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The Letter to the Armenians of Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople
The article offers the first commented English translation of the Letter to the Armenians (CPG 8001) by Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople (715–30). The Letter is extant only in an early Armenian translation and until now was accessible to non-Armenologists in an incomplete and unreliable 19th-century Latin translation. The new translation is accompaniedby an introduction, which briefly discusses the polemical program of the Letter, its composition,date, intended addressee, conciliar and Patristic background, theological vocabulary, and method of argumentation. A comparison with another treatise attributed to Germanos, On Councils and Heresies, allows to discern a strong personal note in the discussion of Monothelitism in the final chapters of the Letter. The goal of this section was to dissociate the idea of a church union with the Armenians from negative associations it could have had after Bardanes Philippikos’ attempt of Monothelite restoration (712) and reinstate Germanos’ reputation as an uncompromising Dyothelite.