METHODIUS, St. — Byzantine Patriarch, born in the second half of the 8th century in Syracuse, died in Constantinople on 14 June 847. Educated in his native city and later at the court of Constantinople, he entered a monastery there. A defender of the cult of the holy images, he went to Rome in 815 where he remained for seven years. After the death of the iconoclast emperor Leo V the Armenian, he returned to Constantinople and suffered for the faith also under the emperors Michael II and Theophilus, until after the death of the latter he was recalled by the iconophile empress Theodora and appointed Patriarch of Constantinople. In the Synod of 843 he re-established the cult of the holy images according to the norms of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) and instituted in memory of this victory the “Feast of Orthodoxy.”
His patriarchate was hindered by the dissension of the Studites, who were too rigorous in reconciling clergy who had been iconoclasts and in the question concerning the memory of the empress Theodora’s husband; on the other hand, the patriarch seems to have been too severe against these monks and particularly against the writings of St. Theodore the Studite (already dead in 826). It seems, however, that before the patriarch’s death peace was restored between him and the monks. M. is the author of apologetic, hagiographic, liturgical, canonical writings and of poetry. Pope Nicholas I delivered a fine encomium of him (PL 119, 946 D); he is venerated as a saint in the Roman and Greek Churches. Feast on 14 June.