Images from Late 10th Century Sacramentary of Bishop Warmund of Ivrea

 Here are some of the images you can find via google images from the Sacramentary of Warmund, Bishop of Ivrea, circa 1000 AD.  Ivrea is in the extreme north-western part of modern Italy.  The first image is the Coronation of a King by a Bishop, the second is the Consecration of a Bishop by a Metropolitan with other Bishops participating, and the third is the Consecration of Christ on Holy Thursday by a Bishop. 

 

The Humility of God

 "For this end the Only-Begotten Son of God took on Him the Form of our infirmity; for this the Invisible appeared not only Visible, but even despised; for this He endured the jests of contumely, the reproaches of derisions, and the torments of sufferings, that God in His Humility might teach man not to be proud.  How Great then is the Virtue of Humility, since for the sole purpose of truly teaching it, He Who above estimation is Great, became Little, even to Suffering?  For since the pride of the devil cause the origin of our fall, the Humility of God was found out as the Instrument of our Redemption.  For our enemy who was created great above all things, wished to appear exalted above all things.  But Our Redeemer remaining Great above all things, deigned to become Little among all things."

(St. Gregory the Great, the Dialogist [+604], Book 34, Sec. 54, "Morals on the Book of Job"] 

Bishop's Vesting Prayer for Dalmatic

 

In the 9th Century Ratoldus Sacramentary, we have an example of the vesting prayers of a Bishop.  It contains rubrics for the Bishop and his ministers at the Vesting.  For the Dalmatic, we have the following:

"Therefore, Over these [i.e. previous vestments] is the blue tunic ministered to him with the small bells around the hem; and the minister says as above [i.e. asking a blessing].  The Bishop responds: 'Sanctify this tunic with which I am now clothed, O Almighty Eternal God, without Whose help no human power is able to prevail, and Who hast willed me to wear the sacred vestments, do Thou give me a faithful mind to serve Thee, O Loving Judge. Through all the ages of ages. Amen." 

The Latin would be:

"Super haec itaque ministretur ei tunica gyris in tintinabulis myrice refecta.  Et dicat minister ut supra.  Respondet episcopus: 'Sanctifica tunicam qua nunc superinduor istam, Omnipotens Aeterne Deus, sine numine cuius, nil humana talet devoti condere virtus, et qui me sacris voluisti vestibus uti, da servire tibi iudex pie mente fideli. Per omnia.." [pg. 237 of the "Sacramentary of Ratoldus" as published by the Henry Bradshaw Society] 

We can learn a few things from this; one of which is that the Dalmatic [referred to simply as a 'tunica' [though, from the context, in the section, which isn't reproduced all the way here, it is clearly not referred to the tunicle], was blue, and had a number of bells attached to it.  Of course, the true and inner spiritual meaning for an Orthodox Christian is that the Bishop should rely upon the power of God to help him, and that it is God Who sanctifies and clothes the Bishop in the Priesthood; the Sacerdotal Order is not the property of men, but, truly of God who clothes men with it! 

St. Theophylact of Ochrid's Treatise On the Latin Question

 

St. Theophylact was Archbishop of Ochrid, from about 1088 until his repose in 1108.  As Archbishop of Ochrid, he occupied the position as head of an Autocephalous Church; the Bulgarian Patriarchate had previously been forcibly [and uncanonically] abolished by the Eastern Roman authorities years earlier; however, the Bulgarian Church maintained independence still with its own independent Archbishopric.  

Some writers have noted the hostility that Greek speaking civil and clerical authorities had show to the usage of Slavonic, with, possibly, even attempts to suppress Church Slavonic in favour of the Greek language: 

""The Greeks [i.e. Eastern Romans] adopted a policy of cultural assimilation in Bulgaria. John of Debar [last Bulgarian Patriarch of the First Bulgarian Empire] died in 1037 and after that the Archbishop of Ohrid was always a Greek. As an agent of the Emperor he had to implement the policy by introducing such changes as the use of Greek in the Bulgarian Church. The Greeks also destroyed Slavonic books, but there is little documentation to show the success of this policy. The survival of a number of Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, allegedly copied in the eleventh century by the Bulgarian and Macedonian scribes, suggests that the Archbishops also condoned the use of such texts. The best evidence that the Primate of Ohrid did not attempt to stifle Slavonic tradition is provided by Theophylact [+1109]. For a Greek who allegedly abhorred living in Bulgaria, it is remarkable that he wrote a biography of St. Clement of Ohride which he based on a Slavonic life of the saint. In it he also praised the work of SS. Cyril and Methodius."

[pages 265, The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, C.1024-c.1198, Part 2]