JOHN XI BEKKOS, Catholic Patriarch of Constantinople. - A scion of a Byzantine family, born on an unknown date, he was patriarch from 1275 to 1282. In 1265 he was chartophylax, that is, chancellor of the patriarchate, archivist and ordinary judge of the Church. At that time Patriarch Arsenios was unpopular with Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, and so was G.; later, however, at Thessalonica he formed friendly relations with Michael at the expense of the patriarch’s standing. When Arsenios was deposed (1267), G., while retaining his former honours, was entrusted by Michael, together with the new patriarch Joseph, with a legation to Serbia (1268) to facilitate the entry of Princess Anna.
In 1270 a new imperial legation brought G.—not yet a Catholic—to face the issue of Church union, already broached by the Palaeologan emperor. G. and Constantine Meliteniotes, archivist of the Empire, had the honour of escorting back to France the legates of St Louis IX, who had brought to Byzantium the first proposals for union and assurances of aid against Charles of Anjou. Unfortunately the Byzantine mission found King Louis dying at Carthage, and G. witnessed his pious death there (25 Aug. 1270).
From this moment G. entered a period of inner religious struggle. In his heart he considered the Latins heretics for their doctrine of the Filioque (q.v.) and feared that by taking a stand he might imperil the emperor’s favour, which inclined toward acceptance of the Catholic dogma. Yet ever sincere, at the synod of 1273, convened by Michael to declare his relations with Pope Gregory X, G. strove to demonstrate the Latins’ lack of orthodoxy. By this he forfeited the emperor’s trust and was confined in the fortress of Anema, where, applying himself to a deep study of Trinitarian dogma and examining the Filioque in the writings of Nicephorus Blemmydes, as a true theologian, and comparing it with the teaching of the Fathers and dialectical reasoning, he soon perceived the truth and embraced it until his death. The single aim of his life was union, and he asked Rome to preserve for the Greeks their traditional usages not opposed to the faith. His conversion restored him to imperial favour; indeed, from that point he became the leading figure in the political and religious life of his time.
After the union of the Greeks was concluded at the Second Council of Lyons (6 July 1274) and proclaimed in Constantinople the following year (16 Jan.), Patriarch Joseph had to abdicate and G. was raised to the office by the emperor’s will (26 May), being consecrated at Hagia Sophia on 2 June 1275. Great, however, were the difficulties G., as a Catholic, had to overcome in consolidating the union—not only from the party of the deposed patriarch but even more from the clergy in general, and especially from George of Cyprus, his closest adversary. The emperor Michael himself, vacillating in policy and of harsh character, perhaps so as not to contradict Andronicus II, who was associated in the Empire, began to listen to the accusations brought against G., to such an extent that G. tendered his resignation (1279) and retired to the monastery of the Panachrantos. Yet after a few months he returned to the patriarchate and continued the struggle until, during the pontificate of Martin IV, the union was denounced (1282) and the emperor Michael Palaeologus was excommunicated. Then G., from the prison of Brusa where he was chained by the despot Andronicus, saw Joseph the deposed patriarch and then George (Gregory) of Cyprus succeed him in the patriarchal see. Amid torments and tortures G. still defended the cause of union in learned theological treatises. He died, worn out, in prison at the end of March 1296.
G. displayed uncommon literary activity. His work as a great theologian is, however, intertwined with controversy in a life much agitated. Yet there survive monumental writings of his, such as, for example, the two treatises *Perì tês enṓseōs kaì eirḗnēs* and *Perì tês ekporeúseōs toû Hagiou Pneúmatos*. Others are universally celebrated, like that of the *Epigrapha*, published together with the objections of Palamas and the replies of Bessarion, to demonstrate the identity of the formulas “ἓν κὺ ὲξ ἓν” [one God from one God], and that passage in his *Sēmeiōma synodikôn* where G. exposes the bad faith of his adversaries, who had deleted the particle “ἐκ” [from] from a text of St Gregory of Nyssa openly favourable to the Latins. Some of G.’s works remain unpublished; most of those published are collected in PG 141.