Section 02: The Moechian Controversy

The first of Theodore’s two great confessions. When the emperor Constantine VI put away his lawful wife and married Theodote (795), and the priest Joseph blessed the union, Theodore and his uncle Plato broke communion with all who tolerated the adultery — moicheia in Greek, whence the affair takes its name. The quarrel, which sent Theodore into exile twice (797 and 809), was on its surface about one uncanonical marriage; underneath, it was about whether an emperor may bend the Church’s law and whether economy may cover a sin. This section sets out the affair and the ecclesiology of the Church’s freedom that Theodore forged in it.

Contents

File Topic
The Adulterous Marriage Affair Constantine VI’s divorce of Maria of Amnia and his marriage to Theodote (795); the priest Joseph of Kathara who blessed it; the breaking of communion with Patriarch Tarasios for tolerating it; akribeia against imperial pressure and oikonomia; the exile to Thessalonica (797); the second phase under Nikephoros I (806–811) and the second exile (809)
Church and Emperor The principle Theodore drew from the affair: that the canons bind the emperor too, that doctrine and discipline are not the emperor’s to dispose, and that the Church is free of caesaropapism — the conviction that would carry him through the iconoclast persecution two decades later

How to Use

  • Start with The Adulterous Marriage Affair for the events: the two phases, the figures (Constantine VI, Theodote, Joseph, Tarasios, Nikephoros), and the two exiles.
  • Read Church and Emperor for what Theodore made of it — the ecclesiology of the Church’s freedom that is one continuous thread from 795 to his death.

Cross-References