th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon until 513, when, according to the author, among a considerable part of representatives of the ruling circles in Constantinople began a shift towards final transition to the pro-Chalcedonian position in regard to church policy. The description of this transition is the subject of the second chapter of the monograph. It contains prosopographic description of the so-called “pro-Chalcedonian party”, i.e. the party, that supported the reconciliation with the Pope and the unconditional acceptance of the results of the Council of Chalcedon as an integral part of the dogmatic and canonical tradition. Also described are the individual actions of the supporters of this party, directed against the power of the emperor Anastasius, who was strongly anti-Chalcedo-nian, as well as their actions, which after the death of Anastasius finally lead to the throne Justin I. One section provides a brief description of the measures of the new emperor, which resulted in the reconciliation with the Pope and the beginning of repressions throughout the whole Empire against the opponents of Chalcedon. All these events were marked by the participation of Justinian, which unfortunately is insufficiently documented by the surviving sources.
The third chapter, “Theodora's factor in the religious policy of Justinian”, is dedicated to the reign of Justinian itself. The author analyzes the background and the initial conditions of the emperor's policy towards the anti-Chalcedonians. In this regard, it was necessary to dwell on the exact role, that Justinian's wife Theodora played in the church policy. This necessity was caused by the fact that the historiography on the subject is dominated by the perception of her role as a decisive one, that the author regards as incorrect. In fact, many researchers tend to attribute exclusively to Theodora the initiative in the elaboration and implementation of church-political measures against the anti-Chalcedonians, while the role of Justinian is characterized by them as secondary or subordinate. The author argues, that initiator and promoter of the policy towards the anti-Chalcedonians was the Emperor himself, while Theodora only took an active part in it, acting in line with the policy of her husband. This observation is important for restoring of a full picture of the church-political events of the time.
The fourth chapter, “The religious policy of Justinian in 532–536”, presents a description of the church-political measures of the emperor in the given period. The chronological limits of this period are chosen due to the fact that in 532, after a long period of repressions against the anti-Chalcedonians, on the instigation of the Emperor there were resumed active contacts with their leaders, whose head was the deposed Patriarch of Antioch Severus. These contacts marked the first attempt at developing a compromise position, which may have included certain concessions on the part of Chalcedonians. In fact, during the meetings and interviews with the anti-Chalcedonians there was elaborated a whole program of measures designed to achieve a generally acceptable compromise, and to restore the church unity in the future. After the first negotiations with the representatives of the anti-Chalcedonians, further interviews were conducted with their informal leader Severus of Antioch. The end of this period came at 536, when the local Council in Constantinople was held, and the uncompromising position towards the anti-Chalcedonians of the Pope of Rome prevailed. Thus the talks reached an impasse and a compromise with the anti-Chalcedonians was suspended.
The fifth chapter, “The years after the Council of Constantinople (536), the transition to the Three-Chapter Controversy”, describes the most productive period both for the church policy and theology from 536 down to the beginning of the 40s of the 6th century, that was marked by a real theological breakthrough: actually the first time since the end of the Council of Chalcedon an attempt was undertaken by the emperor Justinian and his colleagues to give a theological answer to the anti-Chalcedonians, especially to the doctrine of Severus of Antioch. The Local Council of Constantinople in 536, following the Pope's attitude, had proclaimed an anathema to the doctrine of Severus. However, it was quite clear that without a precise theological position of their own the Chalcedonians cannot further conduct a dialogue with their opponents. The original theological vulnerability of a Chalcedonian position was based on its commitment to Tomos of Pope Leo, the fact that made the position of Chalcedonians in a dispute with their opponents clearly losing and disposed them to occur to political pressure rather than to an honest theological dispute. Now on behalf of the Chalcedonians the Emperor himself came forth with theological arguments. Their aim was to reconcile the theological system of Cyril of Alexandria, to which both the Chalcedo-nians and the anti-Chalcedonians were committed, with the theological approaches of Pope Leo I, expressed in his Tomos, that served as a basis for the dogmatic position of Chalcedon. Theological approach presented by Justinian, expanded in his extant letter to the Egyptian monks, was a convincing attempt to harmonize the concepts “one nature” of Christ of Cyril of Alexandria, on the one hand, and the “two natures” of Christ of Leo of Rome, on the other, through the formula “two natures — one hypostasis”.
