Influence of the Western Theology on the Tîrgovişte Edition

Abstract

The most puzzling reference to the Panoplia Dogmatike comes from the erudite Orthodox theologian Meletios Syrigos. In analyzing the Catholic testimonies one finds that even the direct model, which Meletios had read and used for connecting the Panoplia with Berengar, had been authored by Robert Bellarmine, who wrote a highly influential, comprehensive and often quoted polemical work: Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei. If one return again to the Western authors, whom Syrigos studiously omitted, but who are present in the text of Bellarmne, one find the reference to a book called Against Gardiner, authored by Peter Martyr Vermigli. The author of the book that Vermigli refutes is Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The evidence that the initiators of the Tirgoviste edition used interpretations which came as a synthesis of the Catholic and Orthodox theological traditions concerning the Eucharist comes from how the theologians of the Catholic reformation interpreted the Panoplia.Keywords: Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei; Meletios Syrigos; orthodox theological traditions; Panoplia Dogmatike; Peter Martyr Vermigli; Robert Bellarmine; Tirgoviste edition; western theology