His upbringing

Saint Photius the Confessor was born in 820 AD to a distinguished family. His father, Sergius, and his mother, Irene, are confessors of the church. They are celebrated at the Byzantine Synaxarium on May 13. They resisted Emperor Theophilus (829-842 AD) due to his church policy hostile to the veneration of icons, and were subjected to exile. Photius himself later mentioned in a letter to him that his entire family, including his uncle, Patriarch Saint Thracius (+ 806 AD), was most valiant in one of the anti-icon councils. It appears that the family's property, which is numerous, has been confiscated. The family belonged to the nobility. Photius had two brothers, Sergius and Trasius.

Sergius, reportedly, was married to Irene, the sister of Empress Theodora, an iconoclast. Other sources stated that the person who married the empress's sister was his uncle, not his brother. In an atmosphere saturated with ecclesiastical concerns, then, Photius grew up. Defending the right faith was a family legacy that our saint practiced throughout his life.

In addition, Photius was able to acquire a broad culture in various fields of ecclesiastical and secular knowledge at the same time. He did not leave any field of knowledge in his time without exploring its depths until he became the most knowledgeable of the people of his time and the most prominent face of the intellectual renaissance in Byzantium after the period of persecution of icons.

Great teacher and employee

In one of Saint Photius's letters to the Eastern Patriarchs, he mentioned that in his youth he tended toward monastic life, but he committed himself to education, as a professor at the Royal University in Magnoura Palace, after Theoctistus, Prime Minister of Empress Theodora, appointed him there as a teacher of Aristotelian philosophy and theology. Soon after, he was appointed director of the Royal Archives and a member of the Senate. In the year 855 AD, he headed an embassy to the capital of the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mutawakkil, in Baghdad. There, apparently, and at the request of his brother, he wrote what is known as the Myriobiplos and “The Library,” a book in which Photius included summaries of two hundred and eighty works of the ancients and comments on them. He did this by relying only on his memory. It is noteworthy that a number of those about whom Photius wrote have had their works lost, and only the “library” remains as a witness to them. Such as Stasias, Memnon, Conon, and Diodorus Siculus.

Patriarch against his will

Saint Photius was outside the city of Constantinople when political events took place there that changed the course of matters and brought Photius to the top of the ladder of church administration. Bardas, the brother of Empress Theodora, with the encouragement of the new Emperor Michael III, succeeded in ending his sister’s guardianship of her son after he murdered her prime minister, Theoctistus, and appointed himself as guardian in her place. Liberals and intellectuals supported him, while conservatives stood by Theodora. Saint Ignatius, the patriarch of the royal city who had been previously appointed by the deposed empress, was a conservative, so he fell out of favor with the new government. It seems that his followers unleashed their tongues by broadcasting disgraceful news that damaged Bardas's personal life. When a failed attempt was made to restore Theodora to power, she and her daughters were obligated to take monastic vows. Ignatius, for his part, refused to bless their monastic dress as an indication of his dissatisfaction and submission to Bardas’s plan. When it seemed that a crisis in the relationship between the state and the church was approaching, some bishops advised Ignatius to resign to prevent this, so he bowed down to their wishes and asked his supporters to choose for them another patriarch other than him. When a local council met to consider the matter, the conflict emerged clearly and sharply between two groups of bishops. And when, in the end, the conciliatory trend prevailed by not choosing a patriarch from among the quarreling bishops, everyone decided to choose a man from the common people, Photius, and they submitted their recommendation to the emperor. Even Ignatius's most loyal supporters agreed with the proposed view. Bardas accepted the recommendation and appointed Photius Patriarch. Photius, it was said, when the news reached him, he was horrified and tried to evade in every possible way. The time is difficult, the task is delicate, and it is not easy for someone who has committed himself to studying and teaching, as a professor and thinker, to abandon a world in which he was blessed with undoubted calm, to enter into a noisy, turbulent world fraught with dangers like the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Therefore, he said in a letter declaring his faith to Nicholas, the Pope of Rome, some time later, that he had been elevated to the patriarchate against his will and that he felt that he was staying there as a prisoner.

Whatever the case, Photius was promoted to the priestly ranks within a week because the time was close to Christmas and the patriarch had tasks that must be carried out as soon as possible. Accordingly, he was installed as Patriarch on the twenty-fifth of December 858 AD.

Photius was not able to enjoy peace for long because the extremists who supported Ignatius quickly closed their ranks and announced their rejection of the new patriarch, despite the guarantees he had previously given regarding the status of the resigned patriarch. Thus began the troubles of Photius, which imposed on him critical situations, dictated difficult decisions, raised many questions about him, and forced him to become a man of blame. The truth is that, in his performance, he combined gentleness, confrontation, precision, spaciousness, reluctance, courage, virtue, and responsibility.

