BRYENNIOS. - Two "Orthodox" ecclesiastics of this name.

JOSEPH, a famous Byzantine controversialist, who lived between 1350 and 1439, in the past little known in the West. After preaching Greek Orthodoxy in Crete and teaching it from 1395 in the monastery of Stoudios, he was appointed court preacher in Constantinople in 1404. In 1416 and 1418 he was sent to the West to negotiate the union, where he displayed great activity against the Latin Church. Having fallen into disfavor, he withdrew from public life. His works were published in Leipzig (1468-84), in 3 vols., by Eugenios Voulgaris.

Among his writings are 21 discourses on the Most Holy Trinity delivered between 1420 and 1430, and the lecture given at Candia on the procession of the Holy Spirit.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: L. Brehier, s.v. in DIIG, X, coll. 993-96; Νεγάλη Ελλην. ἐγουαλεσ., VII, p. 810; Ph. Meyer, Des Joseph B. Schriften, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 5 (1896), pp. 74-111; J. Dräcke, I. B., in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 7 (1896), pp. 208-28; A. Palmieri, s.v. in DThC, II, coll. 1156-61; N. Tomadaki, Ὁ Ἰωσὴρ Βρυέννιας καὶ ἡ Κρητήριανά τὸ 1400, Athens 1947.

Romualdo Souarn

PHILOTHEOS, ecclesiastic, b. in Constantinople in 1833, d. in 1914. He studied in Leipzig, Berlin and Munich; he professed Church history and biblical exegesis at Chalki from 1861; he was director of the patriarchal school of Constantinople from 1867, metropolitan of Serres (Macedonia) in 1875 and of Nicomedia in 1877. In 1875 he represented his Church at the conference of the Old Catholics (v.) at Bonn.

His greater fame comes from having discovered in a parchment codex of 1056, in the library of the Hospice of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople, which is now in the library of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the text of the first letter of Clement of Rome published in 1875 and above all of the Didaché published in 1883 (v. DIDACHÉ).

Nicola Turchi

@incollection{ec3_bryennios, author = {Souarn, Romualdo and Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Bryennios}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {163}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/bryennios} }

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