This volume about the history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate results
from a congress, held in Vienna within the framework of research on the
Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople at the Division of
Byzantine Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Chronologically,
these papers cover the (Byzantine) period from the 11th century onwards.
The majority of the collected studies concern a crucial source: the
Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This includes more than
800 documents written between 1315 and 1402 by or for the Patriarchate
and the "permanent Synod" of Constantinople, and is now held in the
Austrian National Library, Cod. hist. gr. 47 and 48. Besides the
Register, the evidence for the Patriarchate is confined to a small
number of documents, synodical acts, and occasional references in
narrative histories. However, the present volume brings two new texts to
light. The focus of this volume is on the organization and
administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as on new
biographical details of individual patriarchs. It also includes
contributions devoted to the continuity of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
and its new tasks in the early post-Byzantine period.