GIOVANNI XI BEKKOS, Catholic patriarch of CONSTANTINOPLE. — Descended from a Byzantine family, born on an unknown date, he was patriarch from 1275 to 1282. In 1265 he was cartofilax, that is, chancellor of the patriarchate, archivist, and ordinary judge of the Church. Since the patriarch Arsenios was then little favored by the emperor Michael Paleologus, G. was likewise disfavored; later, however, he established friendly relations with Michael at Salonica, to the detriment of the patriarch’s confidence. When the latter was deposed (1267), G., besides retaining his former honors, was entrusted by Michael, together with the new patriarch Joseph, with a legation to Serbia (1268), in order to facilitate the entry there of Princess Anna.
In 1270 a new imperial legation confronted G., who was not yet Catholic, with the problem of the union of the Churches, which Paleologus had already attempted to promote. Indeed, G. and Constantine Meliteniotes, archivist of the Empire, had the distinction of escorting to France the legates of the holy King Louis IX, who were bringing Byzantium the first proposals for union and assurances of assistance against Charles of Anjou. Unfortunately, the Byzantine legation found King Louis dying at Carthage, and G. witnessed there his most pious death (25 August 1270).
From this point, G. entered a period of internal religious struggle. In his heart he believed the Latins to be heretics because of the doctrine of the Filioque (v.) and was afraid that this would jeopardize the favor of the emperor, who was inclined to accept Catholic doctrine. Nevertheless, always sincere, at the Synod of 1273, convened by Michael to make known his relations with Pope Gregory X, G. endeavored to demonstrate the lack of orthodoxy of the Latins. By this he lost the Emperor’s confidence and was confined in the fortress of Anemas, where, devoting himself to an in-depth study of Trinitarian doctrine and examining the Filioque in the writings of Nicoteros Blemmidas, as a true theologian, deeply versed in the teaching of the Fathers and in dialectic, he soon came to know the truth and embraced it until his death. The sole aim of his life was union, and he asked that Rome preserve for the Greeks their traditional usages that were not opposed to the faith. His conversion restored G. to the Emperor’s favor; indeed, from that point he became the leading figure in the political and religious sphere of his time.
After the union of the Greeks had been concluded at the Second Council of Lyon (6 July 1274) and proclaimed at Constantinople the following year (16 January), the patriarch Joseph was forced to abdicate, and G. assumed the office by order of the Sovereign (26 May), having been consecrated at Hagia Sophia on 2 June 1275. Great, however, were the difficulties that the Catholic G. had to face in consolidating the union, not only from the party of the deposed patriarch but even more from the clergy in general and, in particular, from George of Cyprus, his most determined adversary. The emperor Michael himself, wavering in his policies and rough in character, perhaps in order not to contradict Andronikos II, who had been associated with the Empire, began to listen to the accusations brought against G., to such an extent that the latter tendered his resignation (1279) and withdrew to the monastery of Panachrantos. But he returned to the patriarchate after several months and continued the struggle until, during the pontificate of Martin IV, the union was repudiated (1282) and excommunication was pronounced against Michael Paleologus. Then G., from the prison at Brussa, where he had been chained by the despot Andronikos, saw the deposed Joseph and then George (Gregory) of Cyprus succeed one another in the patriarchate. Amid anguish and torture, G. continued to defend the cause of union in highly learned theological treatises. He died, consumed in prison, at the end of March 1296.
G. carried out an exceptional literary activity. His work as a great theologian must, however, be interwoven with the polemic amid a highly agitated life. Nevertheless, some of his writings are of a monumental character, such as, for example, the two treatises Περὶ τῆς ἑνώσεως καὶ εἰρήνης ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκπορεύσεως τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος. Others are universally celebrated, such as that of the Ἐσυγραφαί, published together with the objections of Palamas and the replies of Bessarion, to demonstrate the identity of the formulas δι' Υἱοῦ ἐξ Υἱοῦ, and that passage of his Σημείωμα συνοδικόν in which G. exposes the bad faith of his adversaries, who erased the particle ἐκ (ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ) from a text of Gregory of Nyssa that was openly favorable to the Latins. Some works by G. still remain unpublished; most of those that have been published are collected in PG 141.