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Ecclesiastical problems under the Palaeologi
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Page 7
The Union of Lyons changed in many respects the position of the Arsenite party. The question of union presented a broader interest, for it touched the main foundation of the Greek church Orthodoxy. The Arsenites with their narrow interests and biased speculations were pushed temporarily into the background; the attention of the government and people was turned almost exclusively to the problem of the union. This fact explains the almost complete silence of the sources upon the activity of the Arsenites from the time of the Union of Lyons to the death of Michael VIII. There is a rather hazy indication that in 1278 an Arsenite council was held in Thessaly or Epirus; its chief aim was to secure the triumph of the Arsenite cause and to glorify Arsenius' memory.
Feeling this stubborn opposition, open and secret, to his plans for union, Michael behaved with great cruelty in the last years of his reign. His successor and son Andronicus II inherited from his father two difficult problems in the ecclesiastical life of the Empire: the union, and the strife between the Arsenites and the official church. First of all, the new Emperor solemnly renounced the union and restored Orthodoxy. A historian of that time wrote: Envoys were sent everywhere carrying the imperial decrees which announced the settlement of the church disorders, free return to all those who had been exiled for their zeal in church affairs, and an amnesty to those who had suffered in any other way. The carrying out of this measure presented no great difficulties, because the great majority of the Eastern clergy and population was opposed to the union with the Roman church.
The Union of Lyons lasted formally for eight years (1274-82). The abolition of the union meant the triumph of the ideas of the zealots and Arsenites, who were the convinced enemies of union, the uniates, and of everything Latin. But the Arsenites were not satisfied. They took part on the side of Lascaris in a political plot against the Emperor, hoping, in the case of success, to obtain exclusive influence in the state. But the conspiracy was disclosed in time and put down; thereafter the Arsenite schism gradually disappeared and did not survive Andronicus the Elder, who, in spite of many troubles from the Arsenites, finally consented to their solemn reconciliation with the church. After the reconciliation, a few of the schismatic Arsenites seceded from the agreement and began to live apart in schism again; but J. Troizky, said this was the last convulsion before the death of the out-of-date movement, which at that time found no support anywhere, and soon disappeared, leaving no trace, along with its last followers, giving place to new civil and ecclesiastical troubles.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/ecclesiastical-problems.asp?pg=7
