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The popular culture of Western Europe in the late Merovingian period was basically nonliterary. Without the stabilizing effect of a strong literary activity, the non-literary spoken language in that day was an amalgamation of a simplified Latin and large numbers of colloquial vocabulary and phrases drawn from the myriad of barbarian dialects. The earliest written examples of proto-French and proto-German date from the Treaty of Verdun in 843.
The Latin literary tradition that survived into the eighth century was so highly specialized and obscurantist that it served little practical use to the governments of the Frankish Mayors or the Church in the seventh and early eighth centuries. The so-called Merovingian cursive Latin script was an esoteric art form that only a very few could read or write. Written documents were more for show than for communication in an illiterate population. To be sure some of the Frankish nobility had maintained private collections of Latin books as a mark of their status in the community. They had the resources to seek private tutoring from educated clergy. There is even the case of Dhuoda, the wife of Bernard of Septimania in southern France whose pen produced several modest products that have survived. Many of the ruling elite especially in the south, while not necessarily literate, were capable of signing their names in Latin although custom may have dictated that a simple cross with a monogram initial was sometimes preferable. Latin literacy among the lay aristocracy was less evident in the north and east.
Within the clergy there was an epidemic of illiteracy that plagued the Church. Anybody who could develop reading and writing skills to a minimal level was most probably already in the clergy--the only place you could get a basic education. Only a few of the clergy were able to acquire that degree of mastery that permitted them to be functionally literate. Even then these few struggled to comprehend more than a bits and pieces of Latin texts written a mere 300 years before their time such as those of Augustine of Hippo or his fifth century contemporaries. The future looked bleak since the number of those barely functionally literate seemed to be declining.
Probably at the monastery at Corbie (near Amiens) about the middle of the eighth century the monks developed a new much more readable hand writing style that is the direct parent of the lower case letters still utilized in printing today. By the end of the century this new Carolingian minuscule (lower case) script was rapidly replacing the uncial and half-uncial (upper case) scripts of the ancient manuscripts (where up to half the words were abbreviated) and the ornate and virtually unreadable cursive hand favored by seventh century scribes. Old uncial letters continued to be used to "capitalize" names and to begin paragraphs and sentences.
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The Carolingian Renaissance began under Pepin and continued for about a century. It was essentially a matter of developing or importing the tools of grammar school learning. Backward Frankland could greatly profit educationally from those regions such as Italy and Northumbria where such scholarly achievements were not so rare. It was done primarily within the structure and manpower of the Church. While it benefited the Church in a very practical sense, providing literate leadership for the future, it also worked to recover and preserve something of the body of classical Latin language and letters.
Charlemagne succeeded in stemming the chaos and fostering a degree of prosperity and cultural advancement. As "Roman Emperor" and as Frankish king he took his role of protector of the institutional church very seriously. Charlemagne and all of his governmental officials were illiterate. Everywhere the government relied on literate churchmen to serve as readers and secretaries. Concerned for the future leadership of the church and the welfare of the kingdom, he realized the value of a literate clergy.
Several scholars were recruited by Charlemagne and brought to the royal residence at Aachen to serve as a nucleus. Peter of Pisa (d. before 799) was an Italian scholar knowledgeable in Latin grammar who also knew Greek. Theodulf (d. 821) was a Visigothic Latin poet who became the Bishop of Orleans. Paul the Deacon (d. 799) was an Italian monk from Monte Cassino whose specialty was Lombard history. Einhardt (d. 840), a scholarly Frankish aristocrat, a married layman who was engineer-architect for several churches and later abbot of a Franconian monastery, is primarily remembered as Charlemagne's biographer.
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Charlemagne also recruited Alcuin, a student of Egberht, deacon and head of the cathedral school at York since 766, to organize a palace school at Aachen. In 782 Alcuin crossed the channel to become Charlemagne's "minister of education" and head of the schola palatina, the royal academy. After serving as master of the palace school for fourteen years he became abbot of the monastery of St. Martin at Tours where he ended his days (d. 802). At Aachen he established a model school for the training of clergy which he attempted to duplicate at St. Martin's. Other monasteries scattered across France and Germany such as those at Fulda, Reichenau, St. Gall, Corbie, Corvey, Werden, etc. adopted this model.
