Taufe und soziale/politische Inklusion und Exklusion in Byzanz

Abstract

The focus of the present article is not the development of the sacrament of baptism; this is the object of research of scholars of the history of liturgy.This article concerns some central aspects of the political and religious changes which are the result of regulation through norms of the canon and the civil law. Forced baptism (of the so-called heathens and of Jews) is of special interest. It is obvious that the oppression of the heathens (till the end of the 6th century) depended also on important social and political conflicts, which constitute the real background to this religious (but state organized) struggle. The fundamental changes in the Byzantine state and its church beginning in the 7th century with the expansion of the Islamic Arabs and the immigration of the Slavs in the Balkans (especially Greece) and of Armenians in Asia Minor, created the need to develop measures to integrate these peoples into the Byzantine state and society. Special rules and formulas for the abjuration of the former creed as a conditio sine qua non for conversion to Christianity (which required baptism) were created. Another problem discussed in the article is the role of missionary work inside and outside the Byzantine state as an instrument of foreign policy. The Christianization of Bulgaria and the Kievian Rus’ (the »baptism of Russia«) are remarkable achievements of Byzantine policy.