Robert Wagman

CHAPTER XVI

Christopher Angelus has more to say on the subject of the excommunicated in ch. 25 of his On the Life and Customs of Modern Greeks. I cannot neglect to include here the material which he ascribes to the historian Cassian,

This is how opinion runs. Cassian, an ancient Greek historian, reports in his writings that a special assembly of one hundred bishops convened once upon a time in some place. On every matter the bishops were of the same heart, as is right. Only one continued to make every sort of objection, until he was excommunicated by the others. He ended up his life in a state of excommunication and his corpse remained bound for one hundred years, as if it were made of iron. After a hundred years passed, another special assembly of one hundred bishops convened in that same place, and the bishops said among themselves, ‘This excommunicated bishop sinned against the Church and by the Church he was excommunicated. We, too, are the Church, and wish to absolve him because to sin is human.’ And, as soon as the ritual prayers were completed, the body which had remained undecomposed for a hundred years turned into dust.

In his History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Emmanuel Malaxos also tells the story of Arsenius, bishop of Monemvasia,

Overcome by bitterness, he died without repenting, in a state of excommunication. His wretched body was found some time later, all black and swollen like a drum. So dreadful it was, that people would tremble with fear just by looking at it.

And this is what he says about Ioannicius, Patriarch of Constantinople,

And shortly after, he died a bad and painful death and his body, bound by anathema, was found all swollen like a drum: for he had been excommunicated by the four Patriarchs, on account of his depravity. He thus received the punishment which had deserved.

Such accounts are further reinforced by the example of a woman who had been excommunicated by the patriarch Gennadius for defaming his authority. This woman was taken out of her grave all swollen and dark. After much praying, finally released from the bonds of excommunication, her body parts came loose and crumbled into ashes. Malaxos goes over this matter at same length; however, since we believe that it is not an unwelcome tale, we are going to present it here, even though in our own paraphrasis.

