of a new diocese with its
headquarters at the monastery of Ku (Kou, Kew, Kö, subsequently Bánmonostor,
nowadays Banoštor; in the aforementioned document, it appears as Cuhet), in Syrmia, and subordinated to
Kalocsa[28].
The goal was to speed up the process of integration of the neighboring
“Greeks”. It was undoubtedly a bishopric for the “schismatics”, who had to be
persuaded into union. The bishopric probably succeeded to an older Orthodox
bishopric that might have survived at Syrmia until that time. The new bishopric
for the schismatic operated effectively, since it is mentioned in another
document of the same year.
In 1229, another issue was taken up, namely the
ecclesiastic organization of the province opposite Syrmia, on the right bank of
Sava, now called –in relation to Syrmia proper (Sirmia Citerior)– Sirmia
Ulterior, and later on, after several decades, Mačva. This territory was in
possession of Margaret, the sister of the Hungarian King Andrew II. It was
inhabited by “Slavs and Greeks” who observed the Greek rite. There was a church
there that the people called bishopric, at the head of which Margaret placed a provisor, waiting for a reglementation
of the ecclesiastic situation. The Archbishop of Kalocsa had requested for the
respective territory to be annexed to the new diocese with the headquarters at
the monastery of Ku, ut Sclavi et Graeci,
qui inhabitant terram illam, in divinis officiis et ecclesiasticis Sacramentis
ad Latinorum ritum et oboedientiam Romanae Ecclesiae, si potest fieri,
convertantur. This information is recorded in the letter of 3 March 1229 of
Pope Gregorius IX to Aegidius, the Papal legate in Hungary[29].
The same document reports on the decision of the Pope concerning the Orthodox
bishopric of Sirmia Ulterior. The Pope’s instructions to his legate, in case
there was a
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bishop
in the related territory and he was willing to subordinate himself to the Roman
Church, that bishop should be accepted (as a diocesan bishop); if there was no
such bishop or if the existing bishop was reluctant to submit to the Apostolic
See, then the diocese should be annexed to the new bishopric of Kou[30].
When it became necessary to establish the statute of
the Bulgarian bishoprics of Belgrade (Alba)
and Braničevo (Brandusium) –in 1232,
after the land south of the Danube coming under the rule of the Hungarian
Kingdom– the Papacy applied the same method like in the two
neighboring Syrmia. As it was mentioned in the letter of Pope Gregorius IX
of 21 March 1232 to the Bishop of Cenad (Csanád), the respective bishoprics had
been placed under the authority of the Roman Church[31].
This of course at a time when the Asens had recognized the union, and also at a
time when Hungary had been ruling there. Now, however, the bishops of the two
dioceses of Eastern rite refused to obey Rome. For this reason, the Pope asked
the Bishop of Cenad to set a delay in which they should make it known whether
or not they wanted to submit to the Roman Church. If they refused, the Bishop
of Cenad was authorized to put their territory under the authority of the
bishopric of Syrmia[32].
In 1229, there was no direct subordination to Rome,
either in the case of the Orthodox bishopric of Syrmia, or in that of the
bishopric of Syrmia Ulterior. Both provinces were in fact placed under the
jurisdiction of the Hungarian Church, even if the “Greeks and Slavs” in
question still preserved their rite. And in 1232, the Pope envisaged to place
the bishoprics of Belgrade and Braničevo under the authority of the bishopric
of Syrmia. At the end of the 1220s, the Papacy abandoned the old policy towards
the ecclesiastic structures of the “schismatics” in the region in question.
What other regions were concerned, the Papacy still
refused to give up the old policy, even at that moment. This explains why the
Papal letters of 1237 concerning the Catholic propaganda in the Severin land[33]
did not mention this region being under the authority of the Hungarian Kingdom.
A fact which made some historians assert that at that time the Hungarians did
not rule over the Severin land; or even that this territory was still in
subordination to Bulgaria[34].
The Pope’s intention was to link the Catholic communities of the Severin land
–like in the other extra-Carpathian lands which had
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come
under the rule of the Kingdom– to Rome, and not to the Hungarian Church. Pope
Gregorius IX granted to the preacher monks from the Severin land some bishopric
prerogatives. The fact that the action of the Dominicans occurred at a time of
détente in the relations between the Papal See and John Asen II, did not mean
that the Severin was subordinated to the Bulgarian Tsarate. The Pope did not
send any letter to the Hungarian King concerning the mission in Severin because
at that time the relations between Gregorius IX and Béla IV were cold. The
situation reflects in the letter that the king would address to the Pope on 7
June 1239, and mention the excommunications that weighed on the entire Hungary
for having infringed on the property of the Catholic Church[35].
In fact, the inhabitants of the Severin Land had suffered excommunication as
well. In the letter of 16 May 1237, among other things, Pope Gregorius IX
conferred to the Dominicans of Severin the right to lift up excommunication[36].
It is reasonable to believe that the local population, impervious to Catholic
propaganda, might have attracted the excommunication by Rome[37].
In 1237 Gregorius IX preferred to keep control over the Catholics in the
Severin land. If the issue of creating here a bishopric had ever come up, this
bishopric would have depended directly on Rome, like the neighboring Cuman
bishopric.
The territories in the extra-Carpathian space that had
come under the authority of the Hungarian Kingdom in the first half of the
thirteenth century seemed to be destined an ecclesiastic organization directly
dependent on the Apostolic See. Pope Honorius III opened this perspective when
he placed the Teutonic Order –established in the Bârsa Land by the Hungarian
King Andrew II in 1211–, ecclesiastically, directly under the jurisdiction of
Rome. On 30 April 1224, Honorius III took the Bârsa Land and the territories
outside the mountains in ius et
proprietatem beati Petri, banning there the exertion of ecclesiastic
jurisdiction by any archbishop or bishop[38].
The Hungarian Church had previously tried, through the bishop of Transylvania,
to extend its jurisdiction in the region. The Pope reacted by the letter of 12
December 1223[39]. There were
major political implications, as the gate to transformation of the possessions
of the Teutonic Order into an autonomous state under the aegis of Papacy had
been opened[40]. Innocent
III had the idea to organize a system of states under the direct authority of
Rome. A State of the Teutonic Order at the arch of the Carpathians would have
been a considerable aid in the struggle against the pagans and “Schism”. After
Andrew II, in 1225, drove Teutons out the land he had given them himself 14
years before, Honorius II
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tried
repeatedly, until the beginning of the fourth decade, to oblige the Hungarian
king to restore the Bârsa Land to them. Thing that highlights the Papal policy
concerning the way in which the lands at the arch of the Carpathians were to be
integrated into the order sought by Rome.
The Cuman bishopric always remained under the
jurisdiction of the Apostolic See, although, politically, this territorial
structure in Muntenia and the southwest of Moldavia were under the authority of
the Árpádian Kingdom. In 1234, Pope Gregorius IX obviously applied there the
canon thought up by the Lateran Council IV, concerning the Catholic dioceses
that included inhabitants of various denominations. He decided that a Catholic
bishop should be ordained “according to the related nation [=Romanians – note
by V. A.]” (catholicum … episcopum illi
nationi conformem), that is of an Orthodox vicar by the Catholic bishop of
the Cumans. The vicar would have been a “solution” to the “pseudo-bishops” (pseudoepiscopi, Graecorum ritum tenentes)
within the Cuman bishopric referred to in the related document[41].
