Unbaptized Emperor

In his The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy , Schmemann notes the importance of the anomaly of Constantine’s unbaptized condition. In Byzantine liturgical tradition, the conversion of Constantine is compared to that of Paul – both encountered Christ directly, without mediation of the church. Schmemann argues that this means “that Constantine was converted, not as a man, but as an emperor. Christ Himself had sanctioned his power and made him His intended representative, and through Constantine’s person He bound the empire to Himself by special bonds. Here lies the explanation of the striking fact that the conversion of Constantine was not followed by any review or re-evaluation of the theocratic conception of empire, but on the contrary convinced Christians and the Church itself of the emperor’s divine election and obliged them to regard the empire itself as a consecrated kingdom, chosen by God. All the difficulties and distinctive qualities of Byzantium, all the ambiguity of the ‘age of Constantine’ in Church history, result from the primary, initial paradox that the first Christian emperor was a Christian outside the Church, and the Church silently but with full sincerity and faith accepted and recognized him. In the person of the emperor, the empire became Christian without passing through the crisis of the baptismal trial.”