the influence of the Byzantines on the reformation

I'd think that drawing any line of direct influence would pretty difficult to do given how much the Reformers disagreed with Byzantine Christians on, as demonstrated by the failure of communication between the Lutherans and the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremias II in the second half of the 1570s. The Lutherans had apparently hoped that the patriarch would be their natural ally since they were both against Rome, but I guess they learned after he requested that they stop writing him that there's more to the Eastern Orthodox position than simply being against Roman innovations. Many of the things professed or condemned by the Protestants as characteristic of Rome's errors are things also believed in by the Byzantines, such as the reality (not mere symbology) of the holy Eucharist, intercession of saints, the veneration of icons, sacramental confession, and so on.

I suspect that had the printing press produced numerous copies of Scripture within the eastern Roman Empire, and had it not been conquered by the Ottomans, that no reformation would have taken place in the Christian East. I think that the Protestant Reformation would have happened with or without the printing press, but would have just spread more slowly.

Eastern Christians have always been encouraged to possess as much Scripture as they could afford to possess. St John Chrysostom recommended that if one could only afford a little bit, to get the Gospel of Mark, since it was a Gospel and it was short and the least expensive.

It's been a while since I read them but if I remember correctly, the Patriarch didn't tell Luther outright never to contact him again - it was more that no progress was being made and he didn't need to keep trying to change the Orthodox position to merge with his own (because it wouldn't/couldn't change). I think he was still welcomed to write in fellowship.

I'm not convinced of much of an Orthodox influence on the Reformation. The Reformation undid much of what was known as Christianity until that point and we can see the differences in the Lutheran/Orthodox correspondence between the Tubingin Theologians and Patriarch Jeremias.

There were points of agreement, such as on the Papacy, but was this due to Orthodox influence or the conclusions of the reformers themselves to perceived corruption of Rome? Unless someone does the work of drawing out a theological line from the Orthodox Theologians to Luther or the other reformers in terms of influence, I don't think there was any substantive influence.

I would say the influence was somewhat the other way. Many Orthodox Priests under Islamic occupation were sent to Europe to receive an education and the choice was between Catholic or Protestant seminaries. Protestants and Catholics were the ones producing on average more theological texts than the Orthodox world. This resulted in Orthodox Church theology being influenced by Catholic or Protestant thought and categories of thinking. Patriarch Jeremias in his letter to the Lutheran Theologians classifies the sacraments as seven in number like the Catholics do If I remember.

The Patriarchate itself was not immune to the attempts of foreign dignitaries Catholic and Protestant to influence the Patriarch according to their desires whatever they might have been.

I think the lack of influence is a sad reality. Had the reformers cared about the rest of Christendom and not just western Christendom, they might have limited themselves in their conclusions and reduced the eventual divisive nature of the reformation itself.

Interesting...

DamianWarS said:

I think it would have moved at too slow of rate and would have just been overpowered (without the printing press) I think the reformation was inevitable after the printing press was invented. or... really any wide release of knowledge downward is going to produce neo-reformations especially if the previous handling of the knowledge was corrupt.

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I think it is easy to fall into the post modern bias of an educated elite printing things for an educated populace. That was simply not the case in 1450 or 1520. So most of the widely spread Protestant propaganda was caricatures of the Papacy or the Catholic Church done in wood cuts, basically picture pamphlets that could carry the intent to an illiterate populace. These did not require movable type printing presses to make them. In that same time span (1450-1520) the most printed forms using movable type were Catholic Missals.

DamianWarS said:

help from the inside can be a crucial push to insurgent movements. I would say the textus receptus did just that. The text Receptus was also an inevitable product of the printing press I might add and it wasn't explicit help but more indirect, it comes first then the reformists catch up and this puts us at your 1520 mark.

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You'll have to lay out the logic behind this claim. The humanist movement was underway prior to the fall of Constantinople. Many historians plot the restart of classical studies in Europe to the fall of Moorish Toledo in 1085 and the efforts to translate from Arabic and Hebrew the ancient classics into Latin. This might just be one significant event in a long process; but it dispels the notion of a darkened intellectual Europe that only started seeing the light of enlightenment with the mass production of the printing press and the humanism of the Reformation, which in my opinion benefited from the humanist movement without contributing to it significantly. It is a fantasy to think that every ploughboy and milkmaid was suddenly taking up classical studies, instead of what actually happened where they took up arms.

DamianWarS said:

Erasmus was a dedicated Catholic but still thought reform was needed, he just thought it should be reformed from within. He, however, was still somewhat sympathetic to reformists and knew that his critical Greek text was being used to do something he was unable to do himself. In the end, I think reform did happen from within, but ironically it had to be prodded from the outside for it to happen.

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The need for reform is really not disputed much anymore. Erasmus might have been the leading humanist and classicist of his time; but he studiously tried to avoid getting embroiled in the Reformation. So if his works were being used to foment revolt, it was not really his intent. I just don't find this Reformation era rhetoric that all that was needed was getting the Bible into the hands of the populace in the vernacular to spur a great Reform, a theory lacking in support. Without the rise of nationalism at that moment and the king's and prince's desire to be shorn of foreign influence, the reformation, which was more about revolt than reformation, would have died an early death. I suppose you could make the case that it was an idea that had found its time; but if you want to see the result of that idea being taken up by the peasants without noble support, you only need to read about the Peasants War.

DamianWarS said:

is there any record of Byzantines being more broadly displayed such as scattered throughout Europe? or did they just get pushed to Greece? I suspect more organized bodies are going to remain true to their traditions however individuals or very small groups in non-eastern states may have different outcomes with more bilateral influence. If not the people what about the scripture? Did it move and scatter throughout Europe after the fall... perhaps more of a passive influence?

but I loved your line "there's more to the Eastern Orthodox position than simply being against Roman innovations" I'd be interested in seeing that letter that tells Luther to stop writing them.

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The Three Answers of Patriarch Jeremiah II