The results of this intervention are not known. What is known is that in the
same letter, Prince Béla (later King Béla IV) was asked to keep the promise
made to the Cardinal of Praeneste, at a time when he was the papal legate in
Hungary, to oblige the Romanians to submit to this vicariate which he was to
endow with part of the revenue collected from the same Romanians.
In 1238, also in the case of Severin Pope Gregorius IX
gave up the old formula of organization of the regions inhabited by the
Orthodox into ecclesiastic structures placed under the jurisdiction of Rome. He
accepted the request of the Hungarian King Béla IV to include this land into
the Hungarian Church. The change in attitude of the Papal See occurred on the
backdrop of the preparations for the crusade against John Asen II, Tsar of
Bulgaria. The church union of Bulgaria failed as early as 1235, when the
Patriarchate of Nicaea acknowledged the Bulgarian Church the rank of
Patriarchate. The alliance with the Empire of Nicaea of John III Vatatzes and
the threats against the Latin Empire of Constantinople prompted the Pope to
intervene. As early as 1236, he was requesting King Béla IV to make an expedition
against the two “schismatic” sovereigns. On 27 January 1238, Pope Gregorius IX
proclaimed the crusade against John Asen II and his country, and invested with
this mission King Béla IV[42].
The Hungarian king knew to wrest major benefits from the situation. He obtained
from the Papacy even the recognition of the right to occupy and annex the
country of John Asen II. As ecclesiastic jurisdiction was of utmost importance,
after the experience of over three decades in which the initiatives of the
Hungarian kings and the Hungarian Church met with constant opposition by the
Papal See, which had targeted the establishment of some direct relations
between the schismatic territories in the Balkan-Carpathian space and
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Rome,
in 1238 Béla IV requested and was granted his investment with the attribution
of papal legate, having the right to make a new ecclesiastic organization in
the conquered territories. He obtained from the Pope the right to appoint from
the higher clerics of the Hungarian Kingdom a legate who would be invested with
increased attributions[43].
Among the conditions he opposed to an expedition against John Asen II –such as
they appear in the letter of 7 June 1238– included the right to attribute the
Severin Land to a bishop “of our own choice” (secundum nostrum beneplacitum)[44].
Therefore, in 1238, the Severin land, where the Hungarians had organized
several years before a Banate, was included also ecclesiastically into the
Hungarian Kingdom. No new bishopric was established and, unfortunately, it is unknown
to whom of the neighboring Hungarian Catholic dioceses was this territory
subordinated: to the bishopric of Transylvania or –more likely, in points of
geography– to the bishopric of Cenad. Subordination to the Cuman bishopric must
be excluded, given the special purposes of this Catholic structure. The
ecclesiastic organization which the aforementioned document has in view must
have been an element of a policy aiming to create closer links between the
province, lying between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt, and
the Hungarian Kingdom. I do not believe that we can talk here –as asserted in
the historiography of the Banate of Severin[45]–
of the king’s concern that the Papacy would establish in this land a
bishopric subordinated to Rome, such as had happened in Cumania a decade
before.
The ecclesiastic history of Bosnia in the first
decades of the thirteenth century fits the general evolutions in the
Balkan-Carpathian space, even if the situation there was extremely complicated,
especially owing to the heresy problem[46].
The Slav bishopric of Bosnia dated to the eleventh century. Until 1180 (or
1183) the Bosnian bishopric belonged to the Archbishopric of Spalato, which was
in the territory of the Árpádian Kingdom. At the aforementioned moment, the Ban
Kulin, probably in relation to his policy towards Hungary, changed this
relation of subordination, and placed the bishopric of his country under
the authority of the Metropolitanate of Ragusa. With the occurrence of the
question of the Bosnian heresy, at the beginning of the thirteenth century and
throughout the first decades of this century, the Bosnian bishopric preserved
this same subordination. Bosnia was, effectively as far as its northern regions
were concerned, and only formally for the rest of the territory, under the
authority of the Hungarian Kingdom. The tendency showed by the latter in the
first decades of the thirteenth century was to swallow up Bosnia, ecclesiastic
organization included. The crusades against the Bosnian heresy –such as the one
made in 1222 by the Archbishop of Kalocsa, Ugrinus, probably encouraged by King
Andrew II– provided it with the opportunity. The attempt of
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Hungary
to subordinate Bosnia ecclesiastically came in contradiction with the position
of the Papacy, which sought a direct control of ecclesiastic matters in this
country. Undoubtedly, the target was what was left of the Bosnian bishopric,
after the greater part of the population had embraced the heresy. On 30 May
1233, Pope Gegorius IX dismissed the Bosnia bishop[47].
At the head of the diocese was placed the former provincial of the Dominican
province of Hungary, Johannes Theutonicus. He was succeeded by another
Dominican from Hungary, Ponsa. In a chart dated 26 April 1238, Gregorius IX
proceeded to take the bishopric of Bosnia from under the jurisdiction of the
Metropolitan of Ragusa and place it under the direct authority of the Pope[48].
Several years later, however, the Papacy abandoned this position. In 1247, the
bishopric of Bosnia was subordinated to the Archbishopric of Kalocsa, which
meant the ecclesiastic subordination of the country to Hungary. Bosnia was
therefore included in the Hungarian Church. In 1252 at the most, the Bishop
Ponsa (1235-1272?), under the pressure of the heretics, relocated with his
chapter into Hungarian territory. He settled in at Dakovo, on the estate he had
received in 1239 as a donation from Prince Koloman, the brother of King Béla IV[49].
From now on and until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Bosnian
bishopric was administered from the outside, namely from Hungary. The absence
of the bishop would have direct consequences on the organization of Catholicism
in Bosnia. The Franciscans who had settled in Bosnia were able to enlarge their
prerogatives considerably, and their structure acquired in this land features
never to be matched elsewhere.
As evidenced in some concrete cases, the union was an
important element in the ecclesiastic restructuring of the Balkan-Carpathian
region. The policy of the Papacy to attract to the Roman Church the Orthodox
peoples marked there a specific course for the territorial and administrative
history of Christianity. The assertion refers especially to the territories
that after 1204 came under Hungarian rule. But the impact was no less important
in Serbia and Bulgaria. Changes occurred there in ecclesiastic organization,
which were in direct relation with union. The acceptance by the sovereigns of
the two countries of the Roman supremacy was founded on political interests,
such as the denominational policy of the Hungarian kings was motivated
politically.
