Parastron (Barastron), Giovanni

PARASTRON (BARASTRON), GIOVANNI. - Minorite, a Greek citizen of Constantinople, b. around the middle of the 13th century, d. at Constantinople in 1275. Versed in theology and in a knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, he rendered eminent services to the cause of the Union before, after and during the Second Council of Lyons.

The emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus had already in 1272 sent P. to Pope Gregory X for the negotiations of the Union; he arrived in Italy after 1 April 1272, as appears from the Pope's letter to the Emperor written on 24 Oct. 1272. After 29 Oct. 1272 (the date of another papal letter for the nuncios destined for the Emperor) P. returned to Constantinople in the company of the Pope's nuncios, Jerome of Ascoli and companions. P. again went to the West, and precisely to Lyons, as a companion of the Franciscan nuncios and of the Greek legates, and arrived in that city before the fourth session of the Council (24 June 1274). In the proclamation of the Union, on 29 June 1274, the Greek legates sang the Constantinopolitan Creed with the Filioque during the Pope's solemn Mass in the Greek language, together with P. and the Dominican William of Moerbeke.

After the Council the Pope charged P. with returning to Constantinople, emphasizing that P. had laboured in this cause of the Union for a long time and with success ("diu et utiliter"). The Union was proclaimed at Constantinople in Jan. 1275; and the Catholic patriarch of the Greek rite, John Bekkos, was elected on 26 May 1275. In the same year the zealous apostle of the Union died.

Giorgio Hofmann