Metrophanes, Critopoulos

METROPHANES, CRITOPOULOS. - Schismatic and Protestantizing theologian of the 17th century, b. in Berea of Macedonia in 1589. A monk of Mount Athos, he was sent abroad by Cyril Lucaris for his formation, always among Protestants: he then spent six years in England (1617-24), already a priest, in full contact with the Anglicans, another three in Germany (1624-1627) and then in Switzerland with Calvinist pastors. Important documents from the Geneva Archive (E. Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique du XVIe siècle, V, Paris 1903, pp. 203, 206-208) show him, under the inspiration of Lucaris, in the act of attempting the union of the Eastern Churches with the Calvinists. He then went on to Alexandria, where he is found first as grand archimandrite, then as bishop of Memphis, and finally in 1636 as patriarch. And, strange to say, as such he subscribed at the Synod of Constantinople of 1638 to the condemnation of Lucaris, his initiator into Calvinism. He died in Wallachia in the first months of 1639.

His works are numerous, but only one has remained famous, the Ὁμολογία τῆς ἀνατολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας τῆς καθολικῆς, published in all the collections of the symbolic books of the Eastern Church. The original is preserved in the Library of Wolfenbüttel, ms. 1048. This Confession of M., however, was neither accepted by all nor has it ever been officially approved. And if on the one hand it almost always represents the doctrine of the "Orthodox" Church fairly well, on the other, in the questions on the Sacraments, inspirations and canon of Scripture and the notion of the Church, it smacks strongly of Calvinism. M. was the first to deny in the Byzantine Church the Immaculate Conception of Mary (art. 17 of the Ὁμολογία).

Emanuele Candal