The theological position of Justinian in conjunction with a number of other measures lead to a result that among the anti-Chalcedonians there appeared quite a representative group of people who supported the church-political measures of the Emperor, and aimed at achieving a compromise and restoration of communion with the Church. At the same time the Emperor was conducting an active policy towards the Popes in order to force them to change their uncompromising stance towards anti-Chalcedonians. That became quite possible after the reconquest of Rome and the establishing on the papal throne of his protégé Vigilius (537). Further on the Emperor acted in the framework of his policy of compromise, attracting for the fulfillment of his ecclesiastical and political activities persons, who formally remained on anti-Chalcedonian positions. This fact is most clearly manifested in a number of missionary enterprises in the South and the East of the Empire (for example, in Asia Minor, Syria and Nubia), where Emperor's commands were carried out by people like John of Ephesus and Jacob Baradaeus.
The main content of the policy towards anti-Chalcedonians in the period of the 40s represents the dispute about the so-called “Three Chapters” — objectionable for the anti-Chalcedonians writings and persons accepted by the Council of Chalcedon. To the issue, which otherwise as a whole is well studied and described in the scholastic literature, the sixth chapter of the monograph “Three-Chapters' Controversy (540–553)” is dedicated. The “Three Chapters” being one letter of Ibas of Edessa, certain works of Theodoret of Cyrus, and the theology of Theo-
dore of Mopsuestia, in anti-Chalcedonians' view, were imbued with the heresy of Nestorius, and the fact that they had been adopted by the Council of Chalcedon was an obstacle for them on the way to the restoration of dialogue with the Chal-cedonians. Justinian explicitly called for the condemnation of the “Three Chapters”, but was obliged to face a strong opposition in the ranks of the stout Chalce-donians, because for them even a partial revision of the decisions of Chalcedon was not acceptable. The Western Churches had particularly strong resistance despite the vacillating position of Pope Vigilius. The respective positions of the Emperor, who spoke for the condemnation of the “Three Chapters”, and his opponents are the subject of detailed analysis in the sixth chapter. Also, it discusses some implications produced by the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” at the 5th Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553.
The condemnation of the “Three Chapters” in conjunction with the detailed elaboration of a theological position, designed to demonstrate the fundamental similarity of the theology of Cyril of Alexandria and that of Leo of Rome, as well as a number of administrative measures, resulted in 553 in a creation of an an-ti-Chalcedonian group fully committed to the idea of the restoration of the ecclesiastical unity. For this group, the Emperor himself personified the unity of the Church within the Empire, but canonical restoration of unity was nevertheless required. Since by that time disparate anti-Chalcedonian groups had long lost any legal ecclesiastical structure, a formal and official association with the Chalcedo-nians was impossible for them. Thus, the final, seventh, chapter, “Justinian's church policy in the period after the Condemnation of the Three Chapters (553–565)”, describes the events regarding the restoration under the strict supervision of the Emperor of a fictitious anti-Chalcedonian ecclesiastical hierarchy with a view to convene a Reconciliation Council. Due to unexplained reasons, during the life of Justinian this design was not carried out, but soon after his death, an attempt to hold such a Council was made by his successor Justin II (565–578). However, this attempt failed.
In the same chapter the author analyzes an important issue of the Justinian's presumed commitment to the so-called heresy of Aphthartodocetism. This issue has been often referred to in the scientific literature. The author of the monograph concludes that the assumption, that Justinian had really adopted the Aphthart-odocetism, is unfounded. According to the author, Justinian's reason for treating this doctrine consisted in the search for a theological solution of the issue raised by an anti-Chalcedonian theologian Julian of Halicarnassus, and in the attempt to elaborate an orthodox approach to this subject.