METROPHANES of SMYRNA. — He was already occupying this see in 857, at the time of the deposition of the Patriarch of Constantinople, St Ignatius. M. resolutely placed himself at the head of the opponents of the new patriarch Photius, and incurred the wrath of the Emperor Michael III, who condemned him to imprisonment and exile. The fall of Photius in 867 allowed him to return to his see and to take an active part in the Eighth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 869. However, when, after the death of St Ignatius, Pope John VIII recognised Photius as the legitimate patriarch, M. persisted in his intransigent stance, even against the papal legates, who eventually excommunicated him in 880.
M. is the author of a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, preserved in a Georgian translation and edited by K. S. Kekelidze (Tiflis 1920), of several hymns in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, collected in the Θεοτοκλόον (Venice 1886, pp. 15, 47, 65, 91, 105), and of two panegyrics, one in honour of St Polycarp (Ἐκκλησιαστὴ Ἀλήθεια, III [1882-83], pp. 298-302) and the other in honour of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (ibid., VII [1887], pp. 386-93). Some letters also remain.