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The Genius of Byzantium: Reflections on a Forgotten Empire
Intellectual Takeout ^ | Oct 12, 2016 | Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna

Posted on 11/04/2019 11:21:03 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege

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To: Fellow Traveler

I have them its great!


21 posted on 11/04/2019 12:39:15 PM PST by Reily
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To: Fellow Traveler

Michael Grant has a good study too!


22 posted on 11/04/2019 12:40:32 PM PST by Reily
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To: Rockingham

I need to study up on this. It’s a huge Terra Incognita in my mind.


23 posted on 11/04/2019 12:43:59 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o ("Restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell)
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To: Rockingham

Yes, that’s what I thought. Thanks.


24 posted on 11/04/2019 1:21:33 PM PST by GCFADG (Pardon me.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
It was in so many ways a bulwark for Faith in Christ Our Lord.

It still is. The Holy Orthodox Christian Church lives on, carrying on the ancient tradition from apostolic times up to today.

As for ignorance, don't feel so band. It seems like western society doesn't want us to know about it. Or else western society thinks so highly of itself, it doesn't consider the 1,000 years of Byzantium worth looking at. Or maybe it's because it's impossible to look at Byzantium without staring CHRIST in the face.

My recollection of high school history is that you learn about ancient (pagan) Greece as a mere setup for Rome. Then when Rome falls, you get a brief mention of the split, but then rather than follow the trail of the eastern empire, it's immediately forgotten, and we skip ahead to Charlemagne, and follow the Roman/Germanic narrative, to the exclusion of the rest of the civilized world.

Meanwhile, Byzantine (Orthodox Christian) culture moved north into slavic lands -- Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Serbia. The west, if you haven't noticed, seems quite prejudiced against those lands and peoples. They get treated like the white trash of the world by the western nations. But that's OK. I'm sure it will all work out in the end. Forgive me for running on.

25 posted on 11/04/2019 1:29:46 PM PST by GCFADG (Pardon me.)
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To: GCFADG

There are amazingly good documentaries on Amazon Prime on this subject.


26 posted on 11/04/2019 1:29:58 PM PST by The Antiyuppie (‘When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.’)
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To: GCFADG
Thank you for these reflections. I want to incorporate more about the East in my History of the Church lesson (which isn't much, just two 90-minute lessons)for RCIA --- and not just apologize for not covering it.

Can you suggest a good basic book or website or summary I can use to get me started?

27 posted on 11/04/2019 1:50:29 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o ("Restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
I'm sorry, I can't suggest any one book in particular. I can say to study the East in the Church is to study Orthodoxy. Taking things out of order, I might recommend you look into the story of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, apostles to the Slavs. Theirs is a most amazing story.

I am personally very fond of certain Syriac Christians --- St. Ephrem in particular. There is a book by Sebastian Brock called The Luminous Eye which is a great book about St. Ephrem's poetic theology.

The founding of monasticism -- St. Anthony the Great of Egypt and St. Pachomius. The writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. John Chrysostom's homilies on the epistles of St. Paul. There is a book by Timothy Ware (now Bishop Kallistos Ware) called The Orthodox Church which is well regarded as a historical overview.

I do hope you delve into the early Eastern church -- it's a treasure beyond measure.

Sorry I can't be of more constructive help. Just go back a thousand years and turn right -- can't miss it! :-)

28 posted on 11/04/2019 4:04:13 PM PST by GCFADG (Pardon me.)
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To: GCFADG

:o)


29 posted on 11/04/2019 5:28:25 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o ("Restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Thanks CondoleezzaProtege.

30 posted on 11/04/2019 6:52:21 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SES1066

Sadly, no. It was on borrowed time since Manzikert


31 posted on 11/04/2019 8:05:44 PM PST by Cronos (Re-elect President Trump 2020!)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

We in the U.S. “forget about them”, but the Byzantines considered themselves The Roman Empire.

What we forget is that Constantine had moved the capital city of the Empire to Byzantium/Constantinople before Rome fell.

Rome was just the regional capital of the Western Empire when it fought the Visigoths for its very survival.

Rome and the West fell, but the Empire rolled along in the East for another 1,000 years.

We forget Byzantium because we are children of the West, Latin and Germanic speaking, and Rome is where we look to for our history. We either battled Rome or we were part of them. Or both. Hail Caesar.


32 posted on 11/04/2019 8:17:48 PM PST by Pelham (Secure Voter ID. Mexico has it, because unlike us they take voting seriously)
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To: SunkenCiv
Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant


33 posted on 11/04/2019 8:32:22 PM PST by Pelham (Secure Voter ID. Mexico has it, because unlike us they take voting seriously)
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To: Pelham
Hey, if they'd had Bactine back then, it would have meant a whole different slogan.

