October 843-847 A.D. Methodius I—Constantinople’s 84th; Learned; Copyist of Manuscripts; Abbot of Bithynian Monastery; Exiled as Iconodulolater by the Iconoclast regime of Emperor Michael II
October 843-847 A.D. Methodius
I—Constantinople’s 84th;
Learned; Copyist of
Manuscripts; Abbot of Bithynian Monastery; Exiled
as Iconodulolater by the Iconoclast regime of Emperor Michael II; (Widowed) Empress Restores Iconodulolatry Bringing
Iconoclasm to Close
Methodios I of
Constantinople
Life
References
Methodios I of
Constantinople
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
St. Methodios I or Methodius
I (Greek: Μεθόδιος Α΄),
(788/800 – June 14, 847) was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinoplefrom March 4, 843 to June 14, 847. He was born in Syracuse and died in Constantinople. His feast day is celebrated on June 14 in both the East and the West.
Life
Born to wealthy parents,
Methodios was sent as a young man to Constantinople to continue his education
and hopefully attain an appointment at court. But instead he entered a
monastery in Bithynia, eventually becoming abbot.
Under the Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813-820) the Iconoclast persecution broke out for the second time. In 815 Methodios
went to Rome,
perhaps as an envoy of the deposed Patriarch Niκephorοs. Upon his return in 821 he was arrested and exiled as an iconodule by the Iconoclast regime of Emperor Michael II. Ironically, Methodios was released in 829 and assumed a
position of importance at the court of the even more fervently iconoclast
Emperor Theophilos.
Late 14th-early 15th century icon illustrating the "Triumph
of Orthodoxy"in 843.
Methodius is depicted in the upper register, to the right of the icon, with
Theodora and her son Michael to the left. (National Icon Collection 18,British Museum)
Soon after the death of the
emperor, in 843, the influential minister Theoktistos convinced the Empress Mother Theodora, as regent for her two-year-old son Michael III, to permit the restoration of icons by arranging that her dead husband would not be condemned. He then deposed the iconoclast Patriarch John VII Grammatikos and secured the appointment of Methodios as his successor, bringing about
the end of the iconoclast controversy. A week after his appointment,
accompanied by Theodora, Michael, and Theoktistos, Methodios made a triumphal
procession from the church of Blachernae to Hagia Sophia on March 11, 843, restoring the icons to the
church. This heralded the restoration of Orthodoxy, and became a holiday in the
Eastern Orthodox Church, celebrated every year on the First Sunday of Great Lent, and known as the "Triumph of
Orthodoxy".
Throughout his short
patriarchate, Methodios tried to pursue a moderate line of accommodation with
members of the clergy who were formerly Iconoclasts. This policy was opposed by
extremists, primarily the monks of the Stoudios monastery, who demanded that the former Iconoclasts
be punished severely as heretics. To rein in the extremists, Methodios was
forced to excommunicate and arrest some of the more persevering monks.
Methodios was indeed
well-educated; engaged in both copying and writing of manuscripts. His
individual works included polemica, hagiographical and liturgical works,
sermons and poetry.
References
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Patriarch of Constantinople
843–847 |
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