Patriarch Anthimos of Jerusalem and His Commentary on the Apocalypse (1795)

By: Jonathan Photius, NEO-Historicism Research Project

Patriarch Anthimos of Jerusalem (†1808) occupies a distinctive and often misunderstood place in the intellectual and spiritual history of the late Ottoman Greek world.¹ Serving during a time of immense political upheaval, violence, and ideological tension, Anthimos has long been overshadowed by polemical narratives that mislabeled him as a reactionary or even a collaborator with the Ottoman authorities.² Yet a careful examination of his surviving writings—especially his Commentary on the Apocalypse—reveals a figure whose theological vision, pastoral concern, and spiritual depth set him apart from virtually every other Greek exegete of his period.³ His life and work provide a window into the complex interplay between spirituality, suffering, and exegetical creativity within the Orthodox Church under Ottoman rule.

Anthimos’s intellectual formation was rooted in the classical Orthodox tradition: the hesychastic spirituality of the Philokalia, the patristic legacy of the Greek fathers, and the linguistic and cultural exchange between Greek and Arabic Christian communities.⁴ His mastery of Arabic allowed him to minister effectively to the large Orthodox Arab population under his care, offering translations, catechetical writings, and sermons in a language they could understand.⁵ This pastoral dedication shaped his ecclesiastical leadership, most notably during the years of severe persecution (1797–1798) when Christians in Palestine suffered massacres, imprisonment, and widespread dispossession.⁶ Anthimos used the resources of the patriarchate to ransom captives, feed refugees, and alleviate suffering wherever possible. At his death, the treasury of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem was deeply in debt—not from mismanagement, but because Anthimos had emptied it on behalf of his flock.⁷

These acts of charity and diplomacy later led some critics to label him a “Turcophile,” an accusation repeated uncritically in some modern works.⁸ Yet such charges collapse under scrutiny. Anthimos’s dealings with Ottoman officials were not signs of political loyalty but necessities of survival in a volatile empire. He had no army, no state, and no external protectorate; his only tools were negotiation, learning, and personal moral authority. As modern scholarship has demonstrated, no credible evidence exists that Anthimos collaborated with Ottoman authorities for personal gain or acted against the interests of the Orthodox people.⁹ On the contrary, the historical record portrays a patriarch acutely aware of the fragility of his church’s position and willing to expend every available resource for its protection.

Part of the misunderstanding surrounding Anthimos resulted from the controversial Patriki Didascalia (1798), a vehement anti-French and anti-revolutionary pamphlet falsely attributed to him for more than a century.¹⁰ Modern scholarship has decisively shown that Anthimos neither authored nor approved this work. Internal linguistic evidence, theological content, and contemporary testimony—especially that of Adamantios Korais—identify the likely author as Athanasios Parios, a leading conservative critic of Western Enlightenment ideas.¹¹ Anthimos himself, upon recovering from illness and learning of the publication, reportedly rejected the text with disgust, treating it as apocryphal.¹² The false attribution appears to have been a calculated political maneuver, designed to lend patriarchal authority to a polemical tract during a moment of widespread panic over revolutionary ideology.

Nowhere is Anthimos’s authentic theological voice more clearly heard than in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, a work that stands in sharp contrast to the dominant exegetical trends of his era. Greek interpretations of Revelation during the Ottoman period were frequently historicist, identifying the Papacy, Islam, or contemporary political powers with apocalyptic symbols.¹³ Many commentators weaponized the text to condemn Rome, Islam, or revolutionary France. Anthimos rejected all such approaches. His commentary is explicitly non-historicist: he refuses to identify contemporary rulers, empires, or events with the visions of Revelation and avoids polemical or speculative readings entirely.¹⁴

Instead, Anthimos offers a deeply spiritual and ascetical exegesis rooted in the inner life of the Christian. For him, the Apocalypse is not a coded map of world history but a symbolic revelation of the soul’s struggle between divine grace and demonic deception. The Beast signifies the tyranny of sin, the Dragon the spiritual adversary, and the trials of history the providential means by which God refines the faithful.¹⁵ Even temporal suffering—including persecution under Ottoman rule—is interpreted not politically but ascetically, as a testing permitted for the cultivation of patience, humility, and unwavering trust in God.

