The Patriarchate of Jerusalem and European Politics in the Age of Charlemagne

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Nestor Kavvadas, since 5/2024
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461196682

For the Church of Jerusalem, the period of time from the turn of the 9th century down to the 820ies proved a time of unforeseen political momentum. The Patriarchate of the Holy City, which had already assumed a kind of informal leadership among the Byzantine-Orthodox populations of the Abbasid Empire (the so-called “Melkites”), was then to attain a critical role, going beyond mere mediation, in the intensified diplomatic contacts between Charlemagne and Hārūn ar-Rašīd. This role would reach its peak when the Patriarch Thomas’ own legates were sent with the representative of the Caliph to Charlemagne in Aachen in 807. But in that same year, Jerusalem became the venue where Byzantine-Frankish disagreement around the words “Filioque” in the Frankish Creed – later to become the major matter of dispute between Byzantine and Latin Church – induced for the very first time a violent ecclesio-political conflict that would bring into the arena the Pope as well as the Frankish Emperor. But also in the Iconoclast controversy, which always was a burning issue for the so-called “Melkites”, not least due to the aniconic character of the Islamic religious culture predominant in their homelands, the anti-iconoclast leadership of the Jerusalem Patriarchate was to undertake effective action not only against “Melkite” Iconoclasts, but also vis-à-vis Constantinopolitan Iconoclasm that held sway anew after 814, siding with the anti-iconoclast network around Theodore the Studite and his Roman allies. At the same time, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem under Thomas would be instrumental for the making of the first-ever works of Christian theology in Arabic. However, despite their extraordinary momentousness, these key events around the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and their history remain hitherto controversial, even unwritten in part. This is due not only to the difficulties of accessing the historical testimonies concerned, that are for the most part scattered in disparate sources in several languages and literatures, but also to the political and historical complexities surrounding the events themselves. So, in this project the Greek, Arabic, Georgian, Syriac and Armenian sources from the Abbasid Empire will be subject to comprehensive investigation for the first time, and will be cross-examined with the Frankish-Latin as well as with the Byzantine-Greek sources. On this new basis, the project will then undertake a multi-facetted reconstruction – an histoire croisée – of that unprecedented involvement of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in grand enterprises of international politics. Simultaneously, the project shall produce a volume comprising all relevant sources, including several unpublished ones, accompanied by translations and historical-philological commentaries. In this way, an entire field of research will be made broadly accessible.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Achim Thomas Hack, until 5/2024