The new policy of the Hungarian kings towards the
“Schism” and the “schismatics” in the kingdom and in its zone of interest was
in fact a new political and territorial offensive of Hungary in the
southeastern direction. As demonstrated by the entire history of the Hungarian
action in Southeastern Europe in the four decades preceding the great Mongol
invasion, the church union and the crusade were just a pretext to attain other
goals. The repeated attempts of the Hungarian kings and the Hungarian Church
–at last, towards 1230, partially successful– to place the lands newly taken
under Árpádian control in the ecclesiastic structure of the kingdom, as well as
the
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disputes
on the subject with the Papacy express the relation between denomination and
policy in the case of Hungary.
For the Balkan states, the church union was an option
with a political motivation in the first place. The sovereigns of these states,
created by separation from the Byzantium and unrecognized by the latter, had
turned even before 1204 to Rome, by which they were expecting to be given
legitimacy. Union was a political option. That it was not made sincerely is
shown by the fact that these countries gave up union when political interest
called for it: Serbia in 1219, and Bulgaria, definitely, in 1235. In both
cases, it was an administrative union based on the recognition of the Papal
primate without any interference in dogmas or rite.
As for the union of Bulgaria, considered at the time
one of the great successes of the Papal policy towards the Schism, there have
been voices claiming that it was not completed even in points of territory,
meaning that only some of the dioceses within the State of the Asens had come
under the supremacy of Rome[50].
I think that this hypothesis still needs arguments. I can hardly believe that
Pope Innocent III would have been content with only part of the Vlach-Bulgarian
State embracing the union. Even if formal, the union agreed in 1204 must
have concerned all the dioceses of the Bulgarian Church. It is however certain
the presence of some hierarchs who were reluctant to accept union and
subordination to Rome. Whenever they could, they acted accordingly. In the
Asens’ Bulgaria, like in the rest of the Balkan-Carpathian space, the
bishoprics and the metropolitanates had been centers of Orthodox resistance.
The resistance of the Orthodox to the pressures towards Catholicism and union
was nonetheless a wider phenomenon. Ultimately, it must have been the most
important factor which explains the failure of the offensive of the Western
Church in Southeastern Europe in the thirteenth century[51].
Of course, even if accepting the union, the Vlach-Bulgarian sovereign had no
intention to sever all links to the Byzantine Orthodox Church. This explains, I
believe, why the unification was not extended to the archbishopric of Ochrida
as well, which never gave up its status of an Orthodox center.
The dynasts of the Balkan countries were not the
promoters of Catholicism. Even if formally regimented into the Catholic Church,
by the act of union, they still claimed their roots in the tradition of
Byzantium, and tried to act after the example of the basileos. As to the Asens,
it was asserted in historiography that they intended to make of Tărnovo, their
capital, “a third Rome”[52].
The dispute of Ioannitsa Asen with Hungary over the canonical subordination of
the “Greeks” on the Hungarian-Bulgarian border led
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to the
hypothesis that Ioannitsa targeted to become a sort of patron of the Christians
of Greek rite in the Hungarian Kingdom, or even that he would have tried to
restore under his aegis the ecclesiastic organization of the region[53].
I do not believe that there are sufficient arguments to prove these assertions
which also regard the territory of southwestern Romania. The occupation of the
Braničevo region did not necessarily mean the raising of claims as to the
ecclesiastic jurisdiction of the lands lying north of the Danube. It is
unlikely that the affiliation to the bishopric of Braničevo, though the
intermediary of Dibiskos, which ruled at a certain point in time over the
Banat, had been contemplated by the Balkan sovereign. In addition, it was
supposed that John Asen II backed up the Orthodox reaction of the Romanians and
Cumans to the north of the Danube against the dual Catholic-Hungarian attempt
to convert and denationalize[54].
This in relation to the Orthodox “pseudo-bishoprics” of the Cuman bishopric
which took up the spiritual leadership of the Romanians living there, and which
extended their influence over many Hungarians, Germans, etc. coming from the
Hungarian Kingdom. The Orthodox elements must have been backed up by the Asens,
but this still remains unclear. What is certain is that the opposition to unification
was considerable in the Vlach-Bulgarian State, that it caused a lot of
political turmoil, and that eventually it led, among other factors, to the
rejection of union.
Bulgaria broke away from the Roman obedience
progressively. The clear break was made in 1235, with the establishment of the
Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate[55].
The union had been abandoned de facto
as early as 1232, when John Asen II started negotiations with the Patriarch of
Nicaea for the recognition of the new archbishop of Tărnovo as autonomous
head of the Bulgarian Church. That year, in the eyes of the Papacy and the
Catholic clergy, the Bulgarians became once again “schismatic and heretics”.
John Asen II approached John III Vatatzes, the Emperor of Nicaea by the good
offices of Ochrida. The anti-Latin alliance of the two sovereigns was completed
at Church level by the recognition by the Patriarch of Nicaea, Germanos II, of
the title of Patriarch of the Archbishop of Tărnovo. The raising of the
Bulgarian Church to the rank of a Patriarchate sanctioned the condition of
Bulgaria as a sovereign state. John Asen II used the intricate international
situation of the time to wrest this ecclesiastic recognition, which also meant
the recognition of his royal dignity by the Emperor and the Patriarch of
Nicaea. The most significant measure taken by John Asen II before the open
break with Rome was also the replacement, in the recently conquered
territories, of the church hierarchs favorable to Catholicism, or even
appointed directly by the Patriarchate of
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Constantinople,
therefore “latinophron”, with hierarchs subordinated to the Church of Tărnovo[56].
The vehement reaction of the Pope to this alteration
of the ecclesiastic map of South-Eastern Europe was made known only in January
1238, when the anti-Bulgarian crusade was organized, as shortly after the event
of 1235, namely the death of the Latin Emperor John of Brienne (March 1237),
John Asen II changed alliances once again, and approached this time the Latins.
It seemed that Bulgaria would be restored to the Catholic world, and,
therefore, Pope Gregorius IX tried coax the Bulgarian Church into turning to
Rome, albeit unsuccessfully.
The abandonment of the union by Serbia and Bulgaria
meant the establishment of new juridical and canonical relations within the
Orthodoxy. The autocephalous Serbian Archbishopric, in 1219, and the Bulgarian
Patriarchate, in 1235, were placed under the canonical jurisdiction of the
Patriarchate of Nicaea. Since 1261, the canonical subordination tended towards
the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was reinstalled in that year. The
hierarchy within the Orthodox Church was that established in 1219, and
respectively 1235. As for the diocesan organization of the two Balkan Churches,
in the thirteenth century there would be no essential changes. No new dioceses
were created. There was but one difficult moment for Orthodoxy. In 1272,
Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus contested the legality and the autocephaly of
the Patriarchate of Bulgaria and of the Archbishopric of Serbia. He insisted on
this fact during the negotiations for the church union. One of the condition
upon which he hinged the making of the union was the declaration of the
autonomy of the Bulgarian Patriarchate and the Serbian Archbishopric as
non-canonical, since its proclamation had been made without the consent of
Rome, and because in their letters to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph,
the heads of the two Churches would have expressed a negative stand in the
issue of the union[57].
This condition was accepted and proclaimed in the Council of Lyon of 1274.
