ABSTRACT
In Anna Komnene’s account, Isaac Komnenos, Alexios Komnenos’ brother, persuaded the synod of his case before proceeding to the expropriations. However, opposition arose particularly from Leo of Chalcedon, who spoke out when gold and silver was being removed from the doors of the Chalkoprateia, a church near to St Sophia, in the heart of Constantinople. The most developed treatment of Leo of Chalcedon along these lines, however, is that of John Thomas, who draws Leo into the role of a leader of a wider anti-charistike movement, against the private ownership and expropriation of ecclesiastical properties. Leo of Chalcedon and his supporters made Alexios’ expropriations into a high-blown debate on iconoclasm – and lost. The difficulties caused by Leo’s opposition do also seem to have been genuinely significant. The Palgrave volume on Byzantine History describes Leo as organizing a ‘vociferous campaign of protest’ against Alexios’ confiscations.
