ANDREA, ARCIVESCOVO DI RODI (CRISOBERGA)

ANDREW, archbishop of RHODES (CRISOBERGA). - Dominican, born in Constantinople to a schismatic family, he converted to Catholicism and entered the Order of Preachers at the convent of Pera. He worked strenuously for the union of the Greeks with the Church of Rome, and for this purpose took part in the Councils of Constance, Basel, and Ferrara-Florence. Having attained conspicuous dignities, Master of the Sacred Palace (1425-32), vicar general of the Society of the Fratres Peregrini, he was entrusted with difficult legations both within the Order (before and after the Councils) and in Italy with Martin V and at the Council of Basel. Proposed first for the see of Sutri (1429), which he never reached, Eugene IV appointed him archbishop of Colossae in Rhodes, whence his better-known name among the Latins as the Colossian or Rhodian. He appended his signature to the Florentine decree of Union (6 July 1439), but his activity unfolded rather in the sessions of Ferrara, where he delivered the opening discourse and brilliantly defended the Catholic-Roman position against Bessarion (still schismatic) and Mark of Ephesus, on the question of the "Filioque." Besides his conciliar works (also as a preacher at Constance and Basel), two of his writings remain, one recently edited on the essence and operation of the divine, addressed to Bessarion (ed. Candal), and another polemical against Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus (Bibl. Vat., cod. Pal. lat. 604). The dates of the long career of this figure are very difficult to establish with precision.