The main names in this process of translating theology into liturgical images are Sts. John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite. According to tradition, St. John of Damascus is the creator of the Octoechos, i.e. a collection of hymns, divided into 8 tones. In all likelihood, the backbone of the Octoechos really belongs to him. In addition, the text of the services of Easter, Baptism, Transfiguration and a number of other major holidays is attributed to him.

This is how the liturgical creativity of Byzantium of this period is characterized by Archpriest S. Alexander Schmemann: "This is a very remarkable liturgical poetry in content and form, the influence of which in Byzantine hymnography will be decisive. But characteristic, firstly, is Damascene's desire to consolidate the divine services into a certain scheme, and secondly, the almost complete dependence of his theological motifs on the patristic tradition. Byzantine worship is the melting down into liturgical form of the dogmatic achievements of the preceding epoch. It is almost entirely painted in Trinitarian and Christological colors.

The same pathos of completion and consolidation marks the liturgical activity of the Studite Center, headed by St. Theodore the Studite. His circle belongs to the text of both "Triodions" (Lenten and Colored), a number of Lenten services. Here the "Typikon" gradually took shape, i.e. a liturgical rule, striving for more and more "fixation" of the service. Each Byzantine generation will only have to fill in the empty spaces in this scheme. The liturgical heritage of Byzantium is so enormous that one should not expect from it only treasures. It contains a lot of rhetorical exercises, rehashes, imitations. On the whole, it is a majestic building, in which many things are marked by enduring beauty and the deepest meaning. In the Typikon itself (or, rather, the "Typicons," since there were a great many of them, they were copied and perfected, but at the basis of all of them lies the Studite Typikon), if one is able to decipher their "encrypted" language, a whole philosophy of Christian life is revealed, a very subtle, very well-thought-out conception of the Christian worldview. Suffice it to point out the radiant beauty of the Paschal service, the richness of the liturgical cycles - Christmas, Great Lent, the Mother of God, the theological depth of the "Octoechos" or "Triodion". For centuries this liturgical richness will be the main source of knowledge, religious life, and religious inspiration in the Orthodox world, and in it, in the darkest ages, when traditions are interrupted, enlightenment becomes impoverished, the people of the Church will again and again find the spirit of the universal, all-embracing, inexhaustibly profound Orthodoxy of its golden epoch... "The entire spiritual culture, the theological erudition of the Byzantine and the citizen of Holy Russia, which seems to the sons of proud European culture to be something wild and gloomy, was obtained by them in the Church, in the church, in liturgical theology, as a living experience of the Church. There were no seminaries, academies, or theological faculties, and God-loving monks and pious Christians drank the living water of the knowledge of God from the stichera, the canon, the sedals, the prologue, and the chetii-minei. The church kliros and pulpit then replaced the professor's cathedra. During the vigils, matins, compline, to the touching singing of the sweet-voiced "podobnov", to the sounds of the ancient Znamenny and Greek chants, strong piety was cultivated... unshakable, an Orthodox worldview was developed, embodied in life and reality, and not only remaining a vague philosophical theory. They collected these "prayer springs" in churches and, experiencing them reverently, built their way of life and way of life according to them" (Archim. Cyprian Kern).

Without a doubt, liturgical creativity is the pinnacle of Byzantine Orthodoxy: it indicates a deep understanding of the dogmatic insights of the preceding epoch and their assimilation by the Church's consciousness, and the inner continuity of life and tradition. But in essence it still only embodies the experience of the past in beautiful forms, fixes it in the liturgical "system". And everything that is really new in the Byzantine period is usually immeasurably weaker, more rhetorical, and in a sense is only an ornament; such is the luxuriant flowering of liturgical symbolism, the complication of rites, the lengthening - sometimes unnecessary - of the prayers and hymns of an earlier epoch classical in their conciseness and expressiveness. Mutatis mutandis, late Byzantine liturgical creativity appears to be a kind of "baroque" in comparison with the transparent simplicity of pure Byzantinism.

