The Greek Fathers stressed the Trinitarian concept of God as Three hypostases, or persons, in One essence. The unknowable divine essence of God therefore had to be differentiated from the knowable experience (ἐνέργεια) of divine existence through Father, Logos and Holy Spirit, which was expressed in terms of "being" or "energy" that allowed mankind to experience God here on earth and in material things.[3] ... Once again, the immanence of the divine was preserved, an immanence at the very heart of the human soul.[4] In fact, through theosis, or deification, the East taught that the body itself partook of the divine.
On this pattern, the Christian Roman state itself became a reflection and implement of the kingdom of heaven, it became a sacramental commonwealth. The epithet sacramental is best interpreted by looking at its Greek equivalent. This can be translated as "involving initiation", or - more accurately - "being led into the mystery". Since the empire had been ‘exorcised’ when Constantine the Great was called on by Christ to champion His Church, Rome entered upon a process of closer and closer union with God - parallel, in other words, to the process that humans undergo in θέωσις [deification], an Orthodox Christian notion that "God became man so that man can become God". It is important to note that Christ, quite independently of the Church, "converted" the emperor Constantine, and hence the state was sanctified by God, and was not simply a supplicant of the gods, as in pagan Rome.
Strictly speaking, then, the Christian Roman empire, or "Byzantium", was not a theocracy since, within a sacramental context, there was no fundamental concept of Church and State as separate institutions.[5] Indeed, there even was no concept of the state as a geographical entity. The empire was a universal idea that transcended dimensions of time and space. Her capital, Constantinople, was jealously guarded for emotional rather than calculated political or economic reasons. The empire could - or even would - have survived politically and economically if she had given up Constantinople; indeed in logical terms the City was a tremendous burden following its re-capture from the Latins in 1261. But only in logical terms. For it was the New Jerusalem, the city given to the Romans by Christ in an act of dispensation to the single Christian emperor. Rome could not move again. This was the Social Myth.
[3]Better : in a manner involving not only spiritual but also material dimensions, such as vision and touch.
[4]The author probably means the teaching of some Greek fathers that the heart is the main organ in the human body where the sense of God is borne.
[5]This is not the only nor the main reason. Crucial is the notion that the course of man toward God or deification, is a course of freedom, where personal choice meets divine grace. We can remember that in the whole Byzantine millennium there were not schools of theology. Anyone should find personally his way to God, and any help on this should also come from inside a personal relationship, as is the relationship between an elder (spiritual father) and his spiritual son. This was mirrored in the relationship between Church and State, realms distinct and cooperating, without the one being imposed upon the other. Whenever such interference happened, when the emperor tried to use his power to achieve what he thought it was for the good of the state against the Church, it was an exception and it was considered as unnatural even by the emperor. Normally there was cooperation and mutual appreciation, with the emperor eating together with monks, studying etc. Many emperors were men of letters and were interested in theology. For example, Manuel II Palaeologus’ thinking is such, that he can be read as we read the Fathers!
This is not to say that all emperors were saints, but that they ought to be, an ideal granted to them by the society. That this was happening, and it was not only an ideology, is evident by the continuity of the social system, which was not disturbed for over a millennium!, during which Byzantium was being constantly attacked from North, East, South and even from the West, and is also evident by the fact that until today Greek people, those who have not entirely lost their memory immitating the western opportunism, hold the Byzantine emperor in a great esteem, I would say love.