Alcuin's students filled high church offices all over Frankland; many were outstanding teachers and scholars. For example, Hrabanus Maurus (766-856) the Abbot of Fulda and later Archbishop of Mainz. Then one may list Walafrid Strabo (c. 849) Hrabanus' pupil who became the scholarly abbot of Reichenau. Servatus Lupus (805-862), another pupil of Hrabanus, was Abbot of Ferriers where he amassed an important collection of classical manuscripts.
The palace school was designed to provide basic Latin literacy, and to train prospective teachers of Latin. The curriculum was the traditional seven liberal arts. Alcuin established a pattern that would be followed for centuries insisting that the scholar first master the three basic subjects that he called the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. Persistent students could then complete their education by mastering the remaining four that he labeled the quadrivium: physics, harmonics, geometry, and astronomy.
The textbooks were ancient. Donatus wrote the authoritative grammar textbook in the fourth century AD. Cicero wrote the most respected text in Rhetoric in the first century BC. For Geometry they used a text by Boethius written in the sixth century AD in Italy. On Astronomy (calendar science) they employed the writings of Boethius, Isidore of Seville, and the Venerable Bede.
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Charlemagne mandated that every bishopric and monastery provide a free school to teach reading and writing to whoever wanted to learn. Many more middle and lower class people seem to have taken the opportunity than did nobles, but that reflects the proportions of eighth and ninth century society. Monasteries and cathedral churches excavated all the old books from their neglected storerooms and established new scriptoria. The scriptorium often became a center of a new school or the revived business of copying manuscripts and selling them, an activity that also provided training in writing. Some scriptoria list as many as 700 titles, but the average must have been about half that.
The practical effects of this literary revival can be seen in the written codification of various tribal laws, and the practice, begun by Pepin c. 768, of disseminating all the king's instructions in writing. After c. 802 Charlemagne began the practice of legislating by written edict after the pattern of the Roman Emperor.
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Charlemagne's sons and grandsons continued to patronize scholarship at the palace. Charles the Bald (840-877) supported the last great Irish scholar, John Scotus Erigena. He translated several Greek manuscripts that had been given to the Frankish monarchy by the papacy. These included works of the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and a treatise written by Maximus the Confessor, a seventh century eastern theologian. John was the only western scholar of the period to write an original five-volume work, De divisione nature. His contemporaries and successors found his book so subtle, deep and incomprehensible they suspected him of heresy. John the Scot was not the only Greek scholar, but he was by all means the most accomplished translator of Greek in ninth century Western Europe. In Frankland a few monks at Corbei, St Gall, Laon, and Saint-Denis (the latter in the vicinity of Paris) all preserved some acquaintance with Greek vocabulary and grammar.
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The text of the Nicene Creed containing the word filioque appeared in France during the eighth century. The origin of this emendation of the Creed in Spain in the sixth century has been discussed above. One of the great scholars of Charlemagne's court, Theodulf, (d. 821) a Visigoth from Spain who became the bishop of Orleans wrote a defense of filioque entitled De Spiritu Sancto. Another Carolingian scholar, Paulinus, (d. 802) who became bishop of Aquileia in Friuli (northeast Italy), defended the Frankish usage at a local north Italian synod in 796. However, Frankish monks in Jerusalem were condemned as heretics because of their utilization of it in 808, but a synod at Aachen, Charlemagne's palace center, approved it in 809. At Charlemagne's Chapel in Aachen the Creed utilized contained the word. Pope Leo III (795-816) realized that filioque had been added and strongly advised the Franks to delete it even though he agreed that it was doctrinally correct.
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In Moslem Spain during the eighth century heresies similar to that of third century monarchianism reappeared. About 780 an obscure Christian near Seville described the Trinity in terms of three sequential revelations of God to David (the Father), to Christ (the Son) and to Paul (the Holy Spirit). Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, who was supported by Bishop Felix of Urgel, attacked this heretical Sabellian treatment. However, Elipandus and Felix put forth an adoptionist position arguing that the Logos was the natural Son of God while Jesus was only an Adoptive Son of God. Some Churchmen from southwestern Frankland became embroiled in the controversy by attempting to refute the position taken by Elipandus and Felix. Charlemagne's synods at Regensburg in 792 and at Frankfort in 794 examined the issue. Pope Adrian I (772-795) commended the churchmen who defended orthodoxy, and Pope Leo III (795-816) condemned the adoptionist teaching of Elipandus and Felix in 798. The great Alciun also condemned and wrote against adoptionism. Felix of Urgel attended the Aachen Synod in 800 where Alciun convinced him of his error. With the death of Elipandus about 802 the issue rapidly disappeared.