In addition to other things, they also told [the Sultan] about those individuals who are legitimately expelled from the religious community by a Christian bishop or priest, on account of an sin comitted, and who do not try to make amends, while they are still alive, so that they can expiate the sin which they were expelled for. The bodies of such individuals, they said, do not dissolve in the earth after death, but swell and stretch out like drums, nor are they ever consumed by the earth, even after a thousand years, but keep the same shape as when they were buried. [The Sultan] then inquired whether it was possible to reverse the situation and make such corpses dissolve, by giving them absolution. They answered that it was possible. Hearing about this wonder, [the Sultan] was amazed and frightened at the same time. He did not ask any other questions, but sent immediately for the Patriarch, requesting the body of an excommunicated person who had been dead a long time. When he received this envoy, the Patriarch was troubled: assembling his clerics at once, he disclosed the Sultan’s request to them, and they were baffled. A great worry seized the Patriarch and the clerics, for, much as they tried, they could not imagine where to find the body of a person who had died in a state of excommunication. Unable to cope with this situation immediately, since nothing was coming to their mind, they asked the king for more time so that they could examine the problem further. Their request was granted, and they put all their energies into trying to think of a suitable cadaver. Finally, some of the older clerics remembered a lady who had lived in the early times of Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius. A very beautiful woman, she was the widow of a priest who began to prostitute herself, without any attempt at concealment, in her house next to the Patriarchate. When the Patriarch found out, he reprimanded her, carefully advising her to stop sinning and repent, so that she could be pardoned. But this had no effect, except for provoking the woman into relaxing her sexual inhibitions even more. The Patriarch meanwhile persisted with his warnings, and not just privately anymore, but in public as well, in front of the religious authorities and the clerics. Inspired by the Devil, the wretched woman then accused him of attempting to rape her during a confidential interview. The Patriarch was stunned at being charged with so vile a crime. Soon the accusation became the talk of Constantinople; some people believed it, others suspected its credibility. So what could the Patriarch do? There was no other way out of his situation but this: one Sunday, with the bishops and the clergy present, he performed the liturgy, and when he finished, in a very clear voice he said that, if the widow’s words against him were true, he prayed that she could be forgiven by God and be given happiness, and that her body be allowed to dissolve at death. But if she had falsely charged him, having forged the vilest of accusations, he held her accountable before the will and judgement of the almighty God, after banishing her from the holy flock of the devout, unforgiven and indissoluble. So he spoke. Nor did the sword of divine vengeance take too long to strike, but behold! Scarcely forty days had gone by when dysentery took the widow away. And the earth could not dissolve the body of this woman who had died and gone to her grave in such unfavorable conditions, but she remained whole and incorrupt, just as she was when she was buried. Even the hair had not fallen off her head, but she continued to look like a live woman, except for the fact that she didn’t talk. Yet, many years had passed since her excommunication. So the clerics remembered that this woman was still bound by excommunication, and they knew full well that she had laid a terribly wicked and false accusation against the blessed Patriarch Gennadius. Therefore, they called an assembly and publically declared that, to their knowledge, the woman had been rightfully banished from the sacred rites by Patriarch Gennadius. When he heard that the body of an excommunicated person had been finally found, Patriarch Maximus ordered to search for the place where the body was buried, so that they could open the tomb and verify the facts. A search team was dispatched and, to the great joy of the Patriarch, the tomb was found. Immediately, he and the clergy rushed there with the king’s great Chawus. And when they opened the tomb, they found the body perfectly intact. It was black and swollen like a drum. All those who saw it began to weep profusely at that unhappy sight, terrified by the severity with which God had judged and punished the woman. Then the Patriarch with the Chawus immediately informed those royal representatives who, acting in the Sultan’s name, had ordered the search for an excommunicated person’s body. ‘We found one’, he said, ‘go ask the king if there is anything more that he wishes.’ And they, as soon as they heard of the miracle, ran to announce it to the king. When he found out, the king sent over some of his most trusted officers. These inspected the body and were greatly shocked. They returned to the Sultan and described the fearsome spectacle which they had witnessed. The Sultan then assembled some of his highest dignitaries. He gave them his seal and ordered them to store the body in a secure place, enclosed in a box and sealed. So the dignitaries went. They, too, were deeply impressed at seeing the body. They transferred it to a church dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin and applied the royal seal on the casket in which it lay. Then they asked the Patriarch what was going to happen to the body and what kind of response they should report to the Sultan: specifically, when exactly it would be allowed to fall apart and decompose through God’s mercy. The Patriarch answered, ‘I shall sing over it the rites which our religion prescribes for the excommunicated. I shall also recite the prayers of our daily ritual. When both of these will have been performed, during the service we shall recite from a written document by which the woman is pardoned for her sins. Then we shall summon you, asking you to take away the body.’ In a few days, after he finished writing the absolution, the Patriarch sent forth for the king’s dignitaries, asking them to retrieve the body from the chapel, still in its casket, so that the service could be performed over it. And they, according to the Sultan’s will, came at once and brought out the casket with the body inside it, as it had been sealed. Finally the service took place, with a large crowd of bishops, deacons, and all members of the Christian population in attendance. At the end of the ceremony, the Patriarch stood there in tears, deeply moved in his soul, and recited the words of absolution which he had written with his own hand. It was then that a great miracle from God took place: behold God’s compassion and love for the human race: a miracle, I say, grand and amazing, occurred at that time through the power of God. As the Patriarch was reciting the absolution, the corpse’s body parts began to come apart one by one and to decompose inside the casket. All those standing nearby could indeed hear the bones crackle as they separated from one another and the entire body collapsed with the unfastening of each joint—the body of that unhappy woman who had falsely accused a holy Patriarch and had now been forgiven. And these people, who stood by the excommunicated woman’s casket and heard the miraculous crackling of the bones detaching themselves one by one, were struck by awe and began to cry and thank God for such great and amazing miracles. Later, when the service was over, they lifted the body in its casket and took it back to that chapel where it had been before. These were the orders of the dignitaries sent by the Sultan. And after they placed it inside the chapel again, they locked the doors and sealed them with the royal seal, a precaution required by the presence of so large a crowd in the area. A few days later, when they removed the seals from both the chapel and the casket, and opened the lock with the key, they found the body in the casket completely dissolved after finally receiving forgiveness. Being direct witnesses of the miracle, the royal dignitaries were struck with awe. They immediately ran to the king and related the story of that corpse in great detail: what was the reason for the excommunication, how the punishment for the crime had been received, and finally how the bones had separated themselves from each other. Hearing all this, the Sultan, too, was greatly amazed and bewildered by such a miracle. ‘Indeed’, he said, ‘Christian religion proves to be true beyond any doubt’.

This same story is told by the author of the Historia Politica Constantinopolitana, although more succinctly. Nevertheless, we should pay special attention to these words by Malaxus:

Not only was her body forgiven and able to dissolve, but her soul was released from hell and attained heaven. For those who are struck by anathema and exiled from the church, as their bodies stay whole and do not dissolve, need the absolution of the souls so that they can be released from the bond of excommunication. Just as their bodies are bound and are not consumed by the earth, their souls, too, are bound and punished for their sins in the Devil’s grip. But when the body is forgiven and released from the bond of excommunication with God’s assistance, the soul, too, is free to leave the Devil’s grip and attains eternal life and that light which knows no evening.

NOTES

Forthcoming