In 1261, under the vigorous leadership of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Byzantine empire regained its capital, Constantinople, after fifty-seven years of Latin occupation. The city retained only a hint of its former glory and prominence.

The Byzantine Orthodox Church, although perhaps the strongest institution in the empire after the reconquesta, was also in a state of turmoil, racked by the persisting schism of the Arsenites and by moral and disciplinary decay - the aftereffects of the hated Union of Lyons (1274). In spite of what has been characterized as the "disastrous reign" of Andronikos, the Orthodox church managed to produce the most aggressively reform-minded patriarch of its history: Athanasios. The Church and Social Reform studies the nature and extent of his social reforms and political involvement during his two tenures on the patriarchal throne of Constantinople.

The traditional influence, power, and authority that resided in the patriarchate of Constantinople made the involvement of an aggressive patriarch in the social affairs of the empire virtually inevitable.

Athanasios' reforms are viewed in terms of the relationship between the church and the empire, the role of the church in his reforms, the ideological foundations of his reforms, the specific measures by which he sought to meet immediate social and political needs, and the expansion of the patriarchate into new areas as state services declined.

For Athanasios the idea of reform was part of the renewal of the centralized institutions of the empire, and was rooted in the commitment to Christian baptism, cenobitic mutualism, and Israel's covenant with Yahweh.