The first rain

As soon as two months had passed since the installation of Photius as patriarch, the unrest began. The extremist Ignatius group called for a meeting in the Church of Saint Irene and declared its rejection of the new patriarch and its adherence to Ignatius as the legitimate patriarch. The immediate reason for the disobedience is not clear. A dispute may have arisen regarding the above-mentioned guarantees given to the resigned patriarch. Whatever the case, one of the group's arguments was that it was not permissible for Photius to be promoted to the patriarchal rank as quickly as he did.

Photius tried to avoid the clash, calm the feelings, and take things slowly, but he did not succeed. He called for a council in the Church of the Holy Apostles to discuss the matter and take the appropriate decision regarding it. But before the council pronounced its ruling, the situation deteriorated and riots occurred, sparked by extremists. As the issue took on a political dimension, the royal army confronted the demonstrators and suppressed them with force of arms, so blood flowed and the crisis worsened. Photius, for his part, denounced the use of force and threatened to resign. However, in the face of the opposition’s insistence on its position, on the one hand, and the civil authority’s unwillingness to yield, on the other hand, Bardas demanded that the church resolve the matter, and Photius was forced to call the council again and make painful decisions against Ignatius (859 AD). At the request of Bardas, the Council declared that the Ignatius Patriarchate was fundamentally invalid because Ignatius was not elected by the Council, but rather appointed by Theodora. During the riots, the resigned patriarch and some of his supporters were imprisoned. When the council abolished his patriarchate, he was exiled to Mytilene and then to the island of Trabantos. But it became clear, after a while, that Ignatius had nothing to do with the riots and was innocent of what the extremists among his followers raised in his name, so he was allowed to reside in the Busis Palace in Constantinople.

The situation did not calm down, despite the measures taken, nor did the extremists calm down. Photius and Emperor Michael III called for a new council (861 AD) and asked Pope Nicholas I, Pope of Rome (858-868), to send envoys on his behalf. The main topic was to refute the fight against icons and confirm the decisions taken at that time (843 AD) under the auspices of Empress Theodora. Nicholas, in his reply letter, objected to the elevation of Ammani to the rank of patriarch, but he sent Radwald, Bishop of Porto, and Zechariah, Bishop of Anagni, to investigate the situation in Constantinople, leaving to himself the matter of deciding on the legitimacy of Photius as patriarch. Nicholas was acting as if he had authority over the church everywhere. This was not in the account of Photius nor the Church of Constantinople. The two delegates were informed of the current situation and interrogated Ignatius. When the true picture became clear to them in Constantinople, they confirmed, in the name of the Pope of Rome, the decisions of the Council of 859 regarding the illegitimacy of the Ignatius Patriarchate. It seems that Ignatius acquiesced. The two envoys thought that, by what they did, they confirmed the authority of the Pope as arbiter. But the course of things became clear, after a while, that Pope Nicholas was not ready to be satisfied with what happened and that his image of himself, with regard to his authority in the church, was different from the image of others about him.

Deterioration in relationships

Meanwhile, a number of extremists from the party of Patriarch Ignatius arrived in Rome, led by the monk Theognostos. They conveyed a picture of the situation in Constantinople that did not match the reality of the situation, and they even called on the Pope, falsely in the name of Ignatius, to intervene to establish the truth and put things right. Since it seemed as if Nicholas was prepared to accept testimony of the kind he had received because it suited his vision and reinforced his tendency to hegemony, he took the initiative to challenge the position taken by his envoys, and also declared that the decisions of the Council of 861 AD were invalid. He also announced his removal of Photius as patriarch of the royal city and claimed that the Roman popes had the authority to rule on the legitimacy or legitimacy of local councils. In the year 863, Nicholas gathered bishops from the West in Rome who condemned Photius and imprisoned him and the bishops and priests who were ordained by him, and declared that Ignatius was the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople. Photius and Emperor Michael III were informed of this. Constantinople did not take the papal decisions into consideration, and the Emperor protested against Roman interference in the internal affairs of the church in Constantinople. Nicholas declared in the year 865 that he derived his authority over the universal church from Christ himself and that he had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the local churches whenever he wanted.

