Law Amidst Imperial Collapse: Nikon of the Black Mountain

The most comprehensive and fascinating source for Byzantines perspectives upon non-Orthodox Christians and Muslims are the writings of the Anti­ochene monastic reformer and canonist Nikon of the Black Mountain (ca.

In this capacity he authored three works, the most interesting of which for our purposes was the so-called Taktikon, a collection of forty-two texts (logoi), consisting mainly of letters but also two typika (monastic rules). After 1084 he moved to the Monastery of the Virgin of the Pomegranate (του 'Pο'iδiου), an in­stitution inhabited by Chalcedonian Armenians.^{[415] [416] Opinions are divided on his date of death, but references in his letters to the Franks controlling the holy sites in Jerusalem and Antioch prove that he witnessed the completion of the First Crusade, and thus must have died around the year 1100.}

For our purposes Nikon is a particularly fascinating figure because he was an agent of the Byzantine imperial church who considered it his duty to restore Antioch to its Late Antique Christian glory, who nonetheless presided over the precipitous collapse of Byzantine authority in the region and the installation of Muslim and then Crusader rule. Nikon himself was a vigorous champion of the sacrality and importance of the see of Antioch. Not unlike Latin apologists of papal supremacy, Nikon founded Antioch's preeminence as a patriarchate upon its Petrine origins. He called the patriarch of Antioch the â€?bishop of bish­ops', the successor of Peter, who himself had been given the keys to the King­dom of Heaven.4⁶ It was, moreover, a see with authority over not just Syria, but all the East.^[417] Even in letters written after the Seljuk conquest of Antioch in 1084, which must have seemed to some a sign of divine abandonment, Nikon was still keen to emphasize Peter's special relationship with his see: though heathens had repeatedly destroyed Antioch, it was still the throne of Peter, and the holy laws and traditions of the apostles and canons were indestructible^[418] Nikon assured another recipient of a letter that, whatever tribulations the city had suffered, the Apostle Peter would not abandon his throne^[419]

The north Syrian monastic milieu which Nikon inhabited at the end of the eleventh century was an impressive mix of confessions and ethnicities. Nikon himself devoted two of his logoi to establishing the orthodoxy of both Geor­gians, who represented a culturally and intellectually vibrant presence in the region, as well as the Chalcedonian Armenians.^{[420] [421] [422] [423] [424] In both cases Nikon drew upon Late Antique precedents to prove the orthodoxy of these communities: Armenians, for instance, were to be found in the Palestinian monastery of Mar Saba, while Georgians had visited the Symeon the Stylite's pillar and formed their own monastic community at its foot.}

By championing the orthodoxy of Georgians and Chalcedonian Armenians, as well as the special claim to apostolic primacy of the see of Antioch, it is clear that Nikon in his writings was attempting to construct a new Orthodox iden­tity for northern Syria, which could, if necessary, survive outside of the empire. Throughout the Taktikon Nikon interprets Muslim and then Frankish rule as a sign of God's displeasure, a punishment for the Orthodox in general, but in particular the monks of the Antiochene region, who had failed to obey God's commandments.54

Nikon is one of the very few Middle Byzantine writers who wrote at length on how Orthodox Byzantines were to deal with Muslims. His correspondents, who often asked the Antiochene monk for clarification on the finer points of canon law and liturgical practice, also posed questions concerning Muslims. Above all Muslim rule required special vigilance and the occasional bending of church rules via oikonomia or �dispensation’. The advice of experts like Nikon was especially in need because of the great danger of lay persons engaging in theological discussions with Muslims. In a letter to a magnate (archon), Nikon exhorted him to avoid discussing matters of faith with Muslims, and instead to redirect them to the clergy of the Orthodox church.^{[425] [426] [427] [428]}

In an epistolary response to a series of questions by a priest in Laodikeia, we see first-hand how matters on the ground had forced Orthodox clergy to adopt ad hoc solutions to problems that had hitherto remained largely unexplored in Byzantine canon and secular law.

The next question in the letter concerns a practice that continues to this day, namely of Muslims asking their children to be baptised, not in the hopes of converting them to Christianity, but because it was supposed to grant long life to the child.5⁷ This practice had already been attested - to my knowledge for the first time - in a canonical response of the patriarch Photios to a south­ern Italian archbishop at the end of the ninth century.5⁸ Though Photios had expressed his enthusiastic approval for this practice, reasoning that it made not only the infants but also their mothers (who were Muslim) receptive to further Christian indoctrination, in Nikon's time there was some resistance to the idea. According to Nikon, the head of the Georgian church, the katholikos John Okropir (1031-1049) was once asked by the â€?King of the Saracens' to bap­tise his son.

Another letter which likewise touches upon interactions with Muslims and oikonomia concerns believers returning home from the Paschal vigil after mid­night on Holy Saturday.^[429] At this time congregants would be gathered in the churches and leave for home in the dark. This made them vulnerable to non­believers (Muslims) attacking and kidnapping them in the darkness, so that many bishops had decided to employ oikonomia and end the Paschal vigil ear­lier on Holy Saturday, thereby allowing believers to return home in the relative safety of daylight. Even though Canon 89 of the Council in Trullo clearly stated that the Paschal Vigil was to end at midnight, Nikon left the decision to employ oikonomia to end the fast earlier to the bishops.

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