The ecclesiastic map of the Balkan-Carpathian region
in the thirteenth century remained throughout the thirteenth century
approximately the same as that after Bulgaria’s return to Orthodoxy. No
essential modifications were made in the territorial organization of the
Orthodox Churches. The return of the Patriarch to Constantinople did not bring
much novelties in this respect. The church union attempt by the Byzantine
Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus failed. It was blocked by the resistance of
the Orthodox clergy and population. Bulgaria remained an Orthodox country. The
political changes often occurring in this country, especially the political
orientation towards Hungary, even the coming under its protection at certain
times, either of the Bulgarian Tsar or of some territorial Bulgarian princes,
were not denominational concessions. Unlike Bulgaria, Serbia had denominational
oscillations. During the reign of Stephen Uroš I (1243-1276) there was an
obvious tendency to turn once more to Catholicism, an
p. 171
important
part being played in this respect by the Queen, Helen of Valois, a Latin. These
tendencies would become ever more intense during Stephen Dragutin’s reign (king
between 1276-1282; between 1284-1316, ruler of Mačva and of the north of
Bosnia). The denominational oscillations in the Serbian history in the second
half of the century can be explained by geographical location and by the
extremely intricate history of the Serbian lands.
As for the Romanian territories lying in the northern
and eastern parts of the Carpathians, a Church hierarchy would only be
established in the fourteenth century, with the coming into being of the
principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, at the beginning and respectively middle
of the century. The two Metropolitanates were placed under the church
jurisdiction of the ecumenical Patriarchate. As the title of the two
Metropolitans also mentions their quality as “exarches” –“exarch of the
Mountain lands” for the Metropolitan of Ungrovlachia (Wallachia), “exarch of
the Holy See of Constantinople, of all mountain monasteries” for the
Metropolitan of Moldavia– and in the title enumeration the quality of exarch is
older than that of Metropolitan, the hypothesis –pertinent, as I believe– would
be that the exarchate was the ancient form of Church organization in these
lands. The Patriarchate of Constantinople introduced here this formula owing to
the specific conditions in the territories north of the Danube in the period
preceding the organization of the two principalities[58].
The Catholic Church would never return in the
thirteenth century to the position it had held in the Balkan-Carpathian area
around 1230. The progress made occasionally by Catholicism in these part was
short-lived. Until the beginning of the fourteenth century, no new Catholic
bishoprics would be created. It is true that Catholicism did not remain
exclusively in the Hungarian Kingdom and the neighboring territories over which
the Árpádians exerted their political rule. However, in Bulgaria and Serbia the
only Catholics were the merchants and inhabitants of towns who had come from
the Italian Republics and Ragusa.
The Papacy did not give up on the idea to win over the
peoples in the Balkan-Carpathian space to the Catholic Church. Neither the
great Mongol invasion, nor the disappearance of the Latin Empire of
Constantinople determined any change in the Papal goal. But at this moment, in
order to reach this goal, the Papacy adopted new tactics[59].
If starting with Innocent III and until Gregorius IX at the core of the Papal
action lay the creation in this area of some states or provinces placed under
the protection of the Papal See and the appeal to the military force of the
Hungarian Kingdom, liable to influence the denominational behavior of the main
target of this policy (Bulgaria), to begin with the fifth decade the Papacy
proceeded with the organization of the Catholic mission among the Orthodox
people. The Popes appealed to the missionary orders
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(Dominican
and Franciscan) that now became the main agent of Catholicism. The Papacy
established direct contacts with the political leaders in this space who could
facilitate the mission.
It was a new orientation of the Papacy owed to
Innocent IV (1243-1254). Its adoption related to the change in attitude of the
Hungarian king towards the Orthodox and the pagans, within or without the
kingdom, but was not conditioned by it. And this, because the new tactics of
Papacy were put into practice even before the elaboration by King Béla IV of a
new concept of external policy. On 21 March 1245, Pope Innocent IV sent to the
Bulgarian Tsar Kaliman I, by the good offices of the Franciscan friars, a
detailed letter in which he tried to persuade him to return to the church union
and to send Bulgarian prelates to the Council of Lyon, where this topic was to
be discussed[60]. Several
days later, on 25 March, the Pope sent to all non-Latin Churches in the East a
circular letter in which he was summoning them to unite with Rome. Thirteen Christian
peoples are mentioned in our regions of interest: the Bulgarians, the Romanians
(Blaci), the Gazari, the Sclavi, and
the Serbs (Servi)[61].
The year 1245 of the Council Lyon I marked a new stage in the Catholic action
in the Orthodox world, including in the Southeastern European area[62].
After the great Mongol invasion, the Hungarian Kingdom
–of which had been linked the successes of Catholicism in the previous period–
renounced the position of advocate for the Roman faith. The new political
conception of King Béla IV, elaborated in 1246-1247 and expressed in his famous
letter to Pope Innocent IV of 11 November [1247][63],
marked a break with the past in this respect as well[64].
Practically, Béla IV abandoned the Catholic mission of the Kingdom. From now on
he would not try to find a religious justification for his political and
military actions; in contradiction with the situation of 1238, in the case of
the anti-Bulgarian crusade. No less true is that even before the religious
cause had been as a rule more a pretext. With Béla IV, however, Hungary would
not get involved in any external actions whose justification would be purely
religiously. The interventions in Bosnia were not an exception, as the Bogomile
heresy contested and opposed the Hungarian rule over this country. Even if
sometimes in the documents drawn up for foreign eyes the “Schism” is still
mentioned, practically, the confessional factor plays no more a role in the
policy of the Árpádians. The concern for preserving good relations with
Orthodox monarchs in the region determined Béla IV
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to
renounce this mission. From now on, the motivation of the Hungarian
interventions in Southeastern Europe would not be linked to the necessity to
fight against the Schism. In addition, the relations of the Hungarian kings to
the Pope changed. From now on, and for a long time, Hungary would no longer be
an instrument at the disposal of the Papacy. More than before, the Pope was a
political partner. Only at the end of the century, during the serious political
crisis in the kingdom would the Papacy succeed in reestablishing its initial
relations with the Hungarian kings.
To begin with 1245, the Pope addressed the leaders of
the peoples in the Balkan-Carpathian space repeated appeals for church union.
To this added the attempt to attract the Mongols to Christianity. The
Christianizing of the Mongols was one of the major Papal goals, the Franciscan
Order being given the main role in this effort[65].
The policy towards the Mongols had implications on our region of interest. At
the end of the 1270s, the Papacy tried to revive the former Cuman bishopric at
the Carpathian arch. On 7 October 1278, Pope Nicholas III summoned the papal
legate in Hungary to make an investigation into this bishopric which had been
destroyed by the Tatars during the great invasion of 1241. The Pope intended to
attribute to the future local bishop, with his headquarters at Milcov or
Milcovia (civitas de Multo), a town
lying in confinibus Tartarorum, the
role to ordain the Franciscan friars which were already acting with excellent
results among the Tatars[66].
