Christwiki

Justinian I

Roman emperor at Constantinople, 527–565died AD 565Also: Justinian the Great, Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus

The emperor who rebuilt Hagia Sophia, legislated in detail for the church and its clergy, and summoned the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 to settle the disputes that had followed Chalcedon.

Justinian was the nephew of the emperor Justin, who made him co-emperor on 1 April 527 and died in the fourth month after that (Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle under the year 527). He survived the Nika riot of 532 (Procopius, Wars 1.24) and rebuilt the burned cathedral of Constantinople as the domed church of Hagia Sophia (Procopius, Buildings 1.1.20–27). In a law of 535 he described priesthood and empire as two gifts of God that must work in harmony (Justinian, Novels 6, preface).

In doctrine he held to Chalcedon while the empress Theodora favoured its opponents (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 4.10). He told the bishops whom he summoned in 553 that his chief task was to reunite the churches, and he asked them to judge three sets of writings linked with Nestorius, the “Three Chapters” (Council of Constantinople (553) session 1, letter of Justinian) (The Second Council of Constantinople). Pope Vigilius, who was in the city, stayed away from the council (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 4.38). Evagrius gives his reign as thirty-eight years and eight months (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 4.41), which places his death in 565.

In the timeline

  1. 27 December AD 537, firm date
    Justinian Builds Hagia Sophia

    After rioters burn the cathedral of Constantinople in 532, the emperor Justinian rebuilds it as a vast domed church, dedicated on 27 December 537. In the same years he sets out in law his view of priesthood and empire as two gifts of God.

  2. about AD 543 to AD 580, estimated date
    The Conversion of the Nubian Kingdoms

    John of Ephesus tells how the empress Theodora sent the priest Julian to the Nobadae on the Nile south of Egypt ahead of her husband’s envoys, so that they were baptised into the church that rejected Chalcedon, and how the bishop Longinus later baptised the king of Alodia.

  3. AD 553, firm date
    The Second Council of Constantinople

    A council called by the emperor Justinian condemns the “Three Chapters”, writings of three theologians linked with Nestorius, and restates the faith of Chalcedon in fourteen anathemas. Pope Vigilius first refuses and then accepts; parts of the West resist for decades.

Primary sources

Chronicle

Marcellinus Comes · First edition to AD 518, continued by the author to 534 and by another hand to 548 · Latin

History of the Wars

Procopius of Caesarea · Mid sixth century, c. AD 550–554 · Greek

Buildings

Procopius of Caesarea · c. AD 550–560 · Greek

Novels (New Constitutions)

Justinian I · AD 535–565 · Greek and Latin

Ecclesiastical History

Evagrius Scholasticus · c. AD 593–594 · Greek

Acts, Sentence and Capitula of the Second Council of Constantinople

The Second Council of Constantinople · AD 553 · Greek and Latin

Type to search the whole wiki.