Callistus I, Patriarch of Constantinople

CALLISTUS I, Patriarch of Constantinople. -
At first a monk on Mount Athos, a convinced follower of the doctrine of Gregory Palamas, he succeeded Isidore I on the ecumenical throne in 1350, and held it until 1354-55, the year in which he had to resign, because he refused to crown Matthew Cantacuzenus, associated in the empire by his father John. Since Matthew left the throne in 1355, C. resumed his functions, which he held until his death (1363). Under his patriarchate, the Palamite Council of 1351 was held at the palace of Blachernae, which canonized the doctrine of Gregory Palamas. Anti-Palamite historians, such as Nicephorus Gregoras, depict C. as a narrow and brutal mind, whose zeal against his opponents had to be moderated. He distinguished himself as a hagiographer and preacher.

There survive from him: 1) a Life of Gregory Sinaites (d. 1310), published by J. Pomjaloski, at St. Petersburg, in 1894; 2) the Life of Theodore of Tirnovo, preserved only in Slavonic: cf. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 15 (1906), p. 386; 3) a Panegyric of John the Faster, the restorer of the Constantinopolitan monastery of Petra, in the 11th century, edited by H. Gelzer, Kalliston Enkonion auf Joannes Nestentes, in Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Theologie; 29 (1886), pp. 64-89; 4) an unpublished Sermonary comprising 52 discourses and homilies, preserved in cod. 8 of the Athonite monastery of Chilandar, of the 15th century; 5) a Panegyric of the Cross, published by I. Gretser in his collection: De Cruce Christi, Ingolstadt 1600: in Opera omnia, II, Ratisbon 1734, pp. 187-97; 6) a Homily on the Dormition of the Virgin, published in the journal Ἐσεκλησία 1705 Φάρος, 8 (1911), pp. 114-49; the author does not express himself clearly on the Assumption properly so called; 7) a Sermon on the beheading of St. John the Baptist, contained in cod. theol. grec. 279 of the national library of Vienna.