The attempt of Pope Nicholas III to rekindle the
Catholic faith in the ancient Cuman bishopric is one of the most suggestive
episodes of Papal policy in the space controlled by the Mongols. I believe
that, contrary to the assertions usually made in historiography[67],
the attempt of 1278 was not linked to a possible restoration of the authority
of the Hungarian Kingdom outside the Carpathian arch. Nothing in the actions of
external policy of the kingdom during the minority of Ladislaus IV the Cuman
indicates an anti-Tatar action effectively made, or even taken under
consideration, that would have led to a recuperation of “Cumania”. The Papal
attempt of 1278 falls within the range of his policy targeting to resume the
Catholic mission in Eastern Europe, in the territories under the rule or the
control of the Golden Horde. This was done in the space controlled by the
Mongols, and with their collaboration, as demonstrated by the success of the
Franciscan missionaries. The project of Nicholas III concerning the Cuman
bishopric must be considered within the Papal policy of approaching the Mongols
and creating some centers of Catholicism in the centers of Mongol political
domination. “Cumania” lying at the Carpathian arch, also mentioned in documents
after 1241-1242, was a territorial structure at first autonomous and in the
sphere of domination of the
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Mongols,
and later on it fell under their direct domination. It was a suitable ground
for Catholic action, given the antecedents dating to the time of the Hungarian
rule.
There are no indices that the Cuman bishopric was
restored. What we know is that in the centers at the mouth of the Danube and on
the Pontic shore, under Mongol domination, this policy was successful to some
extent[68].
Catholic establishments were created, such as the Franciscan convent of Vicina,
attested in 1287, but which very likely dates back to 1286. Some time later,
the Franciscan establishments in the region were organized in the custody of
Gazariei (Crimea), with the headquarters at Caffa, belonging to the Vicariate
of Aquilonary Tartary. However, this happened only after the regulation of the
Tatar-Genoese relations in 1313. The organization of Catholic communities
in the Pontic space in a Catholic bishopric took place at the same time. The
Catholic bishopric of Caffa, mentioned for the first time in a Papal bull of 26
February 1318, exerted its jurisdiction over a vast territory, stretching from
Varna, in Bulgaria, to Saray, and from the Black Sea shore to the Russian lands[69].
The bishopric was founded in 1318, if not even in 1317. There had been no
earlier Catholic bishopric in the region.
A success for Catholicism, albeit short-lived, was the
policy of Stephen Dragutin in the formerly Hungarian lands which were given to
him in 1284 by his father-in-law, King Ladislaus IV. The territories in
question were Mačva and the north of Bosnia, that is all the territories lying
at the Balkan borders of the Hungarian Kingdom with Serbia and Bulgaria.
Stephen Dragutin, the former Serbian king who ruled over these lands in his
quality as a member of the Hungarian royal family and as a Hungarian magnate,
acted in fervent Catholic. He led a harsh policy against Bogomilism. He was the
one who invited over the Franciscans to Bosnia in 1291[70].
He rendered services to Catholicism like no other Serbian ruler[71].
However, Dragutin died (in 1316) a Serbian monk, and there is no indication that
he would have belonged to the Catholic Church. The lands under his rule were
preponderantly Catholic, and it seems that he supported Catholicism merely out
of political reasons[72].
It was noted that in his relations to the Holy See and
to Velika Crkva (the Serbian Orthodox
Church), Dragutin showed a peculiar similarity with his mother, Helen of
Valois. The queen-mother had contributed to the prosperity of Catholic convents
and churches on the Dalmatian shore, and kept the best relations possible with
the Papacy. Concurrently, she is recorded in the Serbian Orthodox tradition as
an
p. 175
example
of Christian virtue, without her attachment to Catholicism ever being denied[73].
The denominational policies of Stephen Dragutin, in the “Hungarian lands” and
the “Bosnian lands” under is rule, and of his brother, Stephen Uroš II Milutin,
the Serbian king, in Rascia, were very different. It was noted that at the time
the border between Byzantium and the West was the line separating Milutin’s
Serbia from Dragutin’s[74].
But in the following period, at the end of the thirteenth century and the
beginning of the fourteenth century, in which the lands under the rule of
Dragutin would be integrated into the Serbian State, the Serbs would make
Orthodoxy their enduring choice, thus putting an end to a history of over a one
century of hesitation over the denomination of the country.
Under Pope Nicholas IV (1288-1292), the Catholic
mission in the Balkan Peninsula was extremely active. This Pope nurtured the
hope to unite the peoples of the region with the Roman Church. To this purpose,
he corresponded with the political leaders in the region. The letter addressed
on 23 July 1288 to Stephen Uroš II Milutin carries the expressly made
proposition that the Serbian king and his people should embrace the Catholic
faith[75]. As we learn from the letter of Nicholas IV of 23
March 1291 addressed to Helen, regina
Serviae, the latter had previously come up with a plan for the union of the
Bulgarian Church with Rome[76]. It was undoubtedly her intercession with Tsar George
I Terter, a relative of hers[77]. This policy of the Papacy, however, did not yield
any results, with the exception of Stephen Dragutin, whom the Pope took, him
and his rule, sub beati Petri et nostra
protectione[78]. Papal messengers and missionaries were now the
Franciscan friars of Provincia Sclavoniae
(This Franciscan province encompassed the Dalamatian-Croatian territory along
the Adriatic coast.) In 1298, Pope Boniface VIII ordered that Provincia Sclavoniae should extend its
missionary action to the partes
Serviae, Rasciae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Bosnae atque Istrae[79]. If in the Orthodox countries of the Balkans no new
Catholic dioceses could be founded, in exchange, owing to a complex of factors,
the territorial organization of the Franciscan Order was made more freely. In
the fourteenth century, most of the successes of
p. 176
Catholicism
in this space would be owed to the mission undertaken by the Franciscan Order[80].
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Abbreviations
for the volumes of documents cited in this paper:
Acta Honorii III et Gregorii IX = Acta Honorii
III (1216) et Gregorii IX (1227-1241), ed. A. L. Tăutu, Romae, 1950.
Acta Innocenttii PP. III = Acta
Innocentii PP. III (1198-1216), ed. Th. Haluščynskyj, Romae, 1944.
Acta Innocenttii PP. IV = Acta
Innocentii PP. IV (1243-1254), ed. Th. Haluščinskyj et M. M. Vojmar, Romae,
1962.
Acta Romanoruum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad
Benedictum XI = Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI (1276-1304),
ed. A. L. Tăutu, Romae, 1954.
Acta Urbani IIV, Clementis IV, Gregorii X = Acta Urbani
IV, Clementis IV, Gregorii X (1261-1276), ed. A. L. Tăutu, Romae, 1953.
DIR, C,
I-II = Documente privind istoria României,
Seria C, Transilvania, veacul XI, XII şi XIII, vols. I-II, ed. Şt. Pascu et
alii, Bucharest, 1951-1952.
DRH, D, I =
Documenta Romaniae Historica, Seria D, Relaţii
între ţările române, vol. I, Bucharest, 1977.
Fejér
= G. Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, vols.
II-VII, Budae, 1829-1841.
Hurmuzaki,
I/1 = E. de Hurmuzaki, Documente
privitoare la istoria românilor, vol. I/1, ed. N. Densuşianu, Bucharest,
1887.
