GIORGIO SCOLAROS (JANUARY II). - Byzantine theologian and writer, three times Patriarch of Constantinople (1454-56; 1463; 1464-65), born there c. 1405, died in the monastery of Prodromos (St John the Baptist) near Serres after 1472. Even as a young man he learned the Latin language and studied the works of Western philosophers and theologians, especially St Thomas Aquinas. Even before the Council of Florence he enjoyed the favour of Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, for, although a layman, he was permitted to preach in the imperial palace. He accompanied his sovereign to the Council of Florence. He was a zealous promoter of the union of the Greeks with the Catholic Church. Famous are his three discourses (with an appended letter) which were delivered in writing to the Synod of the Greeks on 30 March 1439. These sermons emphasize the necessity of union, demonstrated with texts from Latin and Greek Fathers (1st discourse); this union must be one and true, that is, dogmatic (2nd discourse); the main obstacle to union is human respect (3rd discourse). Even after the union of the Greeks G. S. remained a staunch supporter of his theory until the death of Mark Eugenicus (1444), against whom he also composed a work in favour of the *Filioque*.
It is not entirely clear how he changed his attitude towards the Union after 1444 and became an enemy of the Catholic Church. In many polemical writings G. S., as a monk and patriarch, fought against the *Filioque* and the Council of Florence. It was a great stroke of fortune for the dissident Greek Church that G. S. enjoyed the favour of Sultan Mehmed II, who released him from his imprisonment in Adrianople (30 May 1453 – late September 1453) and brought him back to Constantinople, paying him three visits as elected patriarch, and appointing him ecclesiastical and civil head of the Greeks on 6 January 1454. It cannot be denied that G. S. rendered no small service to Christianity by his exposition of the Christian faith before the Sultan, later committed to writing.
The literary legacy left by G. S. is immense: the credit for a critical edition of his works goes to the Catholic archbishop of Athens, Ludovico Petit, carried out in 8 volumes with the assistance of X. A. Siderides and M. Jugie, and not least of the lay Assumptionist brother Giulio Pector. This edition publishes, according to G. S.’s autographs (a most fortunate circumstance which made the edition less laborious, since four-fifths of the works are preserved in autograph), religious sermons, theological treatises, polemical and apologetic writings against Islam, pastoral and ascetical works, expositions on the *Summa contra Gentiles* of St Thomas Aquinas, and the first and second parts of the *Summa Theologica*, translations, commentaries on the philosophical writings of Western authors and of Aristotle, and letters.