FOTIJE

He is also viewed as the most important intellectual of his time – "the leading light of the ninth-
century renaissance"

Photios I (Greek: Φώτιος Phōtios), (c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), a[›] also
spelled Photius[2] (/ˈfoʊʃəs/) or Fotios, was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 858
to 867 and from 877 to 886;[3] He is recognized in the Eastern Orthodox Church as St. Photios
the Great.
He was a central figure in both the conversion of the Slavs to Christianity and the Photian
schism,[5]and is considered "[t]he great systematic compiler of the Eastern Church, who occupies
a similar position to that of Gratian in the West," and whose "collection in two parts...formed and
still forms the classic source of ancient Church Law for the Greek Church."

well-educated man from a noble Constantinopolitan family. Photius's great uncle was a previous
Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint Tarasius.[6]

Studies show that Photios was venerated as a saint as early as the 9th century, and by the
Roman Church as late as the 12th century.[9] Nonetheless, Photios was formally canonized
by the Orthodox Church in 1847.

Photios I of Constantinople

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

Installed 858 – 867

Term ended 877 – 886

Orders

Ordination 858

Consecration 858

During the second Iconoclasm, which began in 814, his family suffered persecution since his
father, Sergios, was a prominent iconophile. Sergios's family returned to favor only after the
restoration of the icons in 842.
he famous library he possessed attests to his enormous erudition (theology, history, grammar,
philosophy, law, the natural sciences, and medicine)

Photios says that, when he was young, he had an inclination for the monastic life, but instead he
started a secular career. The way to public life was probably opened for him by (according to one
account) the marriage of his brother Sergios to Irene, a sister of the Empress Theodora, who
upon the death of her husband Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) in 842, had assumed the
regency of the Byzantine Empire. Photios became a captain of the guard (prōtospatharios) and
subsequently chief imperial secretary (protasēkrētis). At an uncertain date, Photios participated
in an embassy to the Abbasids of Baghdad.[17]
Patriarch Ignatios, who refused to admit him into Hagia Sophia, since it was believed that he was
having an affair with his widowed daughter-in-law. In response, Bardas and Michael engineered
Ignatios's confinement and removal on the charge of treason, thus leaving the patriarchal throne
empty. The throne was soon filled with a kinsman of Bardas, Photios himself, who was tonsured
a monk on December 20, 858, and on the four following days was successively ordained lector,
sub-deacon, deacon and priest, and then on Christmas Day, the patronal feast[18] of
Constantinople's cathedral, Hagia Sophia, Photius was consecrated as patriarch
Pope and the rest of the western bishops took up the cause of Ignatios. The latter's confinement
and removal without a formal ecclesiastical trial meant that Photios's election was uncanonical,
and eventually Pope Nicholas I sought to involve himself in determining the legitimacy of the
succession. confirmation of his election at a synod in 861 On their return to Rome, they
discovered that this was not at all what Nicholas had intended, and in 863 at a synod in Rome
the pope deposed Photios, and reappointed Ignatius as the rightful patriarch, triggering a schism.
Four years later, Photios was to respond on his own part by calling a Council
and excommunicating the pope on grounds of heresy – over the question of the double
procession of the Holy Spirit.[22] The situation was additionally complicated by the question
of papal authority over the entire Church and by disputed jurisdiction over newly
converted Bulgaria.[23]
This state of affairs changed with the murder of Photios's patron Bardas in 866 and of Emperor
Michael III in 867, by his colleague Basil the Macedonian, who now usurped the throne. Photios
was deposed as patriarch, not so much because he was a protégé of Bardas and Michael, but
because Basil I was seeking an alliance with the Pope and the western emperor. Photios was
removed from his office and banished about the end of September 867, and Ignatios was
reinstated on November 23. Photios was condemned by the Council of 869–870, thus putting an
end to the schism. During his second patriarchate, however, Ignatios followed a policy not very
different from that of Photios.

Not long after his condemnation, Photios had reingratiated himself with Basil, and became tutor
to the Byzantine emperor's children. From surviving letters of Photios written during his exile at
the Skepi monastery, it appears that the ex-patriarch brought pressure to bear on the Byzantine
emperor to restore him. Ignatios's biographer argues that Photios forged a document relating to
the genealogy and rule of Basil's family, and had it placed in the imperial library where a friend of
his was a librarian. According to this document, the Byzantine emperor's ancestors were not
mere peasants as everyone believed but descendants of the Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia.[24] True
or not, this story does reveal Basil's dependence on Photios for literary and ideological matters.
Following Photios's recall, Ignatios and the ex-patriarch met, and publicly expressed their
reconciliation. When Ignatios died on October 23, 877, it was a matter of course that his old
opponent replaced him on the patriarchal throne three days later.
Photios now obtained the formal recognition of the Christian world in a council convened at
Constantinople in November 879. The legates of Pope John VIII attended, prepared to
acknowledge Photios as legitimate patriarch, a concession for which the pope was much
censured by Latin opinion. The patriarch stood firm on the main points contested between the
Eastern and Western Churches: the demand of an apology to the Pope, the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction over Bulgaria, and the addition of the filioque to the Nicene creed by the Western
church. Eventually, Photios refused to apologize or accept the filioque, and the papal legates
made do with his return of Bulgaria to Rome. This concession, however, was purely nominal, as
Bulgaria's return to the Byzantine rite in 870 had already secured for it an autocephalous church.
Without the consent of Boris I of Bulgaria (r. 852–889), the papacy was unable to enforce its
claims. he chronicle of Pseudo-Symeon clearly states that Photios was banished to the
monastery of Gordon, where he later died. Yet it appears that he did not remain reviled for the
remainder of his life.[
The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Photios as a saint; his feast day is February 6.
photios continued his career as a writer throughout his exile
Photios is one of the most famous figures not only of 9th-century Byzantium but of the entire
history of the Byzantine Empire. One of the most learned men of his age, and revered – even by
some of his opponents and detractors – as the most prolific theologian of his time, he has earned
his fame due to his part in ecclesiastical conflicts, and also for his intellect and literary works.
"mind turned more to practice than to theory". He believes that, thanks to Photios, humanism
was added to Orthodoxy as a basic element of the national consciousness of the medieval
Byzantines, returning it to the place it had had in the late Roman (early Byzantine) period.
Tatakes also argues that, having understood this national consciousness, Photios emerged as a
defender of the Greek nation and its spiritual independence in his debates with the Western
Church.[35] Adrian Fortescue regards him as "the most wonderful man of all the Middle Ages", and
stresses that "had [he] not given his name to the great schism, he would always be remembered
as the greatest scholar of his time".[36]

dedicated to his brother and composed of 279 reviews of books which he had read. The
Bibliotheca (Greek: Βιβλιοθήκη) or Myriobiblos (Μυριόβιβλος, "Ten Thousand Books")
is generally seen as the first Byzantine work that could be called an encyclopedia.

Reynolds and Wilson call it "a fascinating production, in which Photius shows himself the
inventor of the book-review,"[1] and say its "280 sections... vary in length from a single sentence
to several pages".[1] The works he notes are mainly Christian and pagan authors from the 5th
century BC to his own time in the 9th century AD. Almost half the books mentioned no longer
survive. These would have disappeared in the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in
1204, in the final Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, or in the following centuries of
Ottoman rule, during which wealth and literacy contracted dramatically in the subordinate Greek
community.