Smičiklas,
CDCr = Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vols.
III-IV, ed. T. Smičiklas, Zagrabiae, 1905-1906.
Theiner,
VMHH, I = A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram
illustrantia, vol. I, Romae, 1859.
Theiner,
VMSM, I = A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium
historiam illustrantia, vol. I, Romae, 1863.
Ub., I = Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in
Siebenbürgen, vol. I, ed. Fr. Zimmermann and C. Werner, Hermannstadt
(Sibiu), 1892.
[1] The ecclesiastic organization of the Hungarian
Kingdom in the first century at Gy. Györffy, Zu den Anfängen der ungarischen Kirchenorganisation auf Grund neuer
quellenkritischer Ergebnisse, in “Archivum Historiae Pontificae”, 7, 1969,
pp. 79-113.
[2] For the organization of the Archbishopric of Ochrida
and its subsequent history, see H. Gelzer, Der
Patriarchat von Achrida. Geschichte und Urkunden, Leipzig, 1902; St.
Novakoviæ, Ohridska arhiepiskopija
u početku XI veka. Hrisovulje cara Vasilija II od 1019 i 1020 god. Geografijska
istraživanja, in “Glas Srpska Kraljevska Akademija”, LXXXVI, 1908, pp.
1-62; Iv. Snegarov, Istorija na
Ohridskata arhiepiskopija, vol. I, Sofia, 1924, p. 52 et seq.
[3] H. Gelzer, op. cit., pp. 10-11; Idem, Ungedruckte und wenig bekannte
Bistümerverzeichnisse der orientalischen Kirche, in “Byzantinische
Zeitschrift”, II, 1893, pp. 42-46. The bishopric of the Vlachs, which already
existed in 1087, encompassed a territory with Vlach concentration, detached
from an older diocese. The remaining Vlachs, “spread all over Bulgaria” (as
attested in a document given by Emperor Basil II in May 1020), belonged to the
other bishoprics in the area of jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ochrida.
See M. Gyóni, L’évêché vlaque de
l’archévêché bulgare d’Achris aux XIe-XIVe
siècles, in “Études Slaves
et Roumaines”, I, 1948, pp. 148-159 and 224-233.
[4] For the Christianity of Byzantine Rite in Hungary
during the first centuries, see, among others, Gy. Moravcsik, The Role of the Byzantine Church in Medieval
Hungary, in “The American Slavic and East European Review”, 6, nos. 18-19,
1947, pp. 134-151 (and Idem, Studia
Byzantina, Budapest, 1968, pp. 326-340); Idem, Byzantium and the Magyars, Budapest, 1970, pp. 101-119; Gy.
Székely, La Hongrie et Byzance aux Xe-XIIe
siècles, in “Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae”, XIII,
1967, pp. 291-311; I. Timkó, Keleti
kereszténység, keleti egyház, Budapest, 1971; I. Rămureanu, Începuturile creştinării ungurilor în
credinţa ortodoxă a Răsăritului (The Beginnings of the Christianizing of the
Hungarians in the Orthodox Faith of the East), in “Studii Teologice”, IX,
1957, pp. 23-57. Also see notes 5 and 7.
[5] N. Oikonomidès, À propos des relations ecclésiastiques entre Byzance et la
Hongrie au XIe siècle: le métropolite de Turquie, in “Revue
des études Sud-Est européennes”, IX, 1971, pp. 527-533; I. Baán, “Turkia metropolitája”. Újabb adalék a
bizánci egyház történetéhez a középkori Magyarországon, in “Századok”, 129,
1995, pp. 1167-1170.
[6] N. Oikonomidès, op. cit., p. 532.
[7] Gy. Moravcsik, Byzantium
and the Magyars, pp. 113-116. For the Orthodox monasteries in Hungary until
the beginning of the thirteenth century, see E. von Ivánka, Griechische Kirche und griechisches Mönchtum
im mittelalterlichen Ungarn, in “Orientalia Christiana Periodica”, VIII,
1942, pp. 183-194; Gy. Györffy, Das
Güterverzeichnis des griechischen Klosters zu Szávaszentdemeter (Sremska
Mitrovica) aus dem 12. Jahrhundert, in “Studia Slavica Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae”, V, 1959, pp. 9-74; A. L. Tăutu, Griechische Klöster im mittelalterlichen Ungarn, in “Acta
Historica. Societas Academica Daco-Romana”, IV, 1965, pp. 43-66.
[8] See below the paragraph with note 27.
[9] H. Gelzer, Ungedruckte
und wenig bekannte Bistümerverzeichnisse, p. 43.
[10] This identification in M. Gyóni, L’église orientale dans la Hongrie du XIe siècle,
in “Revue d’Histoire Comparée”, XXV, no. 3, 1947, pp. 42-49. Also adopted by
Gy. Moravcsik, Gy. Székely et alii.
[11] The situation of the Orthodox Church in the Carpathian-Balkan
space (not only in the north-Danube one) in the first half of the thirteenth
century, in C. Andreescu, Reacţiuni
ortodoxe în contra catolicizării regiunilor carpato-dunărene în prima jumătate
a secolului al XIII-lea, in “Biserica Ortodoxă Română”, LVI, 1938, pp.
770-779; Č. Bonev, L’église orthodoxe dans les territoires
carpato-danubiens et la politique pontificale pendant la première moitié
du XIIIe s., in “Etudes Balkaniques”, XXI, no. 4, 1986, pp.
101-108; V. Iorgulescu, L’église byzantine
nord-danubienne au début du XIIIe siècle. Quelques
témoignages documentaires aux alentours de la quatrième Croisade, in
“Byzantinische Forschungen”, XXII, 1996, pp. 53-77.
[12] See below the paragraph with note 25.
[13] H. Gelzer, Der
Patriarchat von Achrida, p. 11. The German Byzantinologist makes an
enumeration of the bishoprics which transferred from the Archbishopric of
Ochrida to the Bulgarian Patriarchate and to the autocephalous Serbian
Archbishopric: Skopje, Velbužd (Kjustendil), Sredec (Sofia), Malešovo, Vidin,
Prizren, Niš, Braničevo, Belgrade, Lipljan, Striamon-Zemlin and Raška. I should
note that the bishoprics of Niš, Braničevo, Belgrad and Striamon-Zemlin did not
transfer to the Serbian Archbishopric, such as the cited author believes, but
were incorporated into the Bulgarian Church.
[14] C. Andreescu, op. cit., pp. 771-772.
[15] For a complete image of the ecclesiastic organization
of the Serbian lands until 1220, see M. Janković, Episkopije i mitropolija Srpske Crkve u srednjem veku, Belgrade,
1985, pp. 13-16. Also see S. Ćirković, La
Serbie au Moyen Age, translated by D. W. Witters, s. l., 1992, pp. 90 et
sqq.
[16] The bishoprics of the Serbian Church in 1220 in M.
Janković, op. cit., pp. 17-33.
[17] Cf. S. Ćirković, op.
cit., p. 92.