We see a similar desire to systematize tradition in the work of Symeon Metaphrastus (10th century), the codifier of the lives of saints, or Ikumenia, a well-known Byzantine exegete. Everything here is Orthodox, traditional, very often beautiful and clever - but it does not add anything to what has already been said by ancient authors. Even more typical is the famous monument of the twelfth century - the epoch of the Comneni - "Panoplia" by Euthymius Zigaben, an example of "official" theology. Since that time we have been encountering this kind of "panoplia" more and more often: they are theological collections of answers and arguments for all cases. In the capital, at the court, there is much debate on theological topics, but these are brilliant verbal disputes, and not a genuine dispute about "the one thing that is required." "It was fashionable to talk about theology, the court competed with the clergy, professional theologians contrived in subtleties to find topics and fish out of the Scriptures questions that could baffle their opponents..." (F. Shalandon). And this spirit marked official theology until the very end of the Empire."

This harsh assessment of Fr. Alexander Schmemann is in many respects justified. However, it should not be forgotten that the genuine creative spirit of Byzantine theology never faded, that it lived and developed in the Church. In the period under consideration, he appeared more and more in monastic life, in that invisible spiritual podvig that was performed daily and nightly within the monastery walls. And in remembrance of this, it is enough to cite at least such names as St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas...

3. On the foreign policy side, in the post-iconoclastic period, the political interests of the Empire narrowed in the East. As subsequent history has shown, the West was finally lost. The papacy found defenders and patrons - the Franks.

Thus, the Roman universalism of both East and West remained only in theory, and in practice territorial "spheres of influence" appeared. After the fall of iconoclasm, the two hierarchs began to act as rivals on territorial issues. The dispute was about the lands - the Balkans and Southern Italy, which were transferred by the iconoclastic emperors to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

But in that eastern sphere of influence, to which God's Providence reduced Byzantium, new enormous tasks opened up for both the Church and the Empire. First of all, it was the task of converting the southern and eastern Slavs to Christianity. Beginning with the time of Photius and Constantine with Methodius, the Byzantine world grew and expanded its boundaries enormously: it became as vast as it had never been before in its entire history.

За культурным возрождением следовало укрепление политической и военной мощи Империи. На восточном фронте началось византийское наступление, которое шло медленно, но верно. Бывшие имперские земли постепенно отвоевывались у арабов; в военной конфронтации с болгарами также постепенно начались перемены (конечно, тоже не сразу и очень медленно). Византия вновь стала ведущей морской державой мира.

II. Эпоха патриарха Фотия. Миссия свв. Кирилла и Мефодия. Крещение Болгарии. Великий собор примирения

1. Во время Торжества Православия новым патриархом был Мефодий (843-847 гг.) - бывший исповедник при Феофиле. Он, так же как и Феодора, понимал, что всеобщее примирение возможно лишь при мягкости к бывшим иконоборцам и широком применении принципа икономии. Монахам это совсем не нравилось. Студийский монастырь вновь ушел в раскол. В надежде на уврачевание ситуации после смерти Мефодия новым патриархом был избран Игнатий (847-858; 867-878), оскопленный при перевороте сын императора Михаила Рангаве, - строгий монах, аскет, человек несомненно святой личной жизни. Он был очень популярен среди монахов, но, увы, политиком оказался никудышным.

Это было время подъема, новых надежд и упований. Имперским войскам теперь почти все время сопутствовала удача. В возобновившейся войне с арабами после переменных успехов византийцам удалось оттеснить арабов на восток, войдя, таким образом, в местности, где владычествовала дуалистическая секта павликиан. Дуалисты взялись за оружие, и арабская война плавно перешла в павликианскую. Еретиков наголову разбили, и большое количество их было переселено во Фракию.

Это переселение, столь необходимое со стратегической точки зрения, вызвало не столь желательные и весьма далеко идущие последствия, положив начало возникновению болгарского богомильства.