Tra visione profetica e Realpolitik. Nerses Šnorhali in Dialogo con i Bizantini

From the 1160s until his death in August 1173, Nersēs Šnorhali was engaged in a dialogue with the Byzantines in an attempt to overcome the obstacles that prevented the union between the Armenian and Byzantine Churches. In the first letters sent by Nersēs Šnorhali to Byzantium he proposed a model of dialogue between Churches that anticipated the ecumenical movement by several centuries. His prophetic view, however, was not understood by his interlocutors, incapable of going beyond a traditional vision of the dialogue, according to which the Byzantine Church was the model to which the other Churches had to conform. Aware of this, Nersēs Šnorhali accepted a downward mediation, adapting to the Byzantine requests, but his death did not allow him to reap the fruits of his work and the dialogue with the Byzantines, carried on for a few years by his successor, did not bring the expected results