church and state: In the Byzantine Empire

In the East in the 6th cent., Justinian was ruler of church and state equally, and thereafter the Orthodox Eastern Church in the Byzantine Empire was in confirmed subservience to the state. This domination of state over church is called Erastianism, after the theologian Erastus. When the empire began to disintegrate, the power of the state over the church declined; and under the Ottoman sultans the situation was reversed to the extent that the patriarchs of Constantinople were given political power over the laity of their churches.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• In Latin America
• On the Continent<named-content content-type="print"> and Elsewhere</named-content>
• In the United States
• In the British Isles
• Early Years to the Reformation
• In the West
• In Russia and the USSR
• In the Byzantine Empire
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: Political Science: Terms and Concepts