MICHAEL ACŒUMINATUS. – Metropolitan of Athens between 1175 and 1222, born at Chonae (the ancient Chonae and therefore also called Choniates) c. 1140, died on the island of Chios c. 1222. He pursued his studies at the patriarchal school of Constantinople and was appointed secretary of the patriarchal chancery. Having become metropolitan of Athens, he displayed reforming zeal against disciplinary abuses and social charity against the oppressive fiscal system. After the victory of the Latins in 1204, he held a conference with the papal legate Cardinal Benedict at Thessalonica, but refused to submit to the Pope; instead, he retired to the island of Chios, where he was able to work tranquilly according to his literary tastes and exercise no small influence through his correspondence in favour of the dissident Byzantine Church.
M. left behind homilies, important discourses, letters and poems (partially edited in PG 140, 323-84; 1227-72; more completely by Spyridon Lampros [2 vols., Athens 1879-80]), to which various additions were subsequently made.
His brother NICHETAS (b. at Chonae, d. at Nicaea after 1210) was first employed at the Greek imperial court in Constantinople and, after 1204, at that of the Greek Emperor of Nicaea. He is known as a theologian of dissident orthodoxy for his Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei, in 27 books, a historical and polemical work against all heresies, of great value for the history of the errors of his time and for the quotations from synods and fragments of Monophysite works now lost (partially edited in PG 139, 1101-1444; 140, 9-28), dependent upon the Panoplia Dogmatica of Euthymius Zigabenus, but with additions and integrations (cf. F. Cavallera, Le trésor de la foi orthodoxe de Nicetas Acominatos Choniates, in Bull. de Littér. ecclés., 1913, pp. 124-37). Still more renowned is his history of the Third Crusade in 21 books: Historia, which extends from 1180 to 1206 (PG 139, cols. 287-1088 and in Corpus scriptorum byzantinorum, ed. Bekker, Bonn 1885), followed by his account of the destruction of statues by the “barbarian Latins” (De statuis, ibid.).
GIORGIO HOFMANN