New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

N.E.C. Yearbook 2001-2002
that relied on the Caesar-Pope principle organizationally connecting the
Church with the secular political authorities. Hence, the Byzantine cultural
model powerfully influenced the formation of Southeast European
statehood. Not only Orthodox Christianity, but also the socio-political
structure of the Byzantine Empire was taken as a chief model in the
foundation of the medieval states in the region. These religion-based
cultural features formed the consequent socio-structural and political
peculiarities key to understanding attitudes towards political authorities,
which have been reproduced and transmitted for centuries.
There were some peculiarities of the socio-political system of the
Byzantine Empire which were different from West European models. The
main aspects of the Western political tradition lay in the separation of
religious and secular legitimization. The competition between the ruler
and the Church made it possible for third parties to emerge with their
own sources of power. Thus, autonomy and the separation of spheres and
division of power remained a crucial feature of West European political
patterns and became the foundation for the extension of liberties (see
Schopflin, 1990). The Eastern cultural and political archetype was much
more hierarchical than that of the West. One of its peculiarities was that
religion and its institution, the Church, were subordinate to the state. The
state itself was highly centralized. There were no landowners independent
of the central authorities, and possession of land was arranged through a
system of emperor’s gifts. These were awarded to aristocrats who behaved
in accordance with the emperor’s will, and thus reinforced their obedience
to him. This socio-political system of strong centralized state power with
permanent mobility of the social strata was ‘borrowed’ by the newly
formed Balkan states after the mid 9 th century AD.
Thus, the state was the leading factor within the whole system of
political, social and cultural relations. This feature defined property
relations as well as the relation to property of the highest social stratum
– the aristocracy. The aristocracy did not rely on private property, but on
state distribution and redistribution. This maintained the position of state
bureaucrats who depended entirely on the central power in the hands of
the emperor. If an aristocrat at some time was a landowner, it was because
he was in power at that moment – but he was not in power because he
was a landowner, as in the case of classic feudalism typical of Western
Europe. There was no feudal property with guaranteed immunity and,
consequently, there was no feudal hierarchy, but state or political
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