George Scholarios (Gennadius II)

GEORGE SCHOLARIOS (GENNADIUS II). - Byzantine theologian and writer, patriarch of Constantinople three times (1454-56; 1463; 1464-65), b. there ca. 1405, d. in the monastery of Prodromos (St. John the Baptist) near Serres after 1472. He learned the Latin language already as a young man and studied the works of Western philosophers and theologians, especially those of St. Thomas Aquinas. Even before the Council of Florence he enjoyed the favor of the emperor John VIII Palaeologus and was able, although a layman, to preach in the imperial Palace. He accompanied his sovereign to the Council of Florence. He was an ardent promoter of the Union of the Greeks with the Catholic Church. Famous are his three discourses (with an added letter) that were delivered in writing to the Synod of the Greeks on 30 March 1439. These sermons stress the necessity of the Union, demonstrated with texts of the Latin and Greek Fathers (1st discourse); this union must be one and true, that is, dogmatic (2nd discourse); the principal obstacle to the Union is human respect (3rd discourse). Even after the Union of the Greeks G. S. remained a strenuous supporter of his theory until the death of Mark Eugenicus (1444), against whom he also composed a work in favor of the Filioque.

It is not entirely clear how he changed his attitude toward the Union from 1444 onward and became an enemy of the Catholic Church. In many polemical writings G. S., as monk and patriarch, combated the Filioque and the Council of Florence. It was great good fortune for the dissident Greek Church that G. S. enjoyed the favor of the sultan Mehmed II, who brought him back from his captivity at Adrianople (30 May 1453 - end of Sept. 1453) to Constantinople and paid three visits to the elected patriarch, making him the ecclesiastical and civil head of the Greeks on 6 Jan. 1454. It cannot be denied that G. S. rendered no small service to Christianity by his exposition of Christian dogma before the sultan, afterward written down.

The literary legacy that G. S. left is immense: the project of a critical edition of the works is owed to the Catholic archbishop of Athens Ludovico Petit, carried out in 8 vols. with the help of X. A. Siderides and M. Jugie and not least of his lay Assumptionist brother Giulio Pector. In this edition there are published according to the autographs of G. S. (a most fortunate circumstance that made the edition less laborious, since 4/5 of the works are preserved in autographs) religious sermons, theological and polemical treatises, apologetic writings against Islam, pastoral and ascetic writings, expositions on the Summa contra Gentes of St. Thomas, and the 1st and the 2nd-2nd of the Summa theologica, translations, commentaries on philosophical writings of Western authors and of Aristotle, and letters.

Giorgio Hofmann