TARASIUS, patriarch of CONSTANTINOPLE, saint. – Born c. 730, died in 806. Son of the civil prefect of Constantinople, he became president of the imperial chancellery (*proto a secretis*) under Empress Irene, who influenced his election to the patriarchal dignity in 784.
Pope Hadrian I, to whom the newly elected prelate addressed a letter accompanied by a profession of faith, did not annul this election, although he reproached the uncanonical manner in which it had been conducted. The times of iconoclasm counselled leniency towards the iconophile empress and her protégé. Indeed, the new patriarch earned particular merit above all at the Second Council of Nicaea (the Seventh Ecumenical Council), which defined the orthodox status of the veneration of sacred images. His decrees against simony were also welcomed. Only in the matter of the marriage of Emperor Constantine VI to Theodota, a cousin of St Theodore the Studite, did he at first show little vigour, so that the Studites and other zealots were displeased. Yet after the patriarch deposed the priest Joseph who had blessed the emperor’s sacrilegious union, he also won the praise of his adversaries.
T. set an excellent example of Christian charity by founding a hospital and houses for the poor. The Byzantine and the Roman Church venerate T. as a saint; his feast is kept on 18 February.