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As we have noted above the Fathers were unanimous in their agreement that Christ was present in the elements of the Eucharist, but they continued to speak of this presence sometimes figuratively and sometimes as real or physical. These very obvious differences did not cause a controversy until the ninth century. The Carolingian monk of Corbie, Paschasius Radbertus, published a book entitled De corpore et sanguine Domini, On the Lord's Body and Blood, in 844 on the occasion of his election as abbot of Corbie. He sent a special copy of the work to Charles the Bald, the ruler of France. His argument emphasized the real, physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist without adequately distinguishing between the historical Christ and the Eucharistic presence. Paschasius had also developed the idea of the miraculous transformation of the elements, which he had found in both Augustine and Ambrose, his major sources. Rabanus Maurus, disciple of Alcuin and abbot of the monastery of Fulda, pointed out Paschasius' confusion with the suggestion that it was only in nature that Christ's earthly body and the Eucharistic body of Christ are one. Meanwhile, Charles the Bald asked another monk at Corbie, Ratramnus, to examine the subject. Ratramnus wrote a treatise called On Christ's Body and Blood in which he even more forcefully refuted the overstated position of Paschasius saying rather that while the consecrated elements are still bread and wine they mysteriously have the power of the body and blood of Christ. Ratramnus, however, rejected the transformation concept in favor of the figurative symbolic language supporting a spiritual presence. John Scotus Erigena, the head of the Palace School, provided a neo-Platonic interpretation treating the elements as memorials. But the controversy died after that for lack of individuals who were intellectually capable of reconciling or refuting the arguments offered.
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This controversy arose out of the experience of a young man named Gottschalk who had been placed in the monastery at Fulda as a lad. He grew up and took the vows, but continued to be troubled by an insistent curiosity about what his life might have been like had he never entered the monastery. Eventually, he ran away. Church authorities of course tracked him down and he was taken before the archepiscopal Synod at Mainz in 829. After eloquently defending his actions the synod voted to release him from his vows. Rabanus Maurus, the abbot at Fulda, convinced King Louis the German to override the synod and hold him to his vows. Rather than returning him to Fulda, King Louis and Rabanus Maurus mercifully agreed to transfer him to a monastery in Frankland near Soissons. Here the unhappy young man with such rebellious urges sought solace in the study of Augustine whose struggle with a similar problem attracted Gottschalk's undivided attention.
Gottschalk followed Augustine so meticulously that he discovered the persuasive implications of Augustine's arguments regarding election that had been overlooked or obscured by the persistent Christian conviction that human will must be free. What Gottschalk discovered and taught openly while on a pilgrimage to Rome and other places in Italy was Augustine's clear logic supporting double predestination. He denied that Augustine had taught predestination to evil, but he correctly understood Augustine to teach that God extended his grace only to those whom He elected to save and, based on his foreknowledge, predestined others to death.
Rabanus Maurus, now archbishop of Mainz since 847, presided over a synod in 848 which condemned Gottschalk as a heretic. Another synod at Quiercy under archbishop Hincmar of Rheims also condemned him to prison at the monastery of Hautevilles nearby. Ratramnus of Corbie who was also a student of Augustine confirmed Gottschalk's understanding, as did other abbots, bishops, archbishops and synods. The opposition, spearheaded by Hincmar and other adherents, narrowly and negatively focused on the notion of predestination to death while seemingly accepting the notion of predestination to salvation. The controversy became so acrimonious that the French national Council in 859 held at Savonnieres near Toul was nearly disrupted by violence. Hincmar was eventually persuaded in 860 to drop the negative campaign by emphasizing the positive position diametrically opposed to Augustine and Gottschalk; namely, that God has willed to make salvation and redemption available to all. This seems to affirm the actions of the Synod of Orange of 529.
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Nicholas I was the most outstanding pope since Gregory I and certainly the most capable individual in this period. His pontificate fell at a time when the Emperor, Charlemagne's great grandson Louis II (855-875), was a relatively strong and effective ruler in Italy. For more on the descendants of Charlemagne see The Fragmentation of the Carolingian Heritage, below in Lecture/Essay Eleven.
