Basil I, Emperor of Constantinople, called the Macedonian

BASIL I, Emperor of Constantinople, called the Macedonian. - Born at Adrianople around 827 to a modest family, he seized power through a double murder: that of the caesar Bardas (21 April 866) and that of the emperor Michael III himself (24 September 867). In ecclesiastical history, he is remembered for his intervention in the question of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople. As soon as he came to power (867), B. had Photius, a friend of Bardas, interned in a monastery, and recalled the patriarch St. Ignatius, who had been unjustly deposed. When the latter died (23 October 877), Photius, who in the meantime had reconciled with the emperor, again occupied the patriarchal throne. But B. had regard for the supreme power of the Church of Rome, which pronounced on the affairs of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate in the councils held at Byzantium in 869 and 879, under the presidency of the Roman legates. The intervention of B., who, according to his son Leo VI, saw in the struggle between Photius and St. Ignatius nothing but a clerical discord "that set some bishops and priests against other priests and bishops," was inspired by a lively desire for religious peace in the empire.

Also noteworthy was the juridical and legislative activity of B., in which ecclesiastical matters too are of interest, especially the official manual published in 879 under the title Prochiron, and then, between 879 and 886, in a new, emended and enlarged edition, under the title Epanagoge. He died in 886.

Maurizio Gordillo