There is enough evidence that under the Heraclides Monothelitism was an uninvited guest. The last thing to be expected was that one of the most intelligent emperors could stir up such a turmoil that did not promise anything good politically. Previous history showed that both any attempts at state pressure and experiments at union with Monophysitism can only increase the dispute, and not produce peace. The new dynasty of the Heraclides, meanwhile, resumed experiments in the reunification of the Monophysites. The participation of the spiritual authorities was passive. The ecclesiastical authorities were not in the foreground when the questions of the two wills and actions in Christ were raised. Thus a very serious question arises: how did Heraclius, that wise sovereign, undertake such a cause, the inconsistency of which had already been historically proved under his predecessors? But those who ask this question and do not find an answer to it, lose sight of the general changes that have taken place in the situation of the Byzantine state.

In fact, political reasons prompted him to take up this matter. The Emperor Heraclius was compelled to do this, perhaps because his circumstances were more difficult than ever. The successor of Tiberius and the predecessor of Heraclius, the emperor Maurice, succeeded in sheltering the Persian sovereign Chosroes, who, in consequence of the revolt of his subjects, fled abroad to save his life. Maurice thus became patronizing of the Persian king; Oriental news says that Maurice gave him his daughter Mary, who had a strong influence on him. But then in Byzantium there was a revolt against Maurice; the troops revolted and elected Phocas in his place; Maurice, on the other hand, was executed with his children. This circumstance served as a pretext for Chosroes to begin hostilities against Byzantium. For Mauritius he gave up a great deal; but now, being at the height of his power, it was natural for him to profit at the expense of Byzantium. He hoped that not everyone in Byzantium would react indifferently to the change. When news of Phocas' accession to the throne was sent, Chosroes declared war on him. Meanwhile, Phocas proved incapable of defending the empire. A riot broke out; General Heraclius raised an uprising, defeated Phocas, reigned in his place, and sent Chosroes the kind news of this. Phocas was executed. It seemed that after the death of Phocas, the pretexts for war for Chosroes were abolished ipso facto. But Khosroes did not think about peace. The Persian troops carried success after success. And affairs on the Danube were extremely doubtful: it was necessary to conclude dubious alliances with the Avar Khan, who broke them whenever it seemed convenient. Finally, a fact unprecedented in history happened. Heraclius, in despair, decided to flee from his kingdom, and only the strong entreaties of the patriarch restrained him. Still, his position was difficult. All this, of course, led to the idea that unanimity was necessary and that it was most important. And so the emperor, like a drowning man, seized on negotiations with the Monophysites.

But another consideration is also permissible. The Byzantine Empire embraced both east and west. The population of the eastern half represented the most diverse elements, only slightly Greekized; The West had the peoples of the Illyrian-Thracian tribe. Rome never ordained the Illyrians and Thracians as statesmen. But soon, however, the most prominent role fell to the lot of this tribe. The Illyrian Diocletian paved the way for other Illyrians to the imperial throne. Constantine V. was the son of an Illyrian and came from the city of Naissus; his dynasty ended on June 26, 363 by Julian the Apostate. Julian's successor was Jovian of Pannonia. Emperor Valentinian was also a Pannonian (from the city of Kival). In 379, on January 19, Theodosius the Great took the throne; the Theodosius dynasty of Spanish origin ended on July 28, 450 in the person of Theodosius the Younger. His successor was Marcian of Illyria, followed by Leo I the Thracian, advanced by European forces, from the tribe of the Bessians in Illyria. He owes his rise to the Goth Asparicus, who dominated Constantinople; in time, Leo did away with the Gothic influence, but had no successor, and bequeathed the throne to his grandson, who also died, and the throne passed to the Isaurian Zeno (Isauria is a region of Asia Minor). "Zeno" was not the original name of the emperor; in Isaurian he was called so intricately that Greek historians have not preserved his name [Ταρασικοδιασα, Αρικμεσος, Τρασαλικαιος]; It was called Zeno in honor of Zeno Stratilates, who under Theodosius II was a magister equitum and played a very prominent role in his time. In the person of Zeno, therefore, the head of the state was a man of an Asiatic tribe. That is why all the revolts against Zeno, with the exception of the revolt of the Isaurian Illus, had their basis not only in certain state conditions, but also in the struggle of European forces against Asiatics. Naturally, the new sovereign could nominate new people regardless of their merits, and the question was who should dominate the empire. With the death of Zeno (April 9, 491), the Isaurian dynasty ended. During his lifetime, the late emperor predicted the throne for his brother Longinus, but the latter, as he did not arouse sympathy in anyone, did not occupy it, so that Zeno's successor was the Thracian-Illyrian Anastasius (from the city of Dyrrhachium in Illyria). His successor Justin I was also an Illyrian; his dynasty lasted from July 9, 518 to 578 and ended with Justin II, from whom power passed to Tiberius.

