March 1223-1240 A.D. Germanus II—Constantinople’s 130th; Deacon at Hagia Sophia During Sack by 4th Crusade; Unified Factions in Orthodox World; Anti-Romanist & Critic of “Errors” of Old Rome
March
1223-1240 A.D. Germanus II—Constantinople’s 130th; Deacon at Hagia Sophia During Sack by 4th
Crusade; Unified Factions in Orthodox
World; Anti-Romanist & Critic of
“Errors” of Old Rome
Germanus II of
Constantinople
References
Sources
External links
Germanus II of
Constantinople
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Germanus II Nauplius (Greek: Γερμανός Β΄ Ναύπλιος) was Patriarch of Constantinople (in exile at Nicaea) from 1223 until his death in June 1240.[1]
He was born at Anaplous in the second half of the 12th century. At the time
of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he served as a deacon in the Hagia Sophia; following the sack of Constantinople,
he retired to a monastery at Achyraous.[1]
In 1223, he was selected by
the Nicaean emperor John III Vatatzes to fill the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
which had relocated there after the fall of Constantinople. Germanus assumed
the patriarchal throne on 4 January 1223, and quickly proved himself a valuable
ally to Vatatzes.[1] Throughout his patriarchate, Germanus strove to
re-establish his authority as the head of the politically splintered Orthodox world, all the while supporting Vatatzes' in his
claim to the Byzantine imperial inheritance. Thus Germanus clashed with the
prelates of Epirus for their support of the Epirote rulers, and
especially the Archbishop of
Ohrid, Demetrios
Chomatenos, who had presided over the
coronation of Theodore Komnenos Doukas as emperor at Thessalonica, directly challenging Nicaea's position. After the
Epirote defeat at Klokotnitsa in 1230 however, the Epirote bishops were gradually
won over; in 1232, the schism was healed with the Epirote church recognizing
his authority, followed by a tour of the region by Germanus in 1238.[1][2]
By contrast, Germanus was
willing to bow to political realities on the issue of the Bulgarian Church, recognizing it as a junior patriarchate in 1235. In part this was the result of political
necessity, as a condition for the alliance between Vatatzes and the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II, but it was also seen a necessary move to detach the
Bulgarian Church from its post-1204 submission to Rome. Similar motives lay behind his recognition of the autocephalous status of the Serbian Church.[3]
Although a fierce critic of
the perceived "errors" of the Catholic Church, and author of numerous
anti-Catholic treatises,[1] he was initially willing to a rapprochement with
Rome. In 1232, he sent a group of Franciscans, with whose demeanor and desire for reconciliation he
had been impressed, as envoys to the Pope. Germanus proposed the convening of a
full ecumenical council, aiming at the reunion of the Churches.[4] In response, a delegation of Franciscans and Dominicans arrived at Nicaea in 1234, but their remit was
limited: they had no authority to conduct any negotiations, only to sound out
the emperor and the patriarch. The Latin delegation attended a council held in Nymphaion, but it broke up in acrimony between the Greeks and Latins. The papal
envoys fled back to Rome, while the Nicaeans went on to attack Constantinople.[5]
References
Sources
·
Angold, Michael (1999), "Byzantium in exile",
in Abulafia, David, The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume V, c.
1198–c. 1300, Cambridge University Press, pp. 543–568, ISBN 0-521-36289-X
·
Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). Oxford
Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.
External links
·
Vougiouklaki, Penelope (2003). "Γερμανός
Β΄ Ναύπλιος". Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World, Eastern
Mediterranean. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Retrieved
21 June 2012. (Greek)
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