ISIDORE. - Metropolitan of Kiev (1436-58); cardinal bishop of Sabina (1439-63), united patriarch of Constantinople (1459-63). Born at Mesembria in Greece, he was a monk of the monastery of Demetrius in Constantinople. The Byzantine authorities sent him as legate to the Council of Basel (1433) and then as successor of Metropolitan Gerasius to Moscow (1437) with the task of winning that kingdom for the longed-for union of the Churches.

Without having settled in much at Moscow he went to Ferrara in 1437. At that Council, where he served as delegate of the patriarch of Antioch, I. was one of the most zealous promoters of the union. After the close of the Council (which moved to Florence), I. set out in 1436 for Moscow by way of Lithuania. At Moscow he succeeded in having the decree of union proclaimed, but he was then arrested by the grand duke, and after many adventures he fled during Easter of 1444 and took refuge in Budapest, where King Ladislaus of Hungary-Poland granted the basic privilege for the united faithful of Lithuania-Poland. From Siena Pope Eugene IV sent him to Constantinople; there, together with the united patriarch Gregory Mammas, he consecrated a bishop for Volhynia; at that time, however, he could not be present at the proclamation of the union in Constantinople. He nevertheless had this joy on his second journey in 1453, shortly before the fall of the city to the Turks, which he witnessed. From then on he lived in Rome, where he died on 27 April 1463.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Th. Ziegler, Die Union des Konzils von Florenz in der russischen Kirche, Würzburg 1938, see index; G. Mercati, Scritti d'I., il cardinale ruteno (Studi e testi, 46), Rome 1926; A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa e dei paesi limitrofi, Turin 1948, see index.

Alberto M. Ammann

sgg., 454 sgg.; Martyr, Romanum, p. 182 sg.

@incollection{ec7_isidoro, author = {Ammann, Alberto Maria}, title = {Isidoro}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {251--252}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/isidoro} }

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Isidore

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