[18] For the expansion of the Hungarian Kingdom and the
offensive of Catholicism in the region during the thirteenth century, see Ş.
Papacostea, Românii în secolul al
XIII-lea. Între cruciată şi Imperiul mongol, Bucharest, 1993, passim.
[19] For the issue of the beginnings of this bishopric,
see Magyarország története. Előzmények és
magyar történet 1241-ig, vol. II, Budapest, 1984, pp. 916-917 (Gy.
Györffy).
[20] From the rich literature concerning the Cuman
bishopric, see: C. Auner, Episcopia
Milcoviei, in “Revista catolică”, I, 1912, pp. 533-551; N. Pfeiffer, Die ungarische Dominikanerordensprovinz von
ihrer Gründung 1221 bis zum Tatarenverwüstung 1241-1242, Zürich, 1913, pp.
75-92; I. Ferenţ, Cumanii şi episcopia
lor, Blaj, [1931], pp. 133-152; L. Makkai, A milkói (kún) püspökség és
népei, Debrecen, 1936, pp. 10-44; Gh. I. Moisescu, Catolicismul în Moldova până
la sfârşitul veacului XIV, Bucharest, 1942, pp. 10-17; Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., pp. 66-69.
[21] Fejér, III/2, p. 203; Theiner, VMSM, I, no. 59, p. 90; Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 87, p. 112; Acta Honorii III et Gregorii IX, no.
163, p. 215. For the missions to the Cumans, see J. Richard, La Papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen
Age (XIIIe-XVe siècles), Paris, 1977, pp.
20-33.
[22] See G. Müller, Die
deutschen Landkapitel in Siebenbürgen und ihre Dechanten 1192-1848. Ein
rechtgeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Landeskirche in
Siebenbürgen, Hermannstadt, 1934-1936 (=Archiv des Vereins für
Siebenbürgische Landeskunde, 48), pp. 7-8, 281-282; P. Binder, Unele probleme referitoare la prima menţiune
documentară a Braşovului, in “Cumidava”, III, 1969, pp. 125-131.
[23] See below the paragraph with notes 33 and 34.
[24] The relations between the Hungarian Kingdom and the
Papacy at the beginning of the thirteenth century, especially concerning the
position towards the Orthodox denomination, in D. Hintner, Die Ungarn und das byzantinische Christentum der Bulgaren im Spiegel
der Register Papst Innocenz’ III, Leipzig, 1976; J. R. Sweeney, Papal-Hungarian Relations during the
Pontificate of Innocent III, 1198-1216, Ann Arbor/Michigan, 1976.
[25] Theiner, VMSM,
I, no. 55, pp. 33-34; Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 30, pp. 39-40; Acta Innocentii PP. III, no. 60, pp. 269-270; DIR, C, I, no. 46, p. 367. Also see Acta Innocentii PP. III, pp. 96-98; Č. Bonev, op. cit., p. 102; Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., p. 71.
[26] I. Timkó, op.
cit., p. 412.
[27] Fejér, II, pp. 459-460; Theiner, VMSM, I, no.
62, p. 40; Acta Innocentii PP. III,
no. 78, pp. 300-301. Also see Acta
Innocentii PP. III, pp. 99-100; Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., pp. 59, 74-75. I opt for the localization of this
bishopric at the Balkan borders of the Hungarian Kingdom, most probably in
Syrmia.
[28] Theiner, VMHH,
I, no. 158, p. 88; Acta Honorii III et
Gregorii IX, no. 161, pp. 212-214. For this episode, see L. Tăutu, Le conflit entre Johanitsa Asen et Emeric
roi de Hongrie (1202-1204) (Contribution à l’étude du problème du
seconde empire valaque-bulgare), in Mélanges
Eugène Tisserant, III (=Studi e Testi, 233), Città del
Vaticano, 1964, p. 385; V. Iorgulescu, op.
cit., p. 71.
[29] Theiner, VMHH,
I, no. 159, pp. 88-89; Acta Honorii III
et Gregorii IX, no. 162, p. 214.
[30] For this moment, see L. Tăutu, Le conflit, p. 386; L. Tăutu, Margherita
di Ungheria imperatrice di Bisanzio, in “Antemurale”, III, 1956, pp. 66-67.
[31] Theiner, VMHH,
I, no. 179, pp. 103-104; Acta Honorii III
et Gregorii IX, no. 175, p. 231. For this episode, see L. Tăutu, Le conflit, p. 386.
[32] It is the old Catholic bishopric of Syrmia, and not
the bishopric with its headquarters at Kou, also in Syrmia, which had been
created in 1229 for the Orthodox who accepted the union (as assumed by L.
Tăutu, Margherita, p. 68).
[33] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 84-85; IV/1, pp. 85-86; IV/1, pp.
90-91; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 268, pp.
150-151; no. 269, pp. 151; no. 270, pp. 151; Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 115, pp. 153;
no. 116, pp. 153-154; no. 117, pp. 154-155; Acta
Honorii III et Gregorii IX, no. 224, pp. 300-301; no. 225, pp. 301-301.
[34] Maria Holban, Despre
Ţara Severinului şi banatul de Severin în secolul al XIII-lea, in Din cronica relaţiilor româno-ungare în
secolele XIII-XIV, Bucharest, 1981, pp. 65-67; V. Iorgulescu, op. cit., pp. 72-75.
[35] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 111-115; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 308, pp. 170-171;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 140, pp. 182-183.
[36] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 84-85; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 268, pp. 150-151; Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 115, p. 153; Acta Honorii III et Gregorii IX, no.
224, pp. 300-301.
[37] Cf. V. Iorgulescu, op. cit., pp. 73-74.
[38] Fejér, III/1, pp. 459-461; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 105, pp. 50-51; Ub., I, no. 40, pp. 29-30; Hurmuzaki,
I/1, no. 63, pp. 85-86; DRH, D, I,
no. 4, pp. 8-10.
[39] Fejér, III/1, pp. 420-421; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 87, p. 43; Hurmuzaki, I/1,
no. 60, p. 82; Ub., I, no. 36, p. 25;
DRH, D, I, no. 3, pp. 7-8.
[40] For the issue of the Teutonic Order and its religious
jurisdiction in the territories acquired, see Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., pp. 31-36, especially p. 35.
[41] Fejér, III/2, p. 399-401; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 225, p. 131; Hurmuzaki,
I/1, no. 105, pp. 132-133; Ub., I,
no. 69, pp. 60-61; Acta Honorii III et
Gregorii IX, no. 209, pp. 284-286; DIR,
C, I, no. 230, pp. 403-404; DRH, D,
I, no. 9, pp. 20-21. For this episode, see especially Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., pp. 61-64.
[42] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 101-104; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 283, pp. 159-160;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 125, pp. 166-168.
[43] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 115-118; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 295, p. 166; Hurmuzaki,
I/1, no. 133, pp. 175-176; Acta Honorii
III et Gregorii IX, no. 248, pp. 325-326.
[44] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 111-115; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 308, pp. 170-171;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 140, pp. 182-184; Acta
Honorii III et Gregorii IX, no. 248 b, pp. 327-328.
