Saint George of Amastris had a monastic background and an ascetic
training; he was "the model for ascetics," the "adornment of the
priesthood," and the "support of the migados", of those who
lived the mixed life. Of miraculous birth and noble parentage, he rejected his academic
prowess for a deeper knowledge of God; he renounced worldly pleasures and even
ecclesiastical honours in preference for an austere and dedicated religious
vocation. He longed for the wilderness, having in his mind the examples of
Elijah, Moses, and John the Baptist. George was not content simply to pursue
the ascetic life in the world, for he chose to live for some time both as a
semieremitic monk and then as a member of a cenobitic monastic community. In a
monastery at Bonyssa he devoted himself to a rigorous ascetic discipline,
spending large parts of his day and night in meditation on the Scriptures and
the Lives of saints. Among the brothers he lived the angelic life, "on the
boundary of both human and bodiless nature". But he was not to remain in
this peaceful retreat, for his virtuous life "could no longer be concealed
just as a lamp cannot hide on a mountain top, nor a pearl conceal its own
brilliance"
Before
long an embassy from Amastris arrived at George's monastery to persuade the
holy monk to take the place of the city's recently deceased bishop. The envoys
seemed to regard the Episcopal vocation as a higher calling. They exhorted
George to imitate the saints and apostles of old, who had carried the message
of God's mighty deeds to all people, "for the perfection of virtue is not
characterized by providing for oneself but rather ... in the care and salvation
of the many". George rebuffed the entreaties of the envoys and countered
their arguments. He considered the episcopate a high and worthy aspiration,
but, alluding to his own monastic vocation, he feared lest "the better"
be dragged down by "the worse" and said he wished to remain
unenslaved by intercourse with what was inferior; he insisted that his own path
led to the highest of goods (pros to eschaton ton agathon), and he in no way wished
to be deterred from it. Ignoring his vigorous refusal, the envoys took hold of
George against his will and dragged him off to Constantinople
for consecration.
Once
he had assumed the Episcopal dignity, George fulfilled his commission with
diligence", providing "indelible images of virtue" and teaching
by deed as much as by word. Nor did the bishop abandon his monastic ideals. His
continuing advocacy of the ascetic life appears in an interlude regarding
Emperor Nicephorus Ι (802-811), whom George had served as a spiritual adviser
prior to Nicephorus's reign. Inspired by the saint, the emperor himself is said
to have aspired to an ascetic life. He secretly donned George's coarse tunic
and threadbare cloak, regarding these garments as "the safeguard and
strength of his kingdom." Moreover, he scorned his luxurious bed, spent
sleepless nights on the ground, and allegedly considered as nothing the
imperial diadem and his very rule over the Romans compared with his association
with the holy man.
Admittedly it is not ascetic feats
but powerful prayers and miraculous deeds that fill most of the remaining pages
of the Life. Such acts were common manifestations of the spiritual authority of
a holy ascetic-turned-bishop, and George proved no exception. Whether repulsing
barbarians, stilling the water and the wind, miraculously producing the
required eucharistic elements, or posthumously healing the blind, the lame, and
the sick, he repeatedly demonstrated the power of holiness as he prevailed
against evil forces threatening the people of God.
If
Ignatius the Deacon is the author of the Life
of George of Amastris, then the same model of leadership is operative in
his iconoclast Life and his later iconodule vita of Patriarch Nicephorus. Nicephorus,
too, is said to have renounced the world (in his case, a successful career in
the imperial service) for a solitary ascetic and contemplative life,
reluctantly accepting the patriarchate only on the condition that he first be
permitted to take monastic vows .
From
both perspectives, then, the complementarity of monastic life with a future
ecclesiastical career is taken for granted or even idealized. Thus the Life of
George provides one of several examples of the fact that iconoclasm did not
necessarily mean monachomachy. Supporting this hagiographical evidence is the
simple fact that two of the three iconoclast patriarchs of Constantinople
in the ninth century were themselves monks and even abbots before their promotion
to the Episcopal throne.
Indeed
the monastic life was often deemed a surer mark of the true spiritual authority
of a Christian leader than Episcopal office itself. Also worth noting is a
distinction about timing. The Life of George of Amastris is an example of
relatively rare hagiography dating from the iconoclast period itself. Evidence
from this non-iconodule Life, then, helps to dispel the assumption that a
monastic episcopate arose in the aftermath of Iconoclasm or principally as a
result of the monastic triumph in that struggle.
