CAESAROPAPISM

CAESAROPAPISM. This term denotes an ecclesiastical or political system wherein the head of state acts also as head of the church, including a predominant role in the formulation of doctrine. Caesar, in other words, acts also as pope. As such, the word has been frequently applied to Byzantium as well as to the authoritarian relationship between Church and state (qq.v.) in other and subsequent local Orthodox Churches, e.g., the Russian Church (q.v.) under the tsars (and the Communist state). This use, however, and the term itself are misleading-and indeed abusive. “Caesaropapism” is, at best, an anachronism, a reading of Church and state in Byzantium through the spectacles of the Western Middle Ages and Renaissance/Reformation. Relations between Church and emperor were far more complex and subtle than “caesaropapism” implies. Moreover, those relations were in continual evolution. Either Justinian in Constantinople or Peter the Great in Russia (qq.v.) came as close as anyone to fulfilling what the term implies, but even they fell short of it. Peter, for example, while seeking to reduce the Russian Church to a department of state, never claimed the right to define the Church’s faith. His reforms, the Spiritual Regulation (q.v.), were of an administrative and disciplinary character, but were not doctrinal. Even Justinian felt compelled to acquire the blessing of the Church’s leaders-though often, admittedly, via coercion. Happily, historians in more recent times, with the exception of those grinding away at obvious axes, have largely abandoned the word and its implications. (See Authority; Church and State.)