ABSTRACT
Although the life of the church in Byzantium during the Komnenian era saw some extremely remarkable events and debates (it will suffice to mention the discussion concerning the condemnation of John Italos, or the Bogomils), this chapter concentrates only on the exchanges with the Latin church and the theological lite rature dedicated to the Filioque issue, in an attempt to reconstruct at least a small piece of that complex jigsaw which is the ecclesiastical history of the period. The importance of the Komnenian era for the development of the relationship between Greek and Latin churches would deserve an entire monograph in itself; however, in this chapter, I will try to sketch some aspects of the exchanges between Rome and Constantinople and to outline what I believe are the peculiarities of the period. This chapter is of course focused on the reign of John, but since the activity and influence of those theologians who wrote on the controversy with the Latin church cannot be confined within the chronological boundaries of the reign of one emperor, I have allowed myself to move back and forward throughout the Komnenian period.
