Sophronios, born in Damascus around 560, was a highly educated monk and prolific writer who spent much of his life traveling in the Eastern Roman Empire and promoting the doctrines of the controversial Council of Chalcedon (451). The Homilies—like his poetry, biographies, and miracle accounts—bear eloquent testimony to his tireless struggle on behalf of Orthodoxy and the Christian way of life. The seven sermons collected here were delivered during his short tenure, at his life’s end, as patriarch of Jerusalem (634–638). He saw the Holy City capitulate to the Arab army (638). His Nativity Sermon (634), given while Bethlehem was under siege and his congregation was barred from the annual procession from Jerusalem to the birthplace of Christ, vividly reflects the approach of Islamic forces. Other targets of his venom include pagans, Jews, and despised heretics of all hues. Based on a completely new edition of the Byzantine Greek text, this is the first English translation of the homilies of Sophronios.

A window into the complex world of competing church factions, imperial powers, and the papacy, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius is the vivid account of two major ecclesiastical struggles of the ninth century. One was between opposing patriarchs of Constantinople—the learned Photius (858–867, 877–886) and the monk Ignatius (847–858, 867–877)—and gave rise to long periods of schism, intrigue, and scandal in the Greek Orthodox world. The other was between Patriarch Photius and the papacy, which at its low point saw Photius and Nicholas I trade formal condemnations of each other and adversely affected East-West relations for generations afterward.

The author of this account, Nicetas David Paphlagon, was a prolific and versatile writer, but also a fierce conservative in ecclesiastical politics, whose passion and venom show through on every page. As much a frontal attack on Photius as a record of the author’s hero Ignatius, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius offers a fascinating, if biased, look into the complex world of the interplay between competing church factions, the imperial powers, and the papacy.

This important historical document is here critically edited and translated into English for the first time and includes annotations, maps, and indexes.

The Synodicon Vetus is a short anonymous account, based on Greek sources, of local synods and ecumenical councils from the time of the apostles to 886. It was first printed in 1601 by the Strasbourg theologian Johannes Pappus, who reproduced the truncated version sold to him several years earlier by the copyist and bookdealer Andreas Darmarios.

The work has frequently raised eyebrows. To some scholars it has appeared to offer items of information not attested elsewhere; to others it has betrayed itself as a mass of misunderstanding. The editors of this volume, the first critical edition of The Synodicon Vetus, believe that they have restored the text to near its original state and have succeeded in removing some of the mystery associated with an unusual document that continues to interest historians of heresies, church councils, and literature.