Nicholas I was the first to utilize the dubious documentation of the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals as a means of strengthening the arguments for papal power. Metropolitan Bishop Hincmar of Rheims (northeastern France) attempted to usurp the powers of a patriarchal bishop over a number of surrounding bishops and metropolitan bishops by getting them to submit to his authority. These churchmen appealed to Nicholas I on the basis of some documents called the Decretals of Isidore Mercator. These documents appeared to be letters including copies of decrees alleged to have been issued by the earlier bishops of Rome. These letters and the decrees were forgeries. Today this documentation is referred to as the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals.
These documents indicated that the Pope is the supreme judge and only legislator of the Church. All metropolitan bishops must be subject to him. Ecclesiastical synods could not be called anywhere without the permission of the bishop of Rome. The Church's power is alleged to be superior to the state or other secular power. Laymen (proprietors) are forbidden from controlling church property or offices.
These forged documents arrived in Rome in 864 and were used to convince Nicholas and other churchmen that the papacy had the right to receive appeals from bishops against the rulings of their metropolitan bishops (=archbishops). This made the power of an archbishop subject to papal consent. Nicholas I acted on these principles and blocked Bishop Hincmar's plans.
Meanwhile, a new factional struggle arose in the Byzantine church when Patriarch Methodius died and Empress Theodora chose Ignatius, the son of Emperor Michael I Rhangabe, to replace him. Ignatius was a monk who had been and a brave and defiant protagonist of icons during the last two decades of the iconoclastic controversy. He had inherited the leadership of the extremist party once exercised by Theodore of Studios. We should remember that the extremists generally opposed the moderates who favored the policies and practices of the Byzantine Emperors. In thus opposing the moderates the extremists found it advantageous to uphold the authority of the Papacy. Unfortunately, Theodora had failed to secure Ignatius' nomination from the Synod of Constantinople before officially installing him in office in 847. This deviation from canonical procedure gave the moderates reason to question.
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Meanwhile Theodora's brothers, Petronius and especially Bardas, took advantage of circumstances to gain the favor of Emperor Michael III and set Theodora aside in 855. Bardas' closest advisor was a brilliantly educated man named Photius. Photius also had other high connections. He was related to the Amorian family by marriage and was the grand nephew of Patriarch Tarasius. Bardas had the poor judgment to have an affair with his own daughter-in-law (who was also his niece!). Patriarch Ignatius promptly took what he believed was the appropriate action; he excommunicated Bardas in January 858. Bardas responded by accusing his sister, Emperor Michael's mother, Theodora, of attempting to poison him. Bardas persuaded Michael to order his mother tonsured and sent to a nunnery. When Ignatius refused the imperial order his clergy dared not support him. He was deposed and confined to an island in the fall of 858. Photius who was still a layman on December 20, was consecrated as the patriarchal bishop on December 25.
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When Patriarch Photius routinely reported to the other Patriarchs the deposition of Ignatius and his own elevation, Pope Nicholas I (858-867) of Rome saw a beautiful opportunity. Insisting that no patriarch should ever be deposed without consulting the papacy he threateningly withheld his blessing and announced that he would send commissioners to hold an inquiry unless the Byzantine government restored the dioceses of Illyricum and southern Italy to Papal jurisdiction. Photius welcomed the commissioners and allowed them extraordinary privileges in attending and participating in a local synod in 861 that tried and deposed Ignatius a second time. Nicholas was disappointed, however, that neither Patriarch Photius nor the Byzantine government recognized his claim to the dioceses.
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Significant developments in central Europe now enter the story. In this period the Old Moravian state continued to prosper. To the north it now included the regions of Silesia (around Breslau), Chrobatia (around Cracow), Galicia and the northern half of Bessarabia (around the upper valleys of the Prut and Dniester rivers). To the south it possessed Hungary down to the Drave river in the south and the Theiss River in the east, which was their frontier with Bulgaria. Churchmen from Germany began to penetrate the country of Old Moravia by about 860. King Rastislav considered this a serious threat, a prelude to Frankish conquest. The success of the missionaries made the threat all the more frightening. An alliance between Louis II the German, the Frankish king of eastern Frankland (Germany), and Khan Boris of Bulgaria motivated King Rastislav of Old Moravia who was sandwiched between them to request an alliance and Christian instruction from Constantinople in 862.
