Book Description
The re-establishment of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1454 provided the Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire once more with a supreme ecclesiastical authority and, at the same time, an institutional organization of their social group. The study of this phenomenon and the examination of its multiple effects required the use of reliable sources, the most fundamental of which being the acts of the Patriarchate itself.
In 2013 (and in a revised edition in 2016) were presented the forty two patriarchal documents extant from the period 1454-1498. In the second volume, which is now published, one hundred five texts dating from the period 1498-1565 are presented, among which only three are found in the patriarchal Archives, with the remaining having been located in archives and libraries in Greece and abroad.
This publication comes as a precious tool for historical research, in which the researcher can find the one hundred five extant texts presented in a useful and reliable edition. A wide range of issues emerges from the texts concerning the internal affairs of the Church, texts sent by the supreme ecclesiastical authority to monastic establishments, or the Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire, texts regarding the relations of the Orthodox Church with the Orthodox community of Venice, the Sinai monastery, or the leaders of Russia. The volume also contains a general index of names and terms, together with a table outlining the archives and libraries where the original documents or their copies are currently located. The publication has been realized within the framework of a Research Program funded by the Onassis Foundation.