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142 Kostas P. Kyrris 10

of hagiographic models and ideas and values which was maintained down to the Ottoman times as we leam from Nicodemos Hagioreites’ Neon Marty-rologion (1961, pp. 106-107, 162, 209, 231-232, 248, 252-253, 286; cl. I. Tneocharides — D. Loules, 'Oi Neomartyres sten Ellenike Istoria (1453— 1821)’, Dodonę, 17, 1, l^p88, p. 149).

14.    If the Other World was a steady preoccupation of some hagiogra-phers whose narratives were structured as "justifications” forits representation (E. Patlagean, in Faire Croire, Collection de l’Ec. Fr. de Romę, 51, 1981, pp. 201 — 221), the politicisation of the holymen in the ll.c., which began long before (cf. supra, par. 4—5), charged their biographers with new tasks. Being their disciples, they had to study their political and social influence and activities besides their sanctity, which always came first, within a wide geographical area east and west of Constantinople and on high social level: the saints came from the well bom strata, received a good or very good edu-cation and had the capacities of a highly posted civil servant. By advising emperors and generals, ąueens and patriarchs, governors and powerful fami-lies they came to the point of directing public affairs. Thus they could gain and did secure generous donations for their monasteries. Owing to their spi-ritual and cultural ąualifications they were involved in the intellectual, espe-cially theological life of their time. This is reflected in their biographies. Sy-meon the New Theologian (949—1022), whose disciples met at the house of a distinguished family in Constantinople, was courageous enough to estab-lish a cult of his spiritual father Symeon of Stoudion; although he was cen-sured by two patriarchs for this, the group of his followers maintained their loyalty to him. One of them, Symeon’s biographer Niketas Stathatos pub-lished a pamphlet against the Latins soon after the mutual excommunica-tions of 1054, something which cost him the emperor’s disfavour. St. Lazaros Galesiotes had mainly local connections with the authorities of the Thra-kesion thema, but also with the imperial family, like St. Cyril Phileotes (R. Morris, in The Byzantine Saint, 1981, pp. 43—50).

15.    The New Theologian’s censure was due to his practising a Saint’s cult in the context of "dissident sanctity” beyond all disciplinary and cano-nical authority (Ev. Patlagean, 'Saintetó et Pouvoir’, The Byz. Saint, p. 104). In such a case the survival of at least three Iconoclast Lives of Saints, that of St. George of Amastris, that of St. Philaretos the Merciful and that of St. Eudokimos side by side with numerous Iconodule ones would point to a similar dissidence in the hagiography of the Iconoclastic period. Still, as Sevćenko observes, "the doctrinal content of these Vitae is trivial ... we could attribute Iconodule and non-Iconodule Lives to the same author on stylistic grounds — and on structural grounds as well ... two of them written in very high, and the third in very Iow style” (Iconoclasm, p. 127). George

of Amastris’ Life is attributed to Ignatios the Deacon, who also wrote the

Lives of the Patriarchs Tarasios and Nicephoros and of Gregory the Decapo-

lite, all after 842 (re-establishment of Orthodoxy). Ignatios himself was an

Iconoclast Metropolitan, though, as he claims, not by conviction (ibid., pp.

123—125), So in fact no deep gap separated the ideology of the Iconoclast

Lives from the Iconodule ones: their mere silence on icons did not develop

into an attack on them which would make a distinctive feature for them.