St. Patriarch Nikephoros passed away on this day in 828.
Patriarch Nikephoros was born in Constantinople during the first period of Iconoclasm (the reign of Constantin Kopronymos 741-775) into a distinguished family, which preserved veneration of holy images. He grew up in the Queen City. There he followed in the steps of his father and secured the post of an imperial secretary (asekretis). In this capacity St. Nikephoros was present at the Second Council of Nicea (the Seventh Ecumenical Council) in 787. At the second session, on September 26, he read aloud a Greek translation of the letter from Hadrian I, the bishop of Rome, to the emperors Constantine VI and St. Irene. According to some accounts, Nikephoros was elevated to the patriarchal throne as a layman. According to others, he became a monk, retired from the world and withdrew from Constantinople to the Propontis where he pursued a life of hardship, until the death of St. Patriarch Tarasios in 806. Then Nikephoros was compelled by the emperor Nikephoros to become patriarch of Constantinople. He was consecrated on Easter Sunday, April 12, 806 with the support of all the people, the clergy and the emperors. But his consecration was opposed by the Stoudite monks St. Theodore and his uncle Plato, the Abbot of Sakkoudion on Mount Olympus in Bithynia. Being he first imperial divorce in the Byzantine history, Constantine VI divorced his wife Maria of Amnia, who had failed to provide him with a male heir, and married his mistress Theodote. Although Patriarch Tarasios allowed the new marriage, he abstained from celebrating it himself, and it was blessed Joseph, hegoumenos of the Cathara Monastery and oikonomos of the Great Church, who performed this office. Theodore and Plato of Sakkoudion, along with their brethren, considered Constantine’s divorce a sign of disregard for the teachings of the Gospel. Inspired by St. John the Forerunner’s denunciation of Herod, they ceased ecclesiastical communion with Patriarch Tarasios. And consequently the Stoudites refused to communicate with St. Nikephors over the affair of Abbot Joseph and the controversial coronation of the emperor Constantine VI and Theodote. In 809 St. Nikephoros presided over the council, which defended the right of bishops to suspend canons for the benefit of the Church (oikonomia). Following this council, St. Theodore and all the monks of the monastery of Stoudios were exiled from Constantinople. He had been forced by the emperor Nikephoros to recall Abbot Joseph (Emperor Nikephoros had to thank Joseph for his mediation with General Bardanes Tourkos during his revolt in 803) and reinstate him in the priesthood. This aroused the opposition thereby of Theodore the Stoudite. According to the Vita B of Theodoros, St. Nikephoros and St. Theodore were both judged to have acted correctly, though in different ways regarding the second marriage of Constantine VI. In July of 811 Emperor Nikephoros was killed in the battle with the Bulgarians. Nikephoros joined the conspiracy to proclaim Michael as emperor in place of Staurikios, obtaining from Michael a signed statement of faith and a guarantee not to persecute Orthodox Christians or harm members of the clergy and monks. Then St. Nikephoros crowned Michael as emperor at the pulpit of Hagia Sophia on October 2, 811. On his own accession in 806 he had been prevented from sending his synodical letter to the bishop of Rome by the emperor Nikephoros I, but under Michael he sent it to pope Leo III. As is usually the case with a new ruler, Emperor Michael Rhangabe was interested in establishing his position by distancing himself from the controversial political legacy of a previous autocrat. St. Nikephoros was reconciled with St. Theodore the Stoudite after the latter's return from exile under Michael I. In 811, he apologized to Abbot Plato for the persecution arising from the Moechian schism (literary the adultery – the name given by the Stoudites to Constantine VI’s divorce) and laid the blame on the dead emperor Nikephoros. St. Nikephoros was one of those consulted by Emperor Michael on November 1, 812, on the subject of peace with the Bulgars; he favored acceptance of the terms proposed by Bulgarian Khan Krum the Horrible, but the opposite opinion, supported by St.Theodore the Stoudite, prevailed. However, according to the story in the Byzantine Chronicle of Scylitzes, Nikephoros the patriarch joined with the magistros Theoktistos in strongly rejecting the proposed return of refugees as an unworthy way of obtaining peace. Thus, they prevailed over the reluctant emperor. About the same time (late 812/early 813), St. Nikephorors with the emperor Michael I welcomed to Constantinople Christian fugitives, monks and laymen, who were fleeing from Syria and Palestine where law and order had broken down. Later in 813, after the great defeat by the Bulgars on June 22, Nikephoros was one of the emperor's advisers in Constantinople who, according to the Scriptor Incertus, proposed rallying the imperial forces. However, according to Theophanes, St. Nikephoros advised the emperor Michael I to abdicate in favor of another candidate, as a means of saving himself and his family. On July 12, after receiving from Leo the Armenian a declaration of faith, St. Nikephoros crowned Leo the emperor in the pulpit of Hagia Sophia. In December of 814, Emperor Leo asked Patriarch Nikephoros to explain his stance on the subject of the veneration of icons. he defended himself and sent representatives, bishops and hegoumenoi, to explain the iconophile position against the findings of the commission led by Anthony Bishop of of Syllaion and John the Gramarian. He then held all-night prayers to change the emperor's mind, and later he explained to a gathering of clergy and monks at the patriarchal palace the texts which had been assembled by the iconoclasts in favor of their position and he encouraged them to stand firm. Before Christmas in 814 he secured a statement from the emperor Leo V that he respected the Church's teachings and would not introduce changes, but by Epiphany it became clear that the emperor had not changed his mind. Soon afterwards Emperor Nikephoros was told that changes must be made. Then he fell gravely ill, but at the beginning of Lent (mid-February), 815, there were demonstrations against Patriarch Nikephoros (Iconoclast emperors were popular among many). Later the emperor urged him to resign, and after visiting Hagia Sophia Nikephoros was taken to the Akropolis, put on a small boat and carried across to an estate of his where he lived in piety until his death. According to other accounts, he was exiled from his books and nearly died of hunger in exile. He was alive in 820 and survived the emperor Leo the Armenian during whose reign, apart from his iconoclasm, he passed a favorable judgement. Early in the reign of Michael II, he wrote to demand that the new emperor restore the faith and allow the veneration of icons again, but without success. Now St. Nikephoros and St. Theodore acted in the same accord defending the holy images. With other metropolitan bishops he approached the emperor to try and end the division in the Church, but with no success. The information in the Life of Ignatios suggests that he died in 832, but the date seems to have been 828. He died at age seventy, after nine years as patriarch (806-815) and thirteen years in exile (815-828). He was first buried at the Church of St Theodoros, at the monastery which he had founded, but after nineteen years, after the restoration of Orthodoxy, his translation to Constantinople was proposed by St. Patriarch Methodois and approved by St. Empress Theodora. His body was conveyed by sea to Constantinople and taken first to the Great Church (Hagia Sophia) and then to the Holy Apostles, where it was buried, on March 13. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople where in the following century the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus used to light candles at the tombs of Patriarch Methodois and Nikephoros. A physical description of him in the Synaxarium says that he resembled Cyril of Alexandria; he was grey, had long straight hair, but did not have a projecting nose or thick lips. A monastery was named after him. He is one of the patriarchs of Constantinople acclaimed as a supporter of icons in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy on the Triumph of Orthodox on the First Sunday of Great Lent. Source: Prosopography of Byzantine Empire. PmBz no. 5301. https://pbe.kcl.ac.uk/data/D56/F71.htm
|
