METROPHANES CRITOPOULOS. — A Slavicizing and Protestantizing theologian of the 17th century, born in Beren, Macedonia, in 1589. A monk of Mount Athos, he was sent abroad by Cyril Lucaris for his education, always in the midst of Protestants: he spent six years in England (1617–24), already a priest, in full relations with the Anglicans, three more 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 Lucaris’s inspiration, attempting the union of the Eastern Churches with the Calvinists. He then went to Alexandria, where he is found first as Grand Archimandrite, then Bishop of Memphis, and finally in 1636 as Patriarch. And, strangely, as such he subscribed in the Synod of Constantinople of 1638 to the condemnation of Lucaris, his initiator into Calvinism. He died in Wallachia in the early months of 1639.
His works are numerous, but only one has remained famous: the *Quo-loga* (ὁδός ἀνατολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας τῆς καθολικῆς), published in all collections of the symbolical 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 ever officially approved. While it generally represents fairly well the doctrine of the “Orthodox” Church, in matters concerning the Sacraments, inspiration and canon of Scripture, and the notion of the Church, it bears a strong Calvinist imprint. M. was the first to deny in the Byzantine Church the Immaculate Conception of Mary (art. 17 of the *Quo-loga*).