APOCALOCO, GIOVANNI

APOKAUKOS, GIOVANNI. - Metropolitan of Naupaktos (12th–13th centuries). Educated in Constantinople, he served as deacon (c. 1175–87) under his uncle Manasse, metropolitan of Naupaktos. At the rise (c. 1204) of the despot of Epirus (v. ALBANI), he succeeded his uncle in that dignity, which held special importance in the region, as all suffragan sees of Byzantine rite in the Epirote and Albanian territory of the despotate depended on II. Thus, together with the archbishop of Arta (v.) and the metropolitan of Durrës, he formed the triad of the great hierarchs of this quasi-autocephalous church; indeed, though Arta was preeminent, A. was entrusted with presiding (1216–17) over the synod that elected Demetrios Komatenos to that see, the one that elected (1219) the bishop of Corfu, and the one at Arta (between 1225 and 1230) in which the Church of the Empire of Thessalonica, founded by the former despot of Epirus Theodore Angelos, defended its autocephaly against the patriarchate of Nicaea. A., in fact, though at times persecuted by the dynasts of the Angelos family, always displayed toward civil authority the characteristic deference of the Eastern hierarchy, wavering between Rome, Nicaea, and autocephaly according to the political directives suggested to the Angeloi. Retiring to monastic life c. 1230, he died before 1233. His numerous acts hold a certain importance among the sources of Eastern canon law, even greater for the history of Albanian legal customs, and in various cases decisive for the history of the despotate. He was also a poet, and some of his epigrams survive.