FOTINO. — A fourth-century heretic. A compatriot, disciple, and deacon of Marcello of Ancira (the Eastern councils insist strongly on this dependence), F., who possessed both Latin and Greek, was elevated to the see of Sirmio (today Mitrovicza) in Pannonia, probably at the end of 343. Together with Marcello, he was condemned for the first time by the Synod of Antioch in 344 (in the profession of faith known as the “macrostich”; cf. Evagrio, Hist. eccl., II, 19: PG 67, 228 C). This condemnation was accepted by the Westerners at Milan (345), but remained ineffective because of the favor enjoyed by F., a capable preacher, among his people. The same fate befell other condemnations pronounced against him by a second Milanese synod and by the bishops assembled at Sirmio in 347 (the chronology of these events is uncertain). At the Council convened at Sirmio in 351, F., in a public dispute with his opponents, was convicted of heresy, deposed, and exiled. Recalled by Julian the Apostate, he was again expelled by Valentinian in 364. He died in his native Galatia in 376.
Since all of F.’s works have been lost (St. Jerome mentions the treatises Contra gentes and Ad Valentinianum), our knowledge of his doctrine depends upon conciliar decrees and later summaries. Like Marcello, F. denies the Word a personal subsistence; he calls God λογοπάτωρ, in order to exclude every hypostatic difference between the Father and the Word. Whereas Marcello’s conception is rather Sabellian, F. approaches the dynamic monarchianism of Paul of Samosata: according to F., Christ is nothing more than a man born in a wondrous manner, endowed by the energy (ἐρραστική ἐνέργεια) of God, adopted as the Son of God, and the cause of his miracles and virtues.
The adherents of F., called Photinians or also homunionitae, were never numerous. It is unclear to what extent they survived in the sect of the Bonosians in the Danubian provinces.