The latter was a Thracian, and history destined him to be the last Thracian representative on the Byzantine throne. As a young soldier he went to Asia on the duties of military service; in Arzaninus he intended to marry a rich girl, but it so happened that both she and her father died, and Tiberius married the remaining widow in order to inherit all her fortune. He seems to have been very attached to his wife, because he did not yield to proposals to divorce her. This is how the Asian empress appears in Byzantium. If she could have an influence on her husband, then this influence could only be feminine, because she had not received a court education, and could be expressed, for example, in the patronage of fellow countrymen. Be that as it may, but during the reign of Tiberius, a turn was made in favor of the Asiatics. His successor was Maurice of Aravissus, magister equitum, who claimed an unprecedented strength of family ties; Most of his relatives ended up in the capital. It was so popular among the Armenians that even legends were made about it. On August 13, 582, he ascended the throne and married the daughter of Tiberius. But on November 23, 602, in the European army stationed on the Danube (fighting against the Avars), there was a revolt against Maurice, and he was deprived of the throne. The mutinous troops chose by lot a new emperor, the Cappadocian Phocas (Asiatic), who, however, reigned briefly and ingloriously. In the end, even those closest to him (his son-in-law Priscus) began to write rebellious letters, which raised an uprising in Constantinople. Phocas was deposed, and his successor was Heraclius, also a Cappadocian by birth, of a family long since settled in the East. His father was an honored Byzantine general. For a long time he acted with Maurice against the Persians, and before his elevation he held the rather difficult post of ruler of Byzantine Armenia. Thus, a revolution was made in favor of electing to the throne not Europeans, but Asiatics, who came from a region close to Armenia (Cappadocia), and naturally tried to draw their countrymen into the capital and put them in prominent places.

In the indicated origin of Heraclius, perhaps, lies the key to the riddle of his union mission. All the previous emperors, in their attempts to return the Monophysites to Orthodoxy, took a foothold in Syria (Antioch), where these opposing currents were concentrated. Egypt stood behind Syria. It was necessary to strengthen the situation in these two dioceses, since here was the nucleus around which the new church life was to be formed. Now this core is being transferred to Armenia.

{p. 443}

The course of the union can be represented in the following way. Emperor Maurice facilitated the return to the Persian throne of Chosroes (591), who had fled from the rebels to Byzantium. In gratitude for this service, Chosroes made significant concessions to Mauritius in the demarcation. Some territories went to Byzantium, and they were settled by Armenians. First of all, Arzanina went to Byzantium, where Tiberius' wife was from. Then, the line reached Lake Tospi up to the city of Dvin, which was the capital of Persian Armenia, because the Persian officials who ruled Armenia lived here, and finally reached Tiflis. Maurice, who spent part of his youth in these regions of Armenia, was well aware of the state of affairs in this region, but to be its sovereign, as time has shown, was hardly a godsend for him. Armenia had a feudal structure, or, better, an allodial one. It was divided into estates of enormous size, which were owned by certain certain families; Each clan was a fairly concentrated force. Of course, the subordination of the younger to the older was established between them. But this country was located on the very border of Persia and Byzantium, and the satraps of the country had to maneuver between one and the other, to pass from one citizenship to another. Any complication with the Persians prompted the Armenians to seek help from Byzantium, and vice versa. But the Armenians dreamed of complete independence, and therefore did not particularly try to observe either the interests of Persia or the interests of Byzantium, and therefore, of course, neither the Persians nor the Greeks trusted the Armenians.

