Catholicos John III of Odzun and his Work “Against the Docetists” (Historical-Theological Study)
Exposé of the dissertational project of Hayk (Andreas) Yezekyan, supervised by Prof. Dr. Bruns
Catholicos John III of Odzun (+ 728) is a very important Armenian theologian and writer of the 8th century. He occupies a special place not only in the Armenian Church, but also in the history of the Armenian people. He ascended to the Patriarchal Throne at a particularly challenging time for his Church and his country. Armenia was under the rule of the Arab Caliphate and the Christian population often suffered from Islamic oppression. In addition, in the period following the Council of Chalcedon, which was not accepted by the Armenian Church, there were disputes over Christological positions. John of Odzun took a prominent role both in the dispute with the Islamic rulers and in the Christological discussion. For both problem areas he tried to find solutions for the Armenian Church through negotiations with the Caliph in Damascus on the one hand and at the Synod of Manazkert (726) on the other hand. John received confirmation of the legal status of his church from the caliphate, fixed dogmatic doctrine, and renewed church life through liturgical and canonical reforms. Catholicos John is an outstanding theologian whose activity had a significant impact on the Armenian Church. The role attributed to John of Damascus for the doctrinal development of the Byzantine Imperial Church would rightly be attributed to his namesake for Armenia as well.
However, despite the great importance of Catholicos John of Odzun for the Armenian Church, some circumstances of his life and activity, as well as some aspects of his Christological teaching, remain uncertain to this day, not infrequently allowing for very contradictory interpretations. These interpretations depend fundamentally on the denominational positions of the authors and researchers. Consequently, these questions, related in particular to John's Christology, should become the starting point of an objective and critical research.
The literary heritage of John of Odzun is extensive, as he was very prolific in terms of writing. He wrote numerous liturgical, canonistic, hymnographic and dogmatic-polemical works. A special position is occupied by the polemic "Against the Docetists", in which he opposes aphthartodocetism. In his argumentation, John presents his Christological views in detail.
Despite the great importance of this polemic for the study of aphthartodocetism and the development of post-Chalcedonian Christology in Armenia, neither a critical edition nor a scholarly in-depth study of it is available to date. For the first time this work was published by the Mechitarist B. Aucher (M. Avgeryan) in Venice in 1847, and his edition remains the authoritative textual edition to this day. As a basis for his publication he used the Armenian codices 1325 and 2359 from the Mechitarist library of San Lazarro, which are copies of the Armenian Codex 131 from the National Library of France. The Armenian text was republished by the same researcher in Venice in 1816 with a Latin translation and a detailed commentary. Due to this initial situation, a first focus of the doctoral project is the creation of a critical edition that meets modern scholarly standards. For this new edition of the Armenian text, all eight manuscripts, which, according to current knowledge, preserve the work of John, are to be collated. These are, first of all, the Armenian Codex No. 131 from Paris, on which Codices No. 1325 and 2359 from Venice, as well as Codex No. 303 from Vienna are based. In addition, there is a manuscript from Yerevan (no. 2607) and three from Jerusalem (nos. 1009, 1024 and 2301). The aim is to produce a text that is as authentic as possible, with variants and divergent readings recorded in a critical apparatus.
In addition, the biblical and patristic sources of the text will be discussed in the context of the edition. They are listed in a separate apparatus and their detailed analysis allows a dogma-historical classification of the arguments of John of Odzun. Based on the selection of his sources, the Christological position of the Catholicos can be characterized in more detail.
Finally, the Armenian text will be accompanied by a German translation.
A detailed theological analysis of "Against the Docetists" by John of Odzun, which also shows parallels to works of other Armenian authors, concludes the study on the text. In addition, references to other writings of the Catholicos will also be made. Thus, it will be possible to classify his antidocetic writing in his overall work.
It seemed indispensable to preface the study of the text with a detailed introduction, which should ensure an objective understanding of the writing of John of Odzun. First, the dogmatic position of the Armenian Church after the Council of Chalcedon is presented and the development of Christology up to the 8th century is described in a summary. The question of how the Armenian Church evaluated the positions of Severus of Antioch, Julian of Halicarnassus, and Philoxenos of Mabbug is also explored. A detailed study of the spread of the aphthartodocetist heresy in Armenia forms the second focus of the doctoral thesis. For the first time, Erwand Ter-Minassiantz dealt with this question in his research work "The Armenian Church in its Relations with the Syrian Church until the End of the 13th Century", published in 1904. Even though his remarks are still widely received today, a revision of his assessment must be made on the basis of new sources and in-depth research. Finally, the description of the political social situation of Armenia in the 7th and 8th centuries, especially the relations of the Armenian Church with the Caliphate, and an introduction to the life, work and ministry of John of Odzun complete the introductory thoughts.