International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

THE CHURCH BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST ‒ PART 1
Chairs:
 Nichkiphoros Tsougarakis, Anna Karamanidou
Charles Yost
, 
An “Increase of Truth…Not the Abolition of Former Things”: 
Change and Continuity in the Religious Identity of Byzantines United to Rome
Daniele Tinterri
, 
Orthodox and Catholic Church in Venetian Negroponte and in Genoese Chios: 
The Same Issue, Two Different Solutions
Elga Kanaeva
, 
Lе dialogue entre l’Est et l’Ouest menée par Barlaam le Calabrais : problème de Filioque
Dimitrios Vachaviolos
, 
The Participation and Role of the Μetropolitan of Lacedaemonia, Methodios, in the Synod 
of Ferrara-Florence (1438 – 1439) and His Subsequent Stance on the Florentine Union (1439 – 1442)
Anna
Karamanidou
, 
Ενδιαφέρουσα επιστολή του πρώην Πατριάρχου Ιεροσολύμων Νεκταρίου 
προς τον τσάρο Αλέξιο Μιχαήλοβιτς
Eleftherios Despotakis
, 
Venetian Attitudes towards the Union of the Churches: A Letter in Praise of Cardinal Bessarion

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Charles Yost 
Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN, United States; 
[e-mail]
An “Increase of Truth…Not the Abolition of Former Things”: 
Change and Continuity in the Religious Identity of Byzantines United to Rome
The union of Greek Christians with the Latin Church, despite the long-standing schism 
between Rome and their own ancestral see, though seemingly familiar to scholars of Byzantine 
religious history remains to be fully understood. Scholars frequently treat these Greeks as “converts 
to Catholicism” or label them as “Latinophrones,” the insult hurled at them by their medieval 
adversaries, thus insinuating that these figures have no real place as objects of inquiry in the field 
of “authentic” Byzantine religious culture and thereby preempting an impartial hearing of their 
religious convictions and identity. As Alexandra Riebe has demonstrated in the case of Patriarch 
John Bekkos, such labels and treatments foster misreadings of the figures to whom they are applied. 
In the vein of Riebe’s 2005 monograph, as well as a few other scholarly contributions (e.g. Judith 
Ryder, Yury Avvakumov), this paper will strive toward a fuller understanding of these elusive and 
intriguing figures by means of a perspective frequently neglected though altogether indispensable: 
their own words. This paper will examine their own articulations of their identity as Greeks united 
to Rome, with special attention to the way in which they navigate the seeming contradictions of 
their religious status and present it in terms of change or stasis. Specifically, I will examine these 
articulations of self-understanding as they appear in the writings of men such as Manuel Kalekas (c. 
1360-1410) and Ioannis Plousiadenos (c. 1430-1500), i.e. Greeks united to Rome both before and 
after the watershed Council of Florence. In these writings, the relationship between change, the self-
conscious adoption of a novel religious status against a well-worn tradition of rejection of the Latins, 
and continuity, in terms of fidelity to the ancient faith as understood by the unionists themselves, 
will be considered and proposed as a tension potentially marking “unionist discourse.” Despite 
the apparent contradictions entailed by the religious status of these figures, and the tendency of 
hostile critics to portray their religious convictions as opportunism or a transgression of the religio-
cultural boundary between Latin and Greek, men such as Kalekas and Plousiadenos argued that the 
best part of the Greek theological tradition was not only consistent with, but demanded union with 
Rome. I would suggest that Maximos Planoudes’ dictum, “Πάντα μὲν γὰρ μεταβάλλεται, ἀπόλλυται 
δὲ οὐδέν,” the motto of this International Congress of Byzantine Studies, may apply in surprisingly 
suitable way to the religious identity of these united Greeks, as they themselves understood it. This 
dynamic between change and continuity, along with their concerns for ethnic solidarity, doctrinal 
inerrancy, and obedience to the Church as exhibited by the words of the united Greeks themselves, 
reveals their profile to be far more complicated and their role in Byzantine religious history far more 
intriguing than is implied by much of the conventional scholarship treating them as mere “converts” 
or “Latinophrones.”

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