Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Macedonian epoch (867-1081)

Social and political developments. Church affairs 

Page 13

The Epanagoge differs very greatly from the Prochiron. In the first place, its first part contains entirely new and very interesting chapters on imperial authority, on the power of the patriarch, and other civil and ecclesiastic officials, which gives a very clear picture of the foundations of the public and social structure of the Empire and of the relations of the church to the state. In the second place, the materials borrowed for the Epanagoge from the Prochiron are arranged in a new manner. It is almost certain that Patriarch Photius took part in the compilation of the Epanagoge, and his influence is especially evident in the definition of the relation of imperial power to the power of the patriarch, and in the treatment of the position to be occupied by the ecumenical patriarch of New Rome with regard to all the other patriarchs, who were to be considered only as local hierarchs. Following in the footsteps of the Prochiron, the introduction to the Epanagoge refers to the Ecloga of the iconoclastic emperors as the gossip of the Isaurians, intended to oppose the divine doctrine and to destroy the salutary laws. This part of the Epanagoge speaks also of the complete abrogation of the Ecloga, and yet uses some of its materials.

It may be mentioned here that the Epanagoge, together with a number of other Byzantine legal collections, has been translated into Slavonic, and many extracts from it are to be found in Slavonic codes and in the Russian Book of Rules (the so-called Kormchaia Kniga), or the Administrative Code, mentioned as early as the tenth century. The ideas expressed in the Epanagoge exerted great influence upon the later history of Russia. For instance, the documents concerning the cause of Patriarch Nikon in the time of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (seventeenth century) contain direct quotations from the rulings of the Epanagoge with reference to the authority of the Emperor.

The Prochiron and the Epanagoge, together with the work on the purification of ancient law, represent the successful achievements of the time of Basil I. Going back, so to speak, to the elements of the somewhat neglected Roman law, Basil revived Justinian law and brought it closer to the life of his time by adding later laws called forth by changed social and economic conditions.

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