DURING MOST OF THE PERIOD between 602 and 614, little of note happened in Palestine. This was one of the few areas in the Byzantine Empire that had not suffered much from barbarian invasions or the wars against the Sasanians, though things were soon to change. This chapter will first briefly examine some of the characteristics of the Christian population of Palestine around 602, and then turn to the events during the reigns of Phocas and Heraclius that affected the Christians, then to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the evidence for pilgrimage, and finally to other matters pertaining to the Christians.

The Christian Population of Palestine

To help establish the background for the changes that occurred in the course of the two centuries from 602 to 813 a few comments are in order about the Christian population of Palestine on the eve of the Sasanian invasion. The bulk of the population was and would remain Chalcedonian Christians; thus much of this study is an investigation into the Chalcedonian communities in the changing conditions through the period.Other groups had, however, always been present. The unique status of Palestine as the Holy Land attracted pilgrims from all over the Christian world, and in the course of the Byzantine period different ethnic groups began to found their own separate monasteries and facilities for pilgrims. All this notwithstanding, however, it is difficult to be precise about the religious composition of the population.

The literary sources indicate that the population as a whole was Chalcedonian . In the mid-seventh century Anastasius of Sinai, for example, remarked that all the Holy Places were in Orthodox Chalcedonian hands, a fact that he used to argue for the correctness of Chalcedonian belief. Around the time of the Muslim conquest Joseph, an Armenian pilgrim, went to Jerusalem for relics, but noticed that all the Christians were Chalcedonians, and so returned empty-handed to Armenia. The sources, however, rarely provide information detailed enough to establish the distribution of Chalcedonian or non- Chalcedonian groups in the countryside. Differences in religious beliefs only rarely manifest themselves in physical form, hence archaeology is of little assistance. There is usually nothing in the surviving remains of church architecture or decoration that can reliably identify which group used any given church. For example, it has been argued that Monophysites did not use iconic decorations in their churches.