Studia Islandica - 01.06.1960, Page 38

36
wards their Slav colleagues. The fact that some monks
of Mt. Athos worked among the Poles in the llth cen-
tury possibly fanned the flames of antagonism between
the two Churches.14 Tension between the two Churches
also existed about 1022.15 For a time, however, the
Western Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Tyniec seem
to have adopted the Slavonic rite. The same applies to
the Benedictine Monastery of Wislica, where both the
earlier church and the later one dating from the 14th
century were decorated with Byzantine wall-paintings.1(i
It is also of importance that Paszkiewicz proves con-
clusively that Hilarion, who was made the Metropolitan
of Kiev in 1051 at the instance of King Jaroslav, was of
Scandinavian origin. His evidence is based on Hilarion’s
own work, called Slovo o zakone i blagodati or “Discuss-
ion on Laws and Grace”.
When Frédéric Macler wrote on the Armenian bishops
in Revue de UHistoire des Religions,17 he admittedly
supported the traditional view of their origin and re-
ferred to Gustav Storm’s article on Harald Harðráði and
the Warings in Norsk Historisk Tidskrift18 and to A. D.
Jörgensen’s discussion of the problem in “Den nordiske
Kirkes Grundlœggelse”.™ But both these writers point
out that Harald may have come under Byzantine in-
fluence and wanted to free himself from the sway of the
energetic and ambitious Archbishop Adalbert. In this
connection, Storm put special emphasis on Pope Alexan-
der II’s letter to Harald Harðráði, in which he says that
among other things Adalbert complained of some Nor-
wegian bishops being without consecration (in accord-
ance with the rites of the Roman Church) .20 This letter
dates from the years 1061—66, the very period when
the Armenian bishops were in Iceland. Storm assumed
that ermskr was used of heretics from the East, but
girzkr was used of Byzantines. Aesmund the Headless
will put the whole matter into a different perspective.