The Persians tried to educate the Armenians at their court, but the Christianity of the Armenians was a strong obstacle to such attempts. When the Armenians inclined to Monophysitism, they appeased the Persian government. The Persians began to understand that, due to religious differences, the Armenians did not have a particularly ardent love for Byzantium. On the other hand, the Byzantines also tried to bind the Armenians to themselves by the bonds of religion. Mauritius really wanted to be a firm foot here. But the mutual relations of the Armenian authorities promised so little loyalty to the power that Maurice gave Chosroes the following advice: the Armenian nobles should go further east, and I will settle them in Thrace; If an Armenian is killed, the enemy will be killed, and if an Armenian kills someone there, he will kill the enemy. How it would have ended is unknown. But Chosroes began to regret the concessions made; taking advantage of the fact that Maurice began to deport the Armenian nobles to Thrace, he, on the contrary, began to patronize the Armenians and assure them that Maurice was oppressing them. But the Persian sovereign had to pay for his troubles with disorders in Armenia. Mauritius was also not calm, but he strictly suppressed all attempts at rebellion. An Armenian nobleman. Smbat Bagratuni, of an extremely warlike character, aroused the particular indignation of Maurice, and he was summoned to Byzantium. Smbat was distinguished by an athletic build and strength truly Herculesian. It was said that once, when he was riding with a detachment of troops through a forest, he picked up a branch, grabbed it and, wrapping his legs around the horse, rose with it. In Byzantium they decided to release him to fight wild animals; Smbat showed miracles of bravery. Armenian historians say that Smbat killed a bear in the kinigia, broke the horns of a bull and put it to flight, chasing it, he knocked down its hooves, strangled a lion, squeezing its throat; Tired, he lay down to rest on a dead lion. The people begged him for pardon, but he was nevertheless exiled.

Now Mauritius tried to play on a different string. In order to bind the Armenians to Byzantium, he planned to give them a special church structure. All Armenians had a spiritual head in the person of the Catholicos, who lived in Persian Armenia [in Dvin]. Maurice decided that his Armenians should not be dependent on this Catholicos, and a special Catholicos was chosen for the Greek Armenians, one John [in Theodosiopolis]. Obviously, such a division of power was made in the form of separating the Byzantine Armenians from their Persian brethren. In fact, the Byzantine Catholicos must have been interested in this matter of division, for in the event of the unification of the Armenians, the Byzantine Catholicos would be completely unnecessary. The question of the division of Armenia, therefore, for him was also a question of his own existence.

The emperor's union attempt was favored by another circumstance. The Armenians quite accidentally joined the Monophysites, and received neither honor nor glory among the Monophysites; and in all subsequent times their position among the Monophysites was extremely miserable. The Monophysites – Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians – felt themselves to be members of the same church, but the Armenians, with their incomprehensible language, with their liturgical rite, represented something mysterious and incomprehensible to the other Monophysites. The Syrian Monophysites tried to exert their influence on the Armenians, sending them their bishops; This contributed to a rapprochement between them, but still the Armenians did not enjoy the confidence of the Syrians. Syrian Monophysite writers considered the Armenian people stupid, backward, and their rituals stupid. The Armenian, in a word, broke away from his foundation, lived as a proletarian. The Armenians who adopted Monophysitism found themselves in the same position as the Slavs and Uniate Greeks, who betrayed Orthodoxy and did not accept full Catholicism. Thus, the Armenians did not have firm grounds for persisting in monophysitism. This inconvenient position could serve as an indication that the ties with Monophysitism could be broken here more quickly than in Syria and Egypt, and that is why an attempt was made here to unite. Maurice gave an order to the troops that everyone should commune with Orthodox priests; some did not want to pay with external benefits and joined Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. Maurice decided to act by persuasion, to convene a council and resolve all issues at it, but met resistance in the person of Catholicos Moses of Dvina, who declared that he would not cross the border separating the two empires, and the matter ended in nothing.

Thus, from Maurice, the Emperor Heraclius inherited some special matters in the union sense. It was necessary to try to bring the Armenians to Orthodoxy; The union was intended for them [105].

{p. 446}

Heraclius hoped to settle the matter with the Persians very simply: he had sufficiently avenged the death of Maurice by putting Phocas to death, and the Persian war had lost its raison detre since his accession to the throne. But the Persians did not think of ending the war and continued it with remarkable success. They, having taken Syria and Egypt, reached Chalcedon. The emperor had to create an army, and Cappadocia was the place where he trained recruits. Having finally won a victory over the Persians, the emperor expanded the borders of the Byzantine Empire at the expense of Armenia, which had previously depended on the Persians (alias: he restored the Byzantine possessions to the borders to which they had reached under Maurice). In order to keep the new subjects under their rule, it was necessary to maintain good relations with the Armenians. Hence the appearance of Armenians in high positions in Byzantium. On the other hand, the experience from the time of Mauritius gave Heraclius reason to think that with the Armenians he would succeed what he had failed with other Monophysites.

a) The Byzantine emperors had a powerful means of influencing the Armenian ecclesiastical spheres: in the event of the refusal of the Catholicos of Dvin (in Persian Armenia) from the union on the basis of the recognition of the Council of Chalcedon, the emperor had the opportunity to install a special Catholicos in Armenia subject to him. This was already the case under Mauritius (c. 591). Moses and then Abraham were Catholicos in Dvina, and John was Catholicos in the Greek possessions.