Bishop Photius of Constantinople recruited two brothers originally from Thessalonika. As young men Constantine and Methodius had learned the local Slavic dialect spoken by the Slavic settlers around Thessalonika. After studying in Constantinople Methodius early became a monk and served as the abbot of the monastery at Cyzicus. Constantine, on the other hand became a scholar and diplomat. Sent to the Jewish Khazars in about 860 he presented a Christian witness to them. Having to bypass the still hostile Bulgaria the missionaries traveled to Old Moravia by way of Italy. They successfully ministered in Moravia for some time. Constantine is credited with inventing the first Slavonic (Cyrillic) alphabet and beginning the process of translating the Scriptures and the major documents of the worship service into the Moravian dialect, Old Slavonic.
Khan Boris of Bulgaria, like his neighbor Rastislav, feared the success of Christian missionaries might be a prelude to subjection. Christian contacts had reached Bulgaria from both east and west in the years leading up to 860. Indeed, while Boris and his army were helping Louis the German, Louis thought he had convinced Boris to accept Christianity. But meanwhile Emperor Michael III had occupied some Bulgarian lands. In 863 Boris returned to Bulgaria and demanded the return of the lands. Patriarch Photius and Emperor Michael now required Boris to sever relations with Louis the German and accept missionaries from Constantinople to recover his territory. The envoys were baptized in Constantinople and Byzantine clergy returned with them to Preslav where Boris was baptized in 864.
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Late in 862 a self-appointed advocate of the deposed Ignatius arrived in Rome to present Ignatius' side of the story to the papacy. Pope Nicholas convoked a synod at the Church of St. John's Lateran in Rome in 863 that attempted to rectify many things. The synod deposed and defrocked Photius, nullified all his ordinations, excommunicated the churchman who had presided at Photius' consecration, deposed the surviving member of the papal commission to Constantinople, and reinstated Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople. There was no immediate response at Constantinople on any of this high handed action.
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However, when the Byzantine Patriarch brushed off Boris' request that Bulgaria be given a patriarchal bishop and refused to discuss Boris' questions about flexibility in canonical rules to expedite the conversion of his people, Boris was frustrated. Boris then sent a embassy to Rome in 866 requesting a patriarch and answers to his questions. Pope Nicholas I immediately sent missionaries to Bulgaria with instructions to take over. Nicholas and Photius were in agreement on refusing any adjustment of the canons prohibiting polygyny, multiple wives, and denying the patriarchal bishop. Soon Nicholas' missionaries began to warn the Bulgarians about what they perceived as "errors" in the teachings of the missionaries from Constantinople. Cognizant of the rulings of the Lateran Synod of 863 which had deposed Photius and declared his ordinations invalid, the western missionaries held a synod in Bulgaria which also excommunicated the Patriarchal bishop of Constantinople as a heretic. They asserted the superior authority of the Bishop of Rome over all Christians everywhere and especially over the "lowest ranking" patriarchate, that of Constantinople. On the basis of Papal authority and the Lateran Synod of 863 they presumed to order the heretic Photius to step down from his office.
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Meanwhile, Photius and the habitually inebriated Emperor, Michael III, plotted against Pope Nicholas I. Nicholas was in very bad favor with the Carolingian rulers of the West, especially with Lothar II. Nicholas flatly refused to allow Lothar II to repudiate his nominal wife in order to marry his beloved mistress even though the archbishops of Cologne and Trier were both agreeable. Photius contacted Louis II who was ruler of Italy and who had sided with his cousin, Lothar against Nicholas I. Photius apparently agreed to depose Nicholas I while Emperor Michael III's government would officially recognize Louis II as "Emperor of the Franks" in return for Louis' cooperation. This concession was clearly seen by many as outrageous. The Byzantine government had deliberately refrained from recognizing any of Charlemagne's descendants because sharing the title "Emperor" was ideological confusion. Besides, Louis II had only his claim to sovereignty in Italy, and that was scarcely honored, even in Italy.
Now in August 867, Bishop Photius held a council of churchmen that deposed and condemned Nicholas, accusing him of sending false teachers to teach errors in Bulgaria. The errors of the western churchmen were detailed, in part. First, the teaching that priests should not marry. Secondly, teaching that cheese and milk may be eaten in lent. Thirdly, teaching that beards must be shaved off. And finally, using a corrupt version of the Nicene Creed. The Latin version of the Creed used by the west was alleged to be corrupt because of the inclusion of the phrase, filioque, "and the son" in describing the procession of the Holy Spirit. The acts of the council also saluted Louis II and Engelbertha his wife as "Emperor and Empress".
