Italian Barbarism in Abyssinia

Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are noteworthy and unique for many things, not least their vibrant iconography on which I commented here. Theirs remains the largest Christian church in all of Africa. 

There are other reasons--sorrowful and disgusting--that they stand out, not least for being subject to a quasi-genocide by other Christians less than a century ago. A recent edition of the London Review of Books contains a review that discusses some of the horrifying and infuriating details of atrocities committed against Ethiopian Orthodox Christians by Italian Roman Catholics. Much of the former's sacred vessels and art were stolen by the latter, their monastic sites destroyed, and many thousands of Ethiopian Christians were outright murdered by the latter during Mussolini's colonial adventures in Africa nearly a century ago now. 

The details recounted in this new book would lend themselves to being compiled in a much larger volume of shame someone should write, Roman Sins Against Eastern Christians. Earlier shameful stories about Jesuit intrigues against Ethiopian Orthodox Christians would fill part of this proposed volume, but they would pale in comparison to the stories told in Holy War: The Untold Story of Catholic Italy's Crusade Against the Ethiopian Orthodox Church by Ian Campbell (Hurst, 2021), 336pp.

About this new book the publisher tells us this:

In 1935, Fascist Italy invaded the sovereign state of Ethiopia--a war of conquest that triggered a chain of events culminating in the Second World War. In this stunning and highly original tale of two Churches, historian Ian Campbell brings a whole new perspective to the story, revealing that bishops of the Italian Catholic Church facilitated the invasion by sanctifying it as a crusade against the world's second-oldest national Church. Cardinals and archbishops rallied the support of Catholic Italy for Il Duce's invading armies by denouncing Ethiopian Christians as heretics and schismatics and announcing that the onslaught was an assignment from God.

Campbell marshals evidence from three decades of research to expose the martyrdom of thousands of clergy of the venerable Ethiopian Church, the burning and looting of hundreds of Ethiopia's ancient monasteries and churches, and the instigation and arming of a jihad against Ethiopian Christendom, the likes of which had not been seen since the Middle Ages.

Finally, Holy War traces how, after Italy's surrender to the Allies, the horrors of this pogrom were swept under the carpet of history, and the leading culprits put on the road to sainthood.

The Dynamic Legacies of Cities and Councils of Eastern Christian Antiquity

Amidst the endless, and increasingly tedious, debates among Catholics at least over the Second Vatican Council--debates which are also about episcopal authority as well--some have put it about that eventually the legacy of that council will be no more easily recalled than that of, say, Nicaea I or Constantinople I or Chalcedon.

But the legacies of those early councils is not fixed, either, as a cleverly named new book reminds us once more: Justin M. Pigott, New Rome Wasn't Built in a Day: Rethinking Councils and Controversy at Early Constantinople 381-451 (English and Ancient Greek Edition) (Brepols, 2020), 231pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Traditional representations of Constantinople during the period from the First Council of Constantinople (381) to the Council of Chalcedon (451) portray a see that was undergoing exponential growth in episcopal authority and increasing in its confidence to assert supremacy over the churches of the east as well as to challenge Rome's authority in the west. Central to this assessment are two canons - canon 3 of 381 and canon 28 of 451 - which have for centuries been read as confirmation of Constantinople's ecclesiastical ambition and evidence for its growth in status. However, through close consideration of the political, episcopal, theological, and demographic characteristics unique to early Constantinople, this book argues that the city's later significance as the centre of eastern Christianity and foil to Rome has served to conceal deep institutional weaknesses that severely inhibited Constantinople's early ecclesiastical development. By unpicking teleological approaches to Constantinople's early history and deconstructing narratives synonymous with the city's later Byzantine legacy, this book offers an alternative reading of this crucial seventy-year period. It demonstrates that early Constantinople's bishops not only lacked the institutional stability to lay claim to geo-ecclesiastical leadership but that canon 3 and canon 28, rather than being indicative of Constantinople's rising episcopal strength, were in fact attempts to address deeply destructive internal weaknesses that had plagued the city's early episcopal and political institutions.

Imperial Violence in and for Christian Constantinople

I have previously and recently spoken of some of the things I learned from the late Byzantine historian Robert Taft, not least at a conference together in 2011. At that gathering, I recall him very firmly underscoring the fact that when given the opportunity, each and every Christian group or church throughout history has abused its power to enforce its views on other Christians, from the imperial violence against so-called non-Chalcedonians in Egypt, Syria, or Armenia, to Henry VIII in England, to Catholics against Jews in Italy, and so on down the line. "Nobody has clean hands," Taft underscored very bluntly.

Along comes a new book to remind us of this, and its focus on Constantinople, when we are today seeing Christian temples there being turned into mosques again, makes Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos' Constantinople: Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital (University of California Press, 2020, 238pp.) very timely indeed. About this book the publisher tells us this:

As Christian spaces and agents assumed prominent positions in civic life, the end of the long span of the fourth century was marked by large-scale religious change. Churches had overtaken once-thriving pagan temples, old civic priesthoods were replaced by prominent bishops, and the rituals of the city were directed toward the Christian God. Such changes were particularly pronounced in the newly established city of Constantinople, where elites from various groups contended to control civic and imperial religion.

Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos argues that imperial Christianity was in fact a manifestation of traditional Roman religious structures. In particular, she explores how deeply established habits of ritual engagement in shared social spaces—ones that resonated with imperial ideology and appealed to the memories of previous generations—constructed meaning to create a new imperial religious identity. By examining three dynamics—ritual performance, rhetoric around violence, and the preservation and curation of civic memory—she distinguishes the role of Christian practice in transforming the civic and cultic landscapes of the late antique polis.

In the Shadow of Constantine

Interest in Byzantine history always seems to remain relatively high, and will be further fed in July with the publication of a book in the publisher's New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture series: The Sons of Constantine, AD 337-361:In the Shadows of Constantine and Julian, eds., Nicholas Baker-Brian, and Shaun J. Tougher (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 466pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This edited collection focuses on the Roman empire during the period from AD 337 to 361. During this period the empire was ruled by three brothers: Constantine II (337-340), Constans I (337-350) and Constantius II (337-361). These emperors tend to be cast into shadow by their famous father Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor (306-337), and their famous cousin Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor (361-363). The traditional concentration on the historically renowned figures of Constantine and Julian is understandable but comes at a significant price: the neglect of the period between the death of Constantine and the reign of Julian and of the rulers who governed the empire in this period. The reigns of the sons of Constantine, especially that of the longest-lived Constantius II, mark a moment of great historical significance. As the heirs of Constantine they became the guardians of his legacy, and they oversaw the nature of the world in which Julian was to grow up. The thirteen contributors to this volume assess their influence on imperial, administrative, cultural, and religious facets of the empire in the fourth century.

King Charlie the Big?

The University of California Press just sent me their catalogue of forthcoming publications, and in it I spy a new study of one of those figures who often loom large, for good and ill, in the minds of certain Christians, especially those trying to find bogeymen for divisions, so-called heresies, the rise of those horrid "Franks" who apparently drove East and West apart, etc. Charlemagne rather majestically fits that bill for some.

King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne by Janet L. Nelson (University of California Press, 2019), 704pp.

About this biography we are told this by the publisher:

Charles I, often known as Charlemagne, is one of the most extraordinary figures ever to rule an empire. Driven by unremitting physical energy and intellectual curiosity, he was a man of many parts, a warlord and conqueror, a judge who promised "for each their law and justice," a defender of the Latin Church, a man of flesh and blood. In the twelve centuries since his death, warfare, accident, vermin, and the elements have destroyed much of the writing on his rule, but a remarkable amount has survived. Janet Nelson's wonderful new book brings together everything we know about Charles I, sifting through the available evidence, literary and material, to paint a vivid portrait of the man and his motives.

Building on Nelson’s own extraordinary knowledge, this biography is a sort of detective story, prying into and interpreting fascinating and often obdurate scraps of evidence, from prayer books to skeletons, gossip to artwork. Charles’s legacy lies in his deeds and their continuing resonance, as he shaped counties, countries, and continents; founded and rebuilt towns and monasteries; and consciously set himself up not just as King of the Franks, but as the head of the renewed Roman Empire. His successors—even to the present day—have struggled to interpret, misinterpret, copy, or subvert his legacy. Janet Nelson gets us as close as we can hope to come to the real figure of Charles the man as he was understood in his own time.

Julian the Apostate

Evelyn Waugh's satirical portrait of the Emperor Constantine, noted here, is a wonderful mockery of the tendency of some Christians to glamorize the "co-equal to the apostles." No such mockery is necessary for, nor does that grandiose title apply to, one of Constantine's near successors, treated in a new book by H.C. Teitler: The Last Pagan Emperor: Julian the Apostate and the War against Christianity (Oxford UP, 2017), 312pp.

About this new study the publisher tells us this:

Flavius Claudius Julianus was the last pagan to sit on the Roman imperial throne (361-363). Born in Constantinople in 331 or 332, Julian was raised as a Christian, but apostatized, and during his short reign tried to revive paganism, which, after the conversion to Christianity of his uncle Constantine the Great early in the fourth century, began losing ground at an accelerating pace. Having become an orphan when he was still very young, Julian was taken care of by his cousin Constantius II, one of Constantine's sons, who permitted him to study rhetoric and philosophy and even made him co-emperor in 355. But the relations between Julian and Constantius were strained from the beginning, and it was only Constantius' sudden death in 361 which prevented an impending civil war.

As sole emperor, Julian restored the worship of the traditional gods. He opened pagan temples again, reintroduced animal sacrifices, and propagated paganism through both the spoken and the written word. In his treatise Against the Galilaeans he sharply criticised the religion of the followers of Jesus whom he disparagingly called 'Galilaeans'. He put his words into action, and issued laws which were displeasing to Christians--the most notorious being his School Edict. This provoked the anger of the Christians, who reacted fiercely, and accused Julian of being a persecutor like his predecessors Nero, Decius, and Diocletian. Violent conflicts between pagans and Christians made themselves felt all over the empire. It is disputed whether or not Julian himself was behind such outbursts. Accusations against the Apostate continued to be uttered even after the emperor's early death. In this book, the feasibility of such charges is examined.