BASIL I, Emperor of CONSTANTINOPLE, known as the MACEDONIAN. — Born in Adrianople around 827 into a modest family, he seized power through the double murder of the Caesar Bardas (21 Apr. 866) and of the Emperor Michael III himself (24 Sept. 867). In ecclesiastical history, he is remembered for his intervention in the dispute concerning Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. As soon as he came to power (867), Basil had Photius, a friend of Bardas, confined to a monastery and reinstated Ignatius, the Patriarch who had been unjustly deposed. When Ignatius died (23 Oct. 877), Photius, who in the meantime had reconciled with the Emperor, again occupied the patriarchal throne. Basil, however, showed deference to the supreme authority of the Church of Rome, which pronounced on the affairs of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate in the Councils held in Byzantium in 869 and 879, under the presidency of Roman legates. Basil’s intervention, which, according to his son Leo VI, saw in the struggle between Photius and St Ignatius nothing more than a clerical quarrel “which set some bishops and priests against other priests and bishops,” was inspired by a keen desire for religious peace within the Empire.
Notable also was Basil’s juridical and legislative activity, which also affected ecclesiastical matters, particularly the official manual published in 879 under the title of Prochiron, and then, between 879 and 886, in a revised and expanded new edition, under the title of Epanagoge. He died in 886.