30 May 2019 Konstantin Klein (Bamberg), Fighting with Ink and Reed Pens: Hagiographical Responses to Chalcedon and the Vague Orthodoxy of the Holy Land

This paper will deal with the impact of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in 451 AD in Chalcedon, and its consequences for the Holy Land – not so much from an ecclesiastical/political point of view in the first place (e.g. the 18th months of the reign of a counter-patriarch, the so-called Apostasia Palaestinae) but rather with slightly later literary responses: The contribution will scrutinise the hagiographical and historiographical texts written by Zacharias Rhetor, John Rufus and Cyril of Scythopolis in order to rethink the historical value of their respective writings – and will try to present an alternative version of the events which will challenge our perceptions of how Orthodoxy was perceives – or, to put it differently, what I meant to be Orthodox in fifth century Palestine.