Отправлено: 25.03.08 15:29. Заголовок: По этому поводу у Расы Мажейка

WAS GRAND PRINCE ALGIRDAS A GREEK ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN?*
RASA MAŽEIKA
http://www.lituanus.org/1987/87_4_05.htm

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Gregoras, whose History is peppered with bitter invective against Byzantine Patriarch Philotheos,[48] asserts that Algirdas was ready to accept Orthodox baptism if his petition for a Lithuanian Metropolitan had been granted by Philotheos more fully.[49] Given the absence of other evidence, and Gregoras' known desire to defame Philotheos,[50] this assertion arouses skepticism, especially since it is followed by a long speech on the evils of avarice and simony which is put in the mouth of Algirdas but obviously is simply a literary device to express Gregoras' own views in a rather florid and classicizing style which a Byzantine reader would recognize as the voice of the educated Greek author rather than an untutored pagan.[51] What is important for our purposes is that Algirdas was so well-known as a pagan ruler that an author in far-away Constantinople could use him as an example of a pagan by whose example Christians could profit.

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[48] In the theological debate over Hesychast mysticism then raging in Constantinople, Gregoras had emerged as a leading opponent of the Hesychasts (also known as "Palamites"): Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia, p. 98-99. Therefore, in the words of Dimitri Obolensky, "Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow: A Study in Ecclesiastical Relations", Byzantium and the Slavs: Collected Studies studies VI, p. 28 he "entertained a particularly violent dislike of the Palamite Patriarch Philotheos."

[49] Bekker, p. 517-18; Patr. Graeca, vol. 149, p. 458; Parisot, "Notice", p. 78. I think Dr. Paul Moore of the Greek Index Project at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto for providing me with a translation of these passages.

[50] Clearly evident in the description of the competition between Alexis of Moscow and Roman of Lithuania for the title of "Metropolitan of Russia", where Philotheos is accused of taking bribes, and specifically blamed for the loss of the chance to convert the Lithuanians: Parisot, "Notice", p. 82, 84; Bekker, Historiae Byzantinae, p. 519-520. Cf. Obolensky, "Byzantium, Kiev, and Moscow", p. 28-29, and comments by R. Guilland, Essai sur Nicephore Gregoras (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1926), p. 255 on Gregoras' general lack of objectivity.

[51] Bekker, p. 520 ff. ; Patr. Graeca vol. 149 p. 459-463; Parisot, "Notice", p. 84-94. The speech contrasts the sun, worshipped by the pagan prince and presented as a symbol of the Creator, to the "demon of avarice" worshipped by the Byzantines, whose "infamies" are then detailed. Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia, p. 146 accepts Gregoras' assertion of Algirdas' willingness to be baptized, and uses it repeatedly as proof that the Grand Prince was ready to convert to Greek Orthodox Christianity, (p. 162, 170, 195).