APOCRISIARIUS

A Byzantine diplomatic term for the representative of a civil, military, or ecclesiastical governor at another headquarters or court. The Latin term was responsalis, or one bringing an answer; and the word referred primarily to the representatives of the pope, metropolitan bishoprics, or monasteries in Constantinople, although it was employed also of ecclesiastical representatives at other patriarchates or metropolitan sees. Bishop Julian of Cos served as an apocrisiarius at Constantinople, for Pope Leo I (440–461); while the patriarch of Alexandria had had an official representative there since the beginning of the 5th century. anatolius became patriarch of Constantinople (449–458) after serving as the Alexandrian apocrisiarius for the Patriarch Dioscorus. John the Scholastic had served as apocrisiarius for Antioch before being selected patriarch of Constantinople (565–577) by Justinian I. Rome recalled its apocrisiarius from Constantinople at the beginning of the Acacian Schism (484), but was represented intermittently during the reign of Emperor anastasius i. A permanent apocrisiarius seems to have taken office with the appointment of the deacon (543), later Pope Pelagius I. Pope gregory i, while a deacon, had served in Constantinople as the papal apocrisiarius (579–585). The representative of the patriarch at the imperial court in Constantinople was known as the referendarius. At the court of charlemagne, the term was applied to the ecclesiastic who served as spiritual adviser to the king, and not infrequently it was applied also to the papal representative.

Bibliography: j. pargoire, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 1.2:2537–55. a. emereau, Échos d'Orient 17 (1914) 289–297, 542–548. r. guilland, Revue des études byzantines 5 (1947) 90–100. h. g. beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich 103. a. baus, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:712. o. treitinger, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 1:501–504. m. jugie, Catholicisme 1:694.

[f. x. murphy]