[45] M. Holban, op.
cit., pp. 64-65.
[46] For the ecclesiastic organization of medieval Bosnia,
see among others J. Džambo, Die
Franziskaner im mittelalterlichen Bosnien, Werl/Westfalen, 1991, pp. 39 et
sqq.
[47] Fejér, III/2, p. 341; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 192, p. 113; Smičiklas, CDCr, III, no. 327, pp. 379-380.
[48] Fejér, IV/2, p. 124; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 289, pp. 162-163; Smičiklas, CDCr, IV, no. 50, pp. 56-57.
[49] See J. Džambo, op.
cit., pp. 41-43 and the notes.
[50] V. Gjuzelev, Das
Papsttum und Bulgarien im Mittelalter (9.-14. Jh.), in Forschungen zur Geschichte Bulgariens im Mittelalter, Vienna, 1986,
p. 184, with the references in the notes. The Bulgarian historian’s assertion
is based on the fact that only some of the Bulgarian hierarchs are mentioned in
the documents concerning the union (the Papal correspondence with Ioannitsa
Asen and other documents concerning the diocese “Bulgaria”), whereas the
Synodicon of Tsar Boril (1215) lists a greater number of hierarchs.
[51] For a study on the Orthodox resistance to union, see
C. Andreescu, op. cit., pp. 770-779.
[52] D. Obolensky, The
Cult of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki in the History of Byzantine-Slav
Relations, in “Balkan Studies”, 15, no. 1, 1974, p. 5.
[53] See V. Iorgulescu, op. cit., pp. 67-68 and the notes.
[54] C. Andreescu, op.
cit., pp. 772-773.
[55] From the literature concerning the ‘restoration’ of
the Bulgarian Patriarchate, see V. G. Vasilevskii, Obnovlenie bolgarskogo patriašestva
pri care Ioanne Asene v 1235 g., in “Žurnal Ministerstva narodnogo
proveštenija”, CCXXXVIII, 1885, pp. 1-56, 206-238; G. Cankova–Petkova, Vosstanovlenie bolgarskogo patriaršestva v
1235 g. i meždunarodnoe položenie Bolgarskogo gosudarstva, in “Vizantijskij
Vremennik”, XXVIII, 1968, pp. 136-150; Eadem, Griechisch-bulgarische Bündnisse in den Jahren 1235 und 1246, in
“Byzantinobulgarica”, III, 1969, pp. 49 et sqq.
[56] Ş. Papacostea, op.
cit., p. 43 and note 122.
[57] Acta Urbani IV,
Clementis IV, Gregorii X, no. 50, pp. 135-137 (for the paragraph in
question, see p. 136). Also see V. Gjuzelev, op. cit., pp. 191-192.
[58] Cf. I. Donat, The
Romanians South of the Carpathians and the Migratory Peoples in the
Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries, in Relations
between the Autochthonous Population and the Migratory Populations on the
Territory of Romania, Bucharest, 1975, pp. 288-290.
[59] A similar observation in C. Andreescu, op. cit., p. 779.
[60] Fejér, IV/1, pp. 365-367; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 365, pp. 196-197;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 175, pp. 225-227; Acta
Innocentii PP. IV, no. 20, pp. 43-46.
[61] Acta Innocentii
PP. IV, no. 21, p. 48.
[62] A more detailed approach in Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., pp. 105 et sqq.
[63] Fejér, IV/2, pp. 218-224 (under 1254); Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 440, pp. 230-232 (under
1254); Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 199, pp. 259-262 (under 1254). This letter dated 11
November bears no year. In a recent investigation it was established, with
arguments which I consider irrefutable, taking into account the historical
information it contains, that the letter was written in 1247, possibly in 1248.
See T. Senga, IV. Béla külpolitikája és a
IV. Ince pápához intézett “tatár-levele”, in “Századok”, 121, 1987, pp.
604-609.
[64] For the elaboration of the new foreign policy of King
Béla IV after 1246-1247, see J. Szűcs, Az
utolsó Árpádok, Budapest, 1993, pp. 75-82.
[65] See especially G. Soranzo, Il papato, l’Europa cristiana e i Tartari. Un secolo di penetrazione
occidentale in Asia, Milano, 1930, pp. 77 et sqq.; J. Richard, op. cit., pp. 63 et sqq.
[66] Fejér, VI/2, pp. 403-404; VII/5, pp. 439-440;
Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 552, p. 337;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 345, pp. 429-430 (under 1279); Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI, no. 27,
pp. 59-60; DRH, D, I, no. 12, pp.
29-30.
[67] Recently, see Ş. Papacostea, op. cit., p. 143.
[68] See C. Andreescu, Aşezări
franciscane la Dunăre şi Marea Neagră în sec. XIII-XIV, in “Cercetări
Istorice”, VIII-IX, 1932-1933, no. 2, pp. 151-163.
[69] J. Richard, op.
cit., pp. 157-159.
[70] At the request of Stephen Dragutin, rex Serviae, Pope Nicholas IV ordered on
23 March 1291 that the minister of the Province of Slavonia send two brothers
to Bosnia, who should fight against the heresy and spread the Catholic faith
(Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 611, pp. 378-379;
Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V
ad Benedictum XI, no. 102, pp. 173-174).
[71] For the denominational policy of Stephen Dragutin and
his relations to Papacy, see D. Maritch, Papstbriefe
an serbische Fürsten im Mittelalter. Kritische Studien, Srem–Karlovci,
1933, pp. 61-66.
[72] Cf. D. Maritch, op.
cit., p. 66.
[73] Concerning Helen and her relations to Papacy, see D.
Maritch, op. cit., pp. 51-59. Also
see L. Mavromatis, La fondation de
l’Empire serbe. Le kralj Milutin, Thessaloniki, 1978, pp. 22-23.
[74] L. Mavromatis, op.
cit., p. 28.
[75] Fejér, VII/5, pp. 476-478 (under 1289); Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 581, pp. 360-361;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 387, pp. 480-482; Acta
Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI, no. 76, pp. 137-139.
[76] Fejér, VII/5, pp. 489-491; Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 607, pp. 375-376;
Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 414, pp. 512-513; Acta
Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI, no. 98, pp. 167-168.
In 1288 the Pope requested that Helene should advocate before Dragutin and
Milutin his proposals concerning the union (Theiner, VMHH, I, no. 580, pp. 359-360; Hurmuzaki, I/1, no. 386, pp.
479-480; Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab
Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI, no. 77, pp. 139-140).
[77] Cf. D. Maritch, op.
cit., p. 57.
[78] Theiner, VMHH,
I, no. 605, p. 375; Acta Romanorum
Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI, no. 96, p. 166.
[79] J. Džambo, op.
cit., p. 65 and note 47.
[80] For the Franciscan Order in South-Eastern Europe in
the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, see especially Iv. Dujčev, Il francescanesimo in Bulgaria nei secoli
XIII e XIV, in Medioevo
bizantino-slavo, vol. I, Saggi di
storia politica e culturale, Rome, 1965, pp. 395-424; J. Džambo, op. cit., pp. 55 et sqq.