Tithes, Authority and Hierarchy, 740–840

Abstract

This chapter identifies three areas in which the infrastructure of church governance changed from 740 to 840. It includes the involvement of the caliphal government in the promotion of bishops, the ratification of patriarchal rights through official diplomas, and patriarchs' use of their ties to the caliph to protect the rights of Christians. It also demonstrates what the greater proximity between the patriarch and the caliph meant for the Jacobite hierarchy, and how the threat of Muslim populations encouraged the Jacobite leadership to act as a service elite for the caliph. The chapter describes the relatively decentralized, rural composition of the Jacobite church, which made it hard for bishops to maintain their prerogatives according to church canons. It mentions that canonists had to condemn the practice of laypeople going to individuals other than bishops for judgement.