34 posted on 11/04/2019 8:50:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Rockingham
Justinian undermined the finances of everyone under his rule via massive taxation to bankroll his dream of reuniting the Roman Empire. By contrast, Basil II "the Bulgar-slayer" evolved into a great military leader in his own right, but left no children. The city managed to maintain itself despite its changing fortunes in the provinces, through oceangoing and even overland trade, even after Mad Mo the pedophile and his bloodthirsty cutthroat followers swept across N Africa and overthrew the Parthians.

35 posted on 11/04/2019 9:09:35 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SES1066

To expand.

The Roman Empire (That’s the proper name - the term “Byzantine empire” was coined by 18th century western europeans to disparage the east) lost its economic based in the ARab invasions of the 600s.

What is interesting is that the parts of the Roman world lost to the Arabs were Afro-Asiatic in language (meaning speaking either Semitic languages like Aramaic or Babylonian or were speaking Egyptian or Berber - remember that St. Augustine was a BErber)

The Greek speaking Romans alienated these peoples and the Christians of that region actually supported the ARab invasions. That’s because initially the “Arab religion” was a Christian heresy before they made up the idea of a separate “Arab prophet”

Anyway, so they lost their economic base which was Egypt and Syria.

anatolia was rich as well, but with 60% of your economy gone, you have to fight a rearguard war.

Then Anatolia was lost to the Turkic peoples and Constantinople remained a city lost from its hinterland.

The 4th “crusade” hastened the fall, but it woudl have fallen by 1500 unless Western Europeans got their act together (which didn’t happen as they themselves got divided through the reformatting)


36 posted on 11/04/2019 9:39:41 PM PST by Cronos (Re-elect President Trump 2020!)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
The beginning of the Roman Empire was the annexation of Ostia, which (thanks to the Gauls burning the city and its written records) wound up being a prehistoric event, but it took place about 396 BC; Rome was sacked in 410 AD, but the last Emperor was deposed in 476 AD, a period of 872 years. This doesn't account for the various poorly documented territorial gains during the preceding generations, both before the last Etruscan king was booted around 509 BC and the period of slightly more than a century until Ostia's annexation.

Calling the realm of Constantinople an empire after the loss of Anatolia to the muzzie onslaught, and the piratical raids by the muzzies thereafter, isn't realistic imho. After the death of Boris II early in the 11th c, there was a more or less steady erosion of control over the eastern territories, mismanagement, tax increases, and the reemergence of what we might recognize as the Deep State.

Small successor states tottered on for a time (a decade?) even after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, but they'd already gained territory in the 14th c via seagoing invasion of parts of the Adriatic coast of Balkan territory.

On a side note, I've often guffawed at the term "Byzantine" to refer to the eastern Roman Empire.

37 posted on 11/04/2019 10:19:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Cronos

That and of course battle of Yarmouk.


38 posted on 11/05/2019 7:44:01 AM PST by DariusBane (Liberty and Risk. Flip sides of the same coin. So how much risk will YOU accept? Vive Deo et Vives)
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To: SunkenCiv

I agree with other observations on this thread that we in the West have tended to neglect study of the Empire after the fall of Rome. Whatever it’s called, I find it a fascinating world, lost to the predations of the barbarians from deserts and steppes. I also agree with the observation that by the time the Venetians sacked Constantinople the Empire was really not an Empire anymore. But, if you want to see some of the most beautiful objects from old Constantinople, they can be found in St. Marks, Venice.


39 posted on 11/05/2019 10:11:14 AM PST by colorado tanker
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To: SunkenCiv
In contrast, America's more fluid and competitive system produces needed political and policy changes on a timely basis via new popular movements and leaders. Andrew Jackson overthrew the original federal party system and secured America's expansion and internal settlement. Lincoln and the GOP ended slavery and set in motion the country's extraordinary industrial development. The late 19th Century and Teddy Roosevelt spurred urban and government reforms that combatted corruption and the dirt and disease of cities and established America as a new world power.

Just out of the reach of living memory, the Depression exposed fundamental weaknesses in America's financial system. To a measure at least, FDR and the New Deal helped to combat them, while Reagan came to power in 1980 and Trump in 2016 on pledges to reverse the excesses of the New Deal and to battle the entrenched power of elites reliant on federal power. Notably, both FDR and Reagan also dealt successfully with major foreign challenges and secured American military strength as second to none.

Despite Byzantium's accomplishments and long survival, it is most useful for us as a cautionary tale that supreme wealth, power, and technical competence are no guarantee of success and survival. Every civilization and system of government must still meet the challenges they face or perish. So, a tip of the cup toward Byzantium -- and three cheers for Donald Trump!

40 posted on 11/05/2019 6:45:14 PM PST by Rockingham
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