ABSTRACT
The notion of orthodoxy is one closely associated with the Byzantine Empire – the Christian continuation of the Roman Empire, as it thought of itself. It was through councils or synods called by the Byzantine or Roman Emperor that orthodoxy was defined and, so defined, it was the system of belief required for full membership of the Empire. The Byzantine Empire was, then, in aspiration at least, an oppressive regime, and if its record of oppression does not match that of such twentieth-century regimes as the Soviet Union under Stalin that may only be because it lacked the machinery of oppression open to modern governments. Byzantine Orthodoxy was, however, a matter for the Emperor. Patricia Karlin-Hat'ter's paper is concerned with the questions that lay behind the promulgation of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, and in particular with how it functioned as a standard of Orthodoxy.
