Bishops and Deacons

Basil of Caesarea was a fourth-century bishop who composed a liturgy that bears his name and is still used in the Orthodox Church. He was regarded as a model bishop by other contemporary theologians including his brother Gregory (who was bishop of Nyssa), and Gregory of Nazianzus. They praised his moral virtues and ecclesiastical leadership which manifested themselves, among other things, through his insistence that the recommendations of 1 Timothy 3:2–3 be upheld when taking on new ministers. Basil called for ‘a very careful investigation’ of their conduct so as ‘to learn if they were not railers, or drunkards, or quick to quarrel’ (Letter 54).

This fresco which shows Basil performing his liturgy is located in the sanctuary of the church of St Sophia at Ohrid. Its exact location is on the north wall just off the apse where the Communion of the Apostles is depicted on the same level.

The officiating scene continues the story from the previous fresco in which Basil receives divine inspiration from Christ who has appeared to him in a dream. Dressed in episcopal attire, Basil is shown bowing before an altar with the bread, chalice, and gospels on it. In his hands is a scroll inscribed with the opening words of a prayer from the liturgy he wrote: ‘Lord, our God, You created us [and brought us into this life]’. This prayer is read just after the ceremony of the Great Entrance during which the officiating priest enters the sanctuary through the iconostasis.

This is the first and only time such a scene has been depicted in Byzantine art. It coincided with the final rift between the Western and Eastern Church of 1054, which had been brewing over their respective use of unleavened and leavened bread in the Eucharist. In fact, the person who commissioned the frescoes, Archbishop Leo, was a key figure in the dispute. This scene, emphasising the mystery of the Eucharist and harking back to the origins of Byzantine liturgy, made it clear that the eucharistic practices of the Eastern Church were instituted by the ascended Christ himself through the agency of Basil.

The one ‘vindicated in the Spirit [and] taken up in glory’ (v.16) is shown working through his ministers to ensure that the Church remains genuinely ‘the church of the living God’ (v.15).

References

Deferrari, Roy J. (ed.). 1926. Saint Basil: The Letters, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, 190 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 342–47 [343]

Lidov, Alexei. 1998. ‘Byzantine Church Decoration and the Great Schism of 1054’, Byzantion, 68.2: 381–405

Rapp, Claudia. 2013. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Los Angeles: University of California Press)

Sterk, Andrea. 1998. ‘On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop: The Cappadocian Legacy of Leadership’, Church History, 67.2: 227–53

Todić, Branislav. 2012. ‘Arhiepiskop Lav—tvorac ikonografskog programa fresaka u Svetoj Sofiji Ohridskoj’, in Vizantijski svet na Balkanu, ed. by Bojana Krsmanović, Ljubomir Maksimović, and Radivoj Radić (Belgrade: Vizantološki institut), pp. 119–37

Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way. (1 Timothy 3:2–4)

In the tenth century bishops of Hildesheim in lower Saxony were appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor. The ruling Ottonian dynasty of that time was Saxon and they elevated Hildesheim to be their home bishopric. Bishop Bernward, depicted here with the manuscript he had commissioned, was a Saxon nobleman who started his career as a chaplain at the imperial court. He was also tutor to Emperor Otto III at the age of six.

His credentials, therefore, went beyond the simple requirements of 1 Timothy 3 and extended into the sphere of privileged family connections. Bernward’s episcopate at Hildesheim in the late tenth and the early eleventh century was marked by significant acts of patronage. The Bernward Gospels—the gospel book he donated to St Michael’s Abbey, which he founded and chose for his burial site—were part of this beneficence.

The bishop had himself represented in a two-page dedication scene. We see him here presenting the gospels to the Virgin and Child, who are depicted on the facing page (not shown here). He is wearing sumptuous liturgical vestments and is standing in a church, next to an altar with the eucharistic bread and chalice set upon it. This is liturgical portraiture at its best: Bernward’s sacramental authority is acknowledged by Christ and his mother.

In the dedicatory inscription framing the page on which he is depicted, the bishop refers to himself as ‘only scarcely worthy of this name, and of the adornment of such great episcopal vestment’. In a similar self-definition from a different source, Bernward had stated he was ‘appointed bishop by God’s election and not of [his] own merit’.

Such non-individualistic views are related to theological interpretations of 1 Timothy 3:6 by Augustine, Jerome, and John Chrysostom, warning against pride. They focused their attention on the admonition that while the office of bishop is a noble task, those who aspire to it should not be ‘puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil’.

References

Gorday, Peter J. (ed.). 2000. Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, 9 (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press)

Kingsley, Jennifer P. 2014. The Bernward Gospels: Art, Memory, and the Episcopate in Medieval Germany (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press)

What virtues should bishops and deacons embody? And how might first-century instructions to the Church’s earliest ‘overseers’, recorded in 1 Timothy 3, speak down the centuries to their powerful and wealthy successors in episcopal office?

The election of Innocent II as pope in 1130 was controversial and he was ousted by a rival pope, Anacletus II. Upon his return to Rome, eight years later, Innocent II had to strengthen his position. The building campaign at Santa Maria in Trastevere, the title church of his rival before he seized the papal throne, was part of this project. In addition, Trastevere was the area of Rome in which Innocent II grew up.

The church of Santa Maria was completely rebuilt by the pope in the early 1140s. He had the new apse decorated with a spectacular mosaic depicting Christ and the Virgin seated on the same throne and surrounded by figures belonging to different ecclesiastical ranks. Innocent II himself appears holding the model of the basilica at the far left next to St Lawrence, a third-century Roman deacon, and St Callixtus I, a third-century pope who was associated with this very church.

The presence of St Lawrence in this group, though he did not have a direct link with Trastevere, is not surprising. He was a third-century Roman deacon whose dedication to the charitable work of his office earned him popularity among the faithful of Rome. As a deacon at the Lateran, his duty was to manage its material goods and distribute alms. When the city’s prefect requested, he hand over to him the treasures of the church, St Lawrence gave them to the needy as alms. He then presented the poor to the prefect and said, ‘These are the treasures of the Church’ (Ambrose of Milan, De officiis 2.140).

It was his embodiment of not being ‘greedy for gain’ (1 Timothy 3:8)—a virtue required of deacons—that made St Lawrence good company for Pope Innocent II, who had to prove himself to the locals.

References

Davidson, Ivor J. (ed.). 2002. Ambrose of Milan: De officiis, vol. 1/2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 347

Kinney, Dale. 2016. ‘The Image of a Building: Santa Maria in Trastevere’, California Italian Studies, 6.1, available: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3fp5z3gz [accessed 20 July 2020]