DOSITEO, saint. – Monk of Palestine, of the coenobium of S. Siridio near Gaza, who died around 530, assisted by s. Barsanufio. His celebrated teacher, s. Doroteo, wrote his eulogy (Institut, I, 15; PG 88, 1636–37). From it we learn how this young man, raised in a life of comfort and almost without religious instruction, attained, in the short space of five years, the highest sanctity, not through the rigors of penance but through simplicity in obedience and the renunciation of his own will.
DOSITHEUS. - Dissident Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1669 to 1707, born in Arakhovo in the Peloponnese on 31 May 1641. He was ordained a deacon, contrary to canon law, at just eleven years old, and was only twenty-eight when he was appointed Patriarch of Jerusalem, succeeding the resigned Nectarius, who had made him Metropolitan of Caesarea in 1666.
The long patriarchate of D. was spent soliciting funds to restore the finances of the Greek Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre; vigorously polemicizing with Protestants and especially with Catholics; developing the influence of Hellenism in the East, and particularly in Russia, where he sought to hinder Latin culture.
In 1680, he founded a Greek printing press in Jassy at the expense of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, with the aim of publishing vast collections of anti-Latin polemical writings composed by ancient Byzantines and modern Greeks.
The principal of these collections bear the following titles: Τόμος καταλλαγής ("Tome of Reconciliation"), Jassy 1692; Τόμος ἀγάπης ("Tome of Charity"), ibid. 1698; Τόμος χαρές ("Tome of Joy"), Rimmie 1705. These were preceded by the edition of the work of his predecessor Nectarius on the primacy of the pope: Περὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ πάπα, Jassy 1682. D. also published De haeresibus by Simon of Thessalonica, ibid. 1685; the Manual against the Schism of the Papists by Maximus of the Peloponnese, Bucharest 1690; the great work of Meletius Syrigos Against the Calvinist Chapters of Cyril Lucaris, ibid. 1690, to which he added an Ἐγχειρίδιον ἔλεγχον τὴν καλβινικὴν φρενοβλάβειαν of his own composition, in which the question of the Eucharist is chiefly addressed.
In addition to this pamphlet, he left a great Ἱστορία περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμῳ πατριαρχευσάντων, Bucharest 1715, published after his death by his nephew and successor Chrysanthus Notaras, who divided it into twelve books, hence the name Δωδεκάβιβλος by which it is often cited.
The Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 and the Profession of Faith in eighteen articles and four questions that accompany them are what D. left of greatest theological value. The whole, published under the title Ἀσπὶς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως, Paris 1676, is directed against the Calvinist errors contained in the LUKARIS, CIRILLO (v.).
D. endeavored to prove, without success, that the Calvinist Confession of Faith attributed to Lukaris was not authentic. The evidence he adduced merely demonstrates that Lukaris was not always a Calvinist, or that at certain moments in his life he concealed his heretical opinions.
As for the Confession of Faith of D. himself, it is notable for its clarity and concision and opposes point by point that of Lukaris. It is almost entirely in conformity with Catholic doctrine, especially on the priesthood, the Eucharist, Purgatory, and the biblical canon.
In 1723, it was sent to the Russian Synod, recently established by Peter the Great, by the four Eastern Patriarchs as the authentic expression of "orthodoxy." For this reason, it is called by the Russians the Letter of the Patriarchs.
Some Greek and Russian theologians have sought to make this document a properly symbolic book of the Greco-Russian Church and to place it on the level of the definitions of the ecumenical councils. However, in our day, such an opinion is increasingly abandoned, and recent theologians do not hesitate to contradict said confession. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, made corrections and suppressions in the Russian and Greek editions published in Russia in 1838-40, finding it contaminated by Latinisms.