This hesychastic and pneumatological reading places Anthimos in close continuity with the late-eighteenth-century Philokalic revival, though his work is more systematic and exegetical than most Philokalic texts.¹⁶ Indeed, modern scholars have noted that Anthimos’s interpretation is in some respects more theologically balanced and spiritually mature than popular ascetical manuals of the same period.¹⁷ His refusal to subordinate Scripture to political events reflects an exegetical restraint and theological depth rare among his contemporaries.

Anthimos’s moderation is also evident in his treatment of Islam. While acknowledging Islam as spiritually harmful and a source of suffering for Christians, he never identifies Muhammad or the Ottoman Empire with specific apocalyptic figures.¹⁸ This restraint is striking in a period marked by intense anti-Islamic polemic and confirms the principled nature of his hermeneutic: the Apocalypse cannot be reduced to political allegory without betraying its spiritual purpose.

Within the broader spectrum of Greek eschatological literature, Anthimos stands almost alone. While many post-Byzantine commentators blended Revelation with confessional polemic or contemporary prophecy, Anthimos preserved a fundamentally Byzantine vision in which history remains the stage—not the substance—of salvation.¹⁹ His commentary thus appears both ancient and surprisingly modern, untouched by ideological fashion and anchored instead in the transformation of the human heart.

In conclusion, the legacy of Patriarch Anthimos of Jerusalem demands serious reevaluation. Far from a reactionary or collaborator, he emerges as one of the most spiritually profound exegetes of the post-Byzantine era. His commentary on Revelation offers not fear, speculation, or political diagnosis, but the promise of inner renewal through humility, prayer, and divine grace. In an age of turmoil, Anthimos reminds us that the true battlefield of the Apocalypse is the soul—and the true victory, the restoration of the image of God within it.

---

Footnotes

1. Asterios Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453–1821) (Geneva: Droz, 1982), 561–578.
2. Ibid., 568–571.
3. Ibid., 572–576.
4. Basil Krivocheine, “The Ascetical Teaching of the Philokalia,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 26 (1982): 1–20.
5. Georgios A. Hadjiantoniou, Orthodox Christianity in the Arab World (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1961), 87–92.
6. Konstantinos Papoulidis, Ιστορία του Πατριαρχείου Ιεροσολύμων, vol. 2 (Athens, 1971), 312–329.
7. Papoulidis, Ιστορία, 328; Argyriou, Les exégèses, 567.
8. Argyriou, Les exégèses, 568–571.
9. Ibid.
10. Asterios Argyriou, “La Didaskalia Patriki de 1798: auteur, date et contexte,” in Christianismes orientaux, vol. 4 (Geneva: Droz, 1986), 211–245.
11. Paschalis Kitromilides, Enlightenment and Revolution: The Making of Modern Greece (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 126–130.
12. Argyriou, “La Didaskalia Patriki,” 233–237.
13. Argyriou, Les exégèses, 95–210.
14. Ibid., 572–576.
15. Ibid., 574–578.
16. Krivocheine, “Ascetical Teaching,” 12–15.
17. Argyriou, Les exégèses, 575.
18. Ibid., 576.
19. Jean-Claude Larchet, La théologie de l’histoire dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 2003), 189–196.

---

Bibliography

Argyriou, Asterios. Les exégèses grecques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453–1821). Geneva: Droz, 1982.

———. “La Didaskalia Patriki de 1798: auteur, date et contexte.” In Christianismes orientaux, vol. 4, 211–245. Geneva: Droz, 1986.

Hadjiantoniou, Georgios A. Orthodox Christianity in the Arab World. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1961.

Kitromilides, Paschalis. Enlightenment and Revolution: The Making of Modern Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Krivocheine, Basil. “The Ascetical Teaching of the Philokalia.” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 26 (1982): 1–20.

Larchet, Jean-Claude. La théologie de l’histoire dans la tradition orthodoxe. Paris: Cerf, 2003.

Papoulidis, Konstantinos. Ιστορία του Πατριαρχείου Ιεροσολύμων. 2 vols. Athens, 1971.