ТИПИКОН МАНАСТИРА БОГОРОДИЦЕ КОСМОСОТИРЕ СЕВАСТОКРАТОРА ИСАКА КОМНИНА (1151/1152): СПЕЦИФИЧНОСТИ ТЕКСТА И ИСТОРИЈСКИ КОНТЕКСТ

Abstract

The ktetor of the Monastery of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira (World-Saviour),
Sebastokrator Isaakios, third son and fifth child of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos, was
one of the most interesting personalities within the ramified imperial family of the
Komnenoi. As unsuccessful rebel against his brother the emperor John II, Isaakios was
stigmatized for the rest of his life, and treated as a potential threat to the established
hierarchy of the Komnenian family, together with his offspring, his sons John and
Andronikos, the future emperor (1183-1185). As a consequence of his status of the „eternal
suspect“ in the imperial family he was not allowed to carry through his plans about the
burial in the Constantinopolitan monastery of Christ in Chora, which he had renovated,
becoming its second ktetor. Instead, he was forced to provide another resting place for
himself and the closest circle of his associates, far from the capital, and in a place without
any political and ideological significance, deep in Thracian province. There, or in
Constantinople, Isaakios composed the Typikon for his monastery, which is preserved only
in the late 16th century manuscript, from which both the edition princeps of L. Petit and G.
Papazoglou's edition from 1994 spring. Late manuscript tradition presents many problems
in reading or understanding the text, starting from the very „title“ of the document:
although L. Petit's conjecture that the lacuna in the „title“ should be filled with the ktetor's
title sebastokrator, having in mind the historical circumstances, the time of the Typikon's
composition, and his insistence on the connection with his parents, it seems more plausible
that the missing word was actually porphyrogennetos, frequently used in similar occasions.
The founding document – the Typikon – of his monastery in Vira in Thrace,
represents in many aspects a peculiar literary composition, both as a first-hand evidence of
the literary prowess of its author, Isaakios himself, and as regards its political and
ideological message, hidden mostly in the rare, but significant mentions of the ktetor's
parents. Very much like his older sister Anna Komnene – who was writing her Alexiad
exactly at the when Isaakios composed his Typikon (September 1, 1151- August 31, 1152)
– Sebastokrator Isaakios tried to connect himself inseparably with their parents, Alexios I
and Eirene Doukaina, in an attempt to underscore his political rectitude in spite the failed
coup he had organized against his brother John II, and the formal acceptance of the latter's
predominance which enabled their reconciliation. Not only were Alexios I and Eirene
Doukaina the only relatives Isaakios mentioned, although relatives were usually met in
abundance in similar documents, but the ktetor's description of his mother's last moments,
and the signs of sanctity that occurred on her grave after her death provided for the exalted
position of Eirene Doukaina who was transformed in Isaakios' personal mediator with the
Mother of God, to Whom she had also dedicated a monastery in Constantinople. Eirene
Doukaina's sainthood, to which Isaakios hinted, not ascertained in any other Byzantine text,
could have served as a political leverage of the ktetor against the holiness of his sister-inlaw Eirene-Piroshka, John II's wife. Eirene-Piroshka's political sanctity, although
apparently unusual for the 12th century Byzantium, played an important role in the final
victory of John II over his opponents, his closest relatives, sister Anna and brother Isaakios,
the ktetor of Kosmosoteira