Talk about revisionism.
Those Melkites you deride were YOU (I’m assuming that you claim that the EO didn’t come into existence until 1054).
Correction: Those Melkites that I “deride” were
in communion with Rome, but Rome had no direct control over their activities, and often looked with disfavor on them. You can see this quite clearly if you go back and look at the actual history. The Melkites were the agents of the Byzantine Emperor, who sent them to replace the native bishops of the “Oriental” provinces, often whether those native bishops were truly Monophysite or not. Those who were not Monophysite often ended up in exile in Rome, where they were welcomed and supported. This was certainly true of a great many Syrian bishops in the 7th & 8th Centuries, a few of whom were elected Pope. But, as for the Melchite agenda itself, it was merely a byproduct of having a theocratic state like the Byzantine Empire.
When Constantinople finally accepted Chalcedon as the rule of the state (it wavered on it for some time), it became necessary to maintain imperial law (the law of the Empire’s state cult) in all corners of the Empire, thus having Greek bishops who were loyal to the Empire when the native Coptic, Syrian, or Armenian bishops could not be trusted to uphold Chalcedon solved this problem. It was a practical solution for maintaining Chalcedonian orthodoxy; and medieval Rome could not argue with that. What Rome clearly continued to do (at least well into the 700’s) is argue for the primacy of Alexandria (and Antioch)
over Constantinople, which was not in keeping with the Melkite agenda at all. So, don’t lay this problem at Rome’s feet.
And a shred of evidence on this Islam-is-gnostic-Orthodoxy? North Africa (i.e. the Latin part) was Islamicized LOOONG before Syria and Egypt (which still have sizable Christian populations).
Sorry, but you don’t know your history. Western N. Africa (which was, then, a Byzantine province, by the way - controlled directly from Constantinople) fell to the Muslims between
670 and
698. Damascus (Syria) fell to Islam back in
636. Jerusalem (Palestine) fell to Islam in
637. And Alexandria (Egypt) fell to Islam in
640, with most of the rest of Egypt in their control before that; so, you’re between 30 and 50 years off. What’s more, unlike in the East, the native peoples of Western N. Africa did not apostatize and accept Islam; rather, the vast majority of them fled to (still-Christian) Spain and S. Italy and were replaced with (mostly pagan) Berber people from the south (who welcomed the Muslims as liberators). This is in striking contrast to what happened among the Christian majority populations in Egypt and Syria, when (either immediately or over the course of time) many Christian families converted to Islam to get tax cuts and better treatment in Islamic society.
Who took the title pontifex maximus?
You mean, who
was it given to? The Pope of Rome (back in the 370’s). But, this had nothing to do with the 7th Century Melkites. When the Melkites were first dispatched by the Emperor, the Pope of Rome had not yet begun to micro-manage the Church, especially not in the East. In fact, the very reason why the Papacy developed from the Church’s final court of appeal to a proactive, hands-on “manager” was
precisely because the Pope had to compete with the (often-heretical) Byzantine Emperors, who saw themselves as the “Christ on earth” and the legal head of the universal Church (in its capacity of Byzantine state cult), and only the Pope could undo the nonsense that heretical Emperors were imposing on the Church. The Eastern Church tends to consistently forget about this. But, if you read the history, it was the Eastern bishops (and abbots of the Eastern monasteries) who consistently appealed to Rome and begged the Pope to involve himself directly and proactively.
Now, centuries later, the successors of these
same Eastern bishops and abbots complain about this and argue that the Pope has no right to micro-manage things.
But, that’s not how their ancestors saw it; and it would be nice if the East would reconcile itself with its own history (viz. Rome) and the natural developments which came from this history.
