METROFANE di SMIRNE. - He already occupied this see in 857, at the time of the deposition of the patriarch of Constantinople, s. Ignazio. M. resolutely placed himself at the head of the opponents of the new patriarch Fazio, thereby drawing upon himself the wrath of the emperor Michele III, who condemned him to imprisonment and exile. The fall of Fazio in 867 enabled him to return to his see and to take an active part in the Eighth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople, in 869. But when, after the death of s. Ignazio, Pope Giovanni VIII recognized Fazio as the legitimate patriarch, M. adopted an intransigent position, even against the papal legates, who eventually excommunicated him in 880.
M. is the author of a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, preserved in Georgian translation and edited by K. S. Kekelidze (Tiflis 1920), of several hymns in honor of the Blessed Virgin, collected in the Θεοτοκάριον (Venezia 1880, pp. 15, 47, 65, 91, 105), and of two panegyrics, one in honor of s. Policarpo (Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἀλήθεια, III [1882-83], pp. 298-302), the other in honor of the archangels Michele and Gabriele (ibid., VII [1887], pp. 386-93). In addition, several letters remain.