BALSAMON, THEODORE

BALSAMON, THEODORE, canonist (ca. 1130-ca. 1195). Briefly Patriarch of Antioch, though in exile due to the Latin Patriarchates established by the Crusades, he was perhaps the most important commentator on Canon Law during the Byzantine era (qq.v.). He was the successor to a series of canonists during a period in the Empire when legal reform was receiving much attention and, perhaps not coincidentally, when Western Europe and the Western Church were rediscovering the Code of Justinian (q.v.) and preoccupied with the great drama of the Middle Ages, the contest between the German emperors and the papacy (q.v.). Gratian, compiler of the Corpus Juris Canonici, had worked earlier in the same century. Just as the latter, Balsamon was greatly influential. His Exegesis on the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles is still consulted today.

Similar to his Latin counterpart, Gratian, the Byzantine churchman was a firm believer in the hierarchical ordering of the Church. His rulings on certain questions, such as those bearing on Confession, are in interesting and pointed contrast to the attitude, vigorously expressed, of Symeon the New Theologian (q.v.) on the same issues. Unlike Gratian, however, and in opposition to his predecessor, Zonaras (q.v.), Balsamon also upheld a very high view of the emperor’s role in the balance of relations between Church and state (q.v.).