Demetrios Chomatos

Demetrios Chomatos , also Chomatianos ( Greek Δημήτριος Χωματηνός or Χωματιανός , bl. In the 13th century ) was a Byzantine priest , judge and archbishop of Ohrid between 1216 and 1236. He held the title "Archbishop of Iustiniana Prima and Bulgaria ".

Work and action

Chomatos had an extensive legal education that enabled him to exert great influence as a judge, mediator , confessor and advisor to the Byzantine imperial family. This is characteristic of a time when judicial authority was increasingly transferred from the weak secular institutions to the clergy of the Orthodox Church. As a lawyer, he had full access to the Codex Iustinianus and was thus a representative of the legal renaissance during the Macedonian era of the Byzantine Empire.

Around 150 files of his legal cases have survived and give legal historians a comprehensive picture of the contemporary administration of justice.

Chomatos also played an important role in the conflicts between the two great successor states of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade , the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Nicaea . Together with Johannes Apokaukos ( Ιωάννης Απόκαυκος , about 1155-1233) and Georgios Bardanis ( Γεώργιος Βαρδάνης , Metropolitan of Corfu about 1219-1238), Chomatos promoted the Epirotic independence of Nikaia . In 1225 or 1227 it was Chomatos who crowned Theodor Komnenos Doukas as the Byzantine counter-emperor in Thessaloniki .

literature

Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization. Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb. Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 198-199.
Günter Prinzing (Ed.): Demetrii Chomati Ponemata diaphora (= Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae Bd. 38). Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-11-015612-1 .
Dieter Simon : Chomatian, Demetrios. In: Michael Stolleis (Ed.): Juristen: a biographical lexicon. From antiquity to the 20th century. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-45957-9 , p. 129.
RJ Macrides: Chomatos , Demetrios. In: Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium Volume 1, New York - Oxford 1991, p. 426.

Web links

Publications about Chomatos in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
Publications on Chomatianos in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii

Remarks

↑ Heinrich Gelzer : The Patriarchate of Achrida. History and documents (= treatises of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences. Volume 47.5). Teubner, Leipzig 1903, p. 17 ( digitized version ).

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann V. Kamatar	Archbishop of Ohrid 1216–1236	Joannicius

personal data
SURNAME	Chomatos, Demetrios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Chomatianos, Demetrios; Χωματηνός, Δημήτριος; Χωματιανός, Δημήτριος (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Archbishop of Ohrid
DATE OF BIRTH	12th Century
DATE OF DEATH	13th Century

[1] Heinrich Gelzer : The Patriarchate of Achrida. History and documents (= treatises of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences. Volume 47.5). Teubner, Leipzig 1903, p. 17 ( digitized version ).