Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint

IGNATIUS, Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint. - Nicetas (I. is the later name), b. at Constantinople in 797; he was patriarch in 847-58 and in 867-77; his father was the emperor Michael (811-13).

After his father's expulsion from the throne, he lived with him in a monastery on the island of Proti; in 840 he became its hegumen (abbot) and was later the founder of three other monasteries. During the iconoclast persecution he showed himself an intrepid defender of the veneration of the sacred images.

After the death of the patriarch St. Methodius (843-47), he became his successor under the name of I. His patriarchate was very tragic. He condemned three bishops and informed the Holy See of it, to which the condemned men also appealed. I. courageously forbade

Holy Communion and entry into the church of St. Sophia to Bardas, a most influential man at the imperial court, on account of his immoral life. The latter took revenge and had him condemned to exile on the island of Terebinthos, replacing him with the person of the most learned president of the imperial chancery, Photius, and having this stratagem of his approved by a pseudo-synod, directed by the excommunicated bishop Gregory of Syracuse.

Whether I. abdicated for the good of the Church is disputed today; those, however, who maintain this view speak almost all of a conditional abdication and emphasize that Photius did not observe its conditions. Neither Pope Nicholas I (858-67) nor Adrian II (887-72) recognized Photius as legitimate patriarch; only after the death of I. did John VIII (872-82) confirm him under certain conditions.

But the emperor Basil of Macedonia, from the very beginning of his reign (867), resolutely deposed Photius, recalled I., after nine years of troubled exile and persecution, to the patriarchate of Constantinople and asked for the approval of the Holy See. The latter, under Adrian II, in a Roman Synod (June 869) and in the Eighth Ecumenical Council (869-70), through its legates and with the subsequent approval, restored I. Despite, however, the various benefits received from the popes, I. believed it necessary to observe a conduct contrary to the decisions of Rome in the question concerning the jurisdiction of Bulgaria, so that John VIII threatened him with conditional excommunication in Apr. 878 if he did not recall the Greek priests and bishops of Bulgaria within 30 days. But this papal sentence was given when I. was already dead (23 Nov. 877). The

Byzantine church and also the Roman one honor I. as a saint.

Giorgio Hofmann