The General and the Saint: Michael Maleinos and Nikephoros Phokas

The close collaboration of church and state, which drove the great expansion of the Byzantine Empire in the late ninth and tenth centuries, was a cooperation of institutions as well as a confluence of religious and political ideals. The confluence was also, to some extent, one of persons and families, especially aristocratic families. In this context, the figure of Nikephoros II Phokas stands out as the incarnation of the cooperation of church and state; he was the (φιλομόναχος emperor, the c...