The author, well-known as an Byzantine canonist, was Archbishop of Ohrid (aproximatly 1216-1236) and practically assumed the position of a patriarch. This collection of personal and official letters, expert testemonies and verdicts and proceedings of the Ohrid Synodal Court is his major work. It provides complex source material of importance in two ways: historically, because of the detailed information on the political and ecclesiastical history of south-eastern Europe at the time of radical change around around 1204; legally because texts (let alone corpora) dealing with the practice of eccleisastical jurisdiction in Byzantium are few and far between.

Author Biography

Gunter Prinzing ist Professor fur Byzantinistik an der Universitat Mainz."