Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica (SIMEONE, ARCIVESCOVO DI TESSALONICA)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

SIMEONE, archbishop of TESSALONICA. - Byzantine theologian, polemicist, and liturgist, d. at Tessalonica in March 1429. Of his life it is known only that, after having been a monk, he succeeded Metropolitan Gabriele around 1418, and that he died six months before the fall of Tessalonica into the power of the Turks.

Among his writings, the principal ones are a dialogue against all heresies and a treatise on the Holy Rites, or Sacraments. To these two works must be added the pamphlets On the Divine Temple, Exposition of the Symbol, Explanation of the Constantinopolitan Symbol, Treatise on the Priesthood, 83 responses addressed to Gabriele, metropolitan of Pentapolis, and several poems and prayers. S. is to be numbered among the great Byzantine writers. Generally speaking, his Trinitarian, Christological, and sacramental doctrine is profound and sound, except at those points where the polemicist has prevailed over the theologian. S. was in fact an ardent Palamite; he fought against the Latins and, together with Nicolao Cabasila, was the greatest advocate of the Byzantine view concerning the epiclesis as the form of the Most Holy Eucharist.

BIBL.: eds.: apart from the passages translated and included by G. Morin in his Libri sulla Penitenza, Parigi 1651, and on Ordinations, ibid. 1655, the works of S. were published in Greek by Dositeo, Jassy 1683, later at Lipsia 1791. They are also found in PG, 155. Worth noting are the Romanian translation, Bucarest 1875, and the Russian one, Mosca 1916. L. Allacci, Diatriba de Semeonibus PG, 155; F. K. Lukman, Nicolai Kabasilas in Simeon Salonshi o epiclezi, Bog. Vestn., 7 (1927), pp. 1-14; M. Jugie, Simeon de Tessalonique, in DThC, XIV, cols. 2976-84; id., De forma Eucharistiae, De epiclesibus Eucharistiae, Roma 1943, pp. 61-64. Maurizio Gordillo