GERMANO I, patriarch of COSTANTINOPOLI, saint. — Died in 733. When he was bishop of Cizico in 712, he yielded to imperial pressure and accepted Monothelitism. However, after being made patriarch of Constantinople in 715, he gave proof of orthodoxy not only with regard to Monothelitism, which he publicly rejected about that time, but especially against the iconoclasm proclaimed by Emperor Leone III, who deposed G. in 730. He spent his final years in solitude and died almost a centenarian. Feast day: 12 May.
G. left 4 dogmatic letters, of which the first 3 are of great importance for the iconoclastic controversy; the 4th combats Monothelitism. There is also a short theological treatise, De vitiae termino, and a historical work, De haeresibus et synodis, composed ca. 727. Among G.’s 9 sermons, 7 are of particular importance for Mariology; among these, 3, delivered in dormitionem, manifest belief in the Assumption of Mary.