But before the acts of Photius' council had reached Rome, they were recalled and destroyed by the new Emperor, Basil I (876-886), the founder of the Macedonian Dynasty, thirteen Emperors who would rule from 867 to 1056. Basil's father was of Armenian descent while his mother was probably a Slav. He came to Constantinople as a stable-boy and became a drinking-buddy with Emperor Michael III. Basil rose first to the rank of co-Emperor with Michael III in 866 and then arranged for Michael III, the Drunkard, to be murdered.
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In dealing with the papacy Emperor Basil was equally decisive. Basil had intercepted the official acts of Patriarch Photius' Council of 867 preventing them from being delivered to Pope Nicholas I. Basil promptly recalled former Patriarch, Ignatius, and re-installed him as Patriarchal bishop. Then, having exiled Photius, Basil notified the papacy that the rulings of the Lateran Synod of 863 had been carried out. Basil then called a council at Constantinople in 869-870 and notified all the five Patriarchs to be represented. The main item was to deal with Photius and his clergy. The representatives of Pope Adrian II (867-872) assumed they would be asked to preside since Adrian had obliged Basil by declaring the forthcoming council a General Council (the Eighth according to the West), but Basil himself presided. Photius was condemned but he wisely refused to offer any defense.
Khan Boris of the Bulgarians introduced an item of unforeseen new business to the council. He requested instruction from the council as to which patriarchate Bulgaria should look to, Rome or Constantinople. Basil instructed the representatives of the neutral Patriarchs to rule on the question. Not surprisingly they ruled in favor of Constantinople and Patriarch Ignatius appointed an archbishop for Bulgaria. The need for experienced clergy to send into Bulgaria led Patriarch Ignatius to petition the Pope to reconsider those Photius had ordained. Even though Pope Adrian II flatly refused, Ignatius found it necessary to reactivate their ordinations.
Pope John VIII (872-882) demanded with threats of excommunication that Patriarch Ignatius renounce his jurisdiction over Bulgaria, but Ignatius ignored this. By 874 Photius had been recalled from exile to a teaching career and when Ignatius died in 877 Photius was again the Patriarch of Constantinople. A council called by Basil I and held in January 880 at Constantinople was attended by the legates of Pope John VIII and is considered the Eighth general council by the Eastern Churches. This council completely cleared Photius of all charges. Pope John VIII's sudden willingness to send representation was due to the advances of the Muslim threat in Italy but he had still demanded that Photius repent of his misdeeds and surrender Bulgarian jurisdiction to Rome. Photius evidently thought he had repented enough when he acknowledged John's tiresome reiteration of Rome's primacy among the churches and willingly agreed to abide by whatever the Emperor's decision might be with regard to Bulgaria.
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Photius' missionaries to Old Moravia, Constantine and Methodius, also had their orders suspended by the actions of Emperor Basil. On the way home by way of Rome in 869, Constantine's health suddenly failed and he decided to enter a monastery. After taking the monastic vows at a monastery in Rome and receiving the new name, Cyril, he lived only a few weeks. Pope Adrian II (867-872) (re)consecrated Methodius as archbishop of Sirmium with legatine power and sent him back to Old Moravia to claim the work there for Rome. The Frankish Archbishop of Salzburg and the nearby bishops of Passau and Freising vigorously protested the Pope's action and Methodius' success. The Frankish king Louis II, the German, the king of Alemannia, assembled a Synod in 870 that deposed Methodius and called his orthodoxy into question. Methodius was eventually cleared. Even though Pope John VIII approved the Slavonic liturgy employed by Methodius in 880, Pope Stephen V (885-891) outlawed the Slavonic liturgy in 885 when Methodius died. Hence, as a result of Frankish missionary influence the Slavonic speaking churches founded in Moravia by Constantine, Methodius and their companions were forced after 885 to use the Latin language for worship. Similarly, the Slavonic translations of Scriptures were suppressed. The Moravian authorities were forced to ask Methodius' former associates to leave. They moved into Bulgaria where the government of Khan Boris now welcomed their mission activities among the Slavonic speaking population. They introduced the Slavonic liturgy that eventually became the official liturgy in the Bulgarian Church after 893.
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