ABSTRACT
Although monasticism is often presented as a bastion of orthodoxy in Byzantium, and its members as valiant opponents of heresy, celibate communities like all parts of the Orthodox Church were pressured to conform to imperial definitions of theological belief. This was a more serious institutional problem for monasteries founded and controlled by emperors, but it affected all those that were within the reach of imperial officials. 1 Even the bishop of Rome, residing far from Constantinople (New Rome), could be subjected to humiliating treatment as Pope Vigilius was in the sixth century or Pope Martin in the seventh. Indeed, Pope Martin and St Maximos the Confessor and his two companions were put on trial and sentenced to exile. The three monks were also mutilated (Louth 1996: 3–18). In circumstances of imperial pressure the abbots of monasteries normally gave their approval to whatever change was decreed, whether in canons issued by oecumenical councils or edicts promulgated by individual rulers. It required great courage to oppose official theology publicly in Byzantium and often led to death.