Oil on fire

On another level, Photius turned his attention towards the Slavic peoples, wanting to evangelize them. For this purpose, he chose one of his friends, Constantine, who was an outstanding scholar. We know this in the church as Saint Cyril. He also summoned the latter's brother, Photius, a hermit on Mount Olympus, named Methodius. These two began an apostolic mission with the Khazars in southern Russia, then moved to Moravia at the request of its prince. This marked the beginning of the conversion of the Slavic peoples to Christ. After a while, the baptism of Boris (Mikhail), Prince of Bulgaria, took place. This was baptized by Photius, and the Emperor was his godfather. With the baptism of Boris, Bulgaria converted to Christianity. But Boris soon entered into a dispute with Constantinople. The reason is that he aspired for the Bulgarians to have their own patriarch. When Photius and the Emperor did not respond to his desire, he turned his gaze towards Rome. That was in 866 AD. Pope Nicholas seized the opportunity and sent Latin missionaries who began spreading Western theology and Latin customs among the Bulgarians. It has been reported that, among other things, the teaching regarding the emanation of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son together (the Philochoi) began to become widespread at that time. It was natural for the Romans and Latins to clash there. The Romans were present on earth. The conflict seemed exposed. The Romans considered the Latin move an intrusion into their own domain, and the Latins an area to confirm the authority of the Pope and spread the customs of the Latin Church and its theological thought in opposition to the suspicious Byzantine thought and corrupt Byzantine customs. Photius, in response to the Latin attack, soon sent a letter to the bishops of the East in which he explained the errors of the Latins, especially with regard to the issue of emanation. Then he called for a large council in Constantinople, in the year 867, which affirmed the right faith and made the Pope and his missionaries brave in Bulgaria. Accordingly, the Byzantine Emperor asked the German Emperor Louis II to overthrow Nicholas. But before the decisions of the Council of Constantinople reached Nicholas, he died.

Changing political winds

In September 867, he killed Basilius I, who had previously been appointed co-emperor by Michael III. I say, he killed Michael after he had killed his uncle Bardas. In order to win the favor of the conservatives, he decided to dismiss Photius and return Ignatius to the patriarchate. When the clergy of Constantinople entered into conflict among themselves and confusion prevailed, the Emperor decided to seek help from Rome to put things right. Pope Adrian II called for a council held in Constantinople in 869 AD. This was considered by the Latins as an eighth ecumenical council. In this council, which included only one hundred and ten bishops, Photius was condemned and the Council of 867 was annulled. Two hundred bishops were also dismissed and many priests who were poisoned by Photius and who were his supporters were stripped. As for Photius, he was brought before the council to answer the charges against him. He remained silent, contenting himself with saying: “God hears the voice of the silent one... My justification is not of this world.” For three years, he remained under house arrest, cut off from his friends and deprived of his books. Don't complain or complain. No burden on anyone. He suffered from illness. Amazing patience. He contented himself with sending messages of encouragement and stress to those of his friends who were suffering.

Warm wind

Ignatius's work in the new period of his patriarchate was not easy. He soon found himself in conflict with Pope John VIII. But he embraced Boris (Michael) the Bulgarian after he defected from Rome to Constantinople. As the conviction increased in the possessing city that the role that was allowed for Rome to play was superior at the expense of Constantinople, the bishops advised King Basil, in order to unify the church there and raise its status, to nullify the decisions of the Council of 870 and release Photius. The Emperor restored Photius with great honor and named him educator of his children. Photius's first gesture was that he met and reconciled with Ignatius, and declared his support for him and his support. Ignatius was sick, so Photius visited him regularly. When Ignatius fell asleep in the Lord, Photius returned to the patriarchal office with everyone’s blessing. To Photius, the measure regarding the Church’s declaration of the holiness of Ignatius on October 23 of each year goes back. Photius and Ignatius, as it turned out, were victims of controversies that others fueled in their name.

Then, a council was held in Constantinople in the year 879-880, which included 383 bishops and was known as the Council of Unity. It bridged the rift between Rome and Constantinople and officially restored Photius’ reputation. It also affirmed the Orthodox faith and denounced the addition to the Constitution of Faith regarding the emanation of the Holy Spirit. Envoys of Pope John VIII were present. The Council of 869 was considered null and void. When the Pope of Rome received news of the council, he agreed to its decisions. This explains that the Council of 869, which was called in the West the Eighth Ecumenical Council, was not considered as such in Rome until the eleventh century, when changes led to the restoration of the Council of 869 and the neglect of the Council of Unity, which generated the common belief in the West that Photius was unjustly accused of being the father of schism and an enemy. Unit . This fact is acknowledged even by many Catholic scholars today, such as Father Francis Dvornik.

His detention and his lying down

Once again, the general situation changed and reflected negatively on Photius. In the year 886, Leo VI succeeded his father Basil as emperor. When he was hostile to the Bishop of Ochaeta, Gregