Like any country, sometimes we are blessed with God-fearing leaders, and sometimes we are not. Sometimes our land experiences prosperity and peace, sometimes war and disaster. Sometimes churches build and grow; sometimes they struggle and close their doors. It can be difficult to find ways to explain current events to young people, especially if we struggle to understand why things happen the way they do ourselves.
Emperor Justinian
(AD 482–565); Sixth-Century Emperor of the East and Christian Ruler
Learning from history is an excellent way to broach such challenging topics with the benefit of some emotional distance. One figure to learn from is Emperor Justinian, whom the church commemorates on November 14. Justinian knew all about empires diminished in prosperity, churches and buildings destroyed by fire, and doctrinal disputes threatening the peace of Christendom.
Justinian was born around AD 482 to a peasant family in Macedonia, north of Greece. His parents were farmers, but Justinian was brilliant and longed for an education. His parents sent him to Constantinople to attend school, where he was adopted by his uncle, Emperor Justin. Justinian finished his education, joined the army, and proved himself both highly intelligent and a natural leader. In his studies, Justinian read about the great Roman Empire. He couldn’t help comparing the grandeur of this Rome from the history books to the current condition of the land. The western half of the empire had crumbled as invading tribes from the north sacked its cities, and the eastern half had also lost territory. When Justinian became emperor of the eastern half of the empire—known as the Byzantine Empire—in AD 527, he set out to reclaim these lands and help the empire regain its previous splendor in any way possible. He longed to see the greatness of the old Roman Empire restored.
Commitment to Christ
Justinian was a Christian ruler. His wife, Theodora, who was originally an actress or circus performer, converted to Christianity and gave up her life as an entertainer for one more aligned with her new beliefs. As Emperor Justinian succeeded in expanding the borders of his empire, hiring soldiers, strengthening the military, and reconquering lands in North Africa, Spain, Italy, and beyond, he sought not only to grow the empire but to convert the people who lived in it to Christianity. He sent pastors through the conquered territories to preach to his pagan subjects and financed the building of new churches and the restoration of old ones. Most notably, Justinian oversaw the restoration of Hagia Sophia, the great church building in Constantinople where John Chrysostom had preached a century earlier. Since Chrysostom’s time, Hagia Sophia had burned down, been restored, and burned down again. Justinian took the opportunity to envision a very grand church and hired prestigious architects to design it. The Hagia Sophia that still stands today includes portions built by Justinian, including some of the mosaics he commissioned.
There was no separation of church and state in the sixth century. Emperor Justinian is remembered both for consolidating the laws of the territories in his newly expanded empire into one unified Codex Justinius and for convening a key church council in Constantinople. Constantinople II, as it is remembered, was called in 553 to address the continued controversy over the two natures in Christ. Some, known as Monophysites, believed that Jesus had only one nature (a divine nature). This contradicted the Chalcedonian Definition, adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which stated that Jesus has two natures which cannot be confused nor divided. Justinian believed that, as emperor, God had given him divine authority over the church as well as the state. He took an active interest in matters of church politics because he cared about faithful teaching in his empire.
Flawed Yet Faithful
Emperor Justinian is not remembered for being a perfect emperor. (He was too quick to persecute non-Christians who would not convert to Christianity.) Yet his life reminds us that God’s gift of government and governing leaders is a good gift, even if the individual people holding the offices do not live up to the standards of those offices at all times. Despite his flaws, Emperor Justinian did strengthen his empire, and he prioritized and strengthened the church, convened church councils to discuss doctrinal issues, commissioned church buildings that proclaimed the glory of God with their beauty, and wrote songs that professed his triune faith.
Government is a gift of God. Whether we live in a time when the safety, prosperity, and prestige of our land are shrinking or a time when it is growing, God has promised to provide for all our needs. Sometimes He provides for those needs by sending us godly leaders. At other times, He provides through other means. In some seasons, we build monuments to God’s greatness, such as Hagia Sophia. But it is not the man-made monument that endures—it is the confession of faith to which it testifies. Hagia Sophia may be a mosque today, but the faith of Emperor Justinian and the church will never be diminished. Jesus builds His church—in every century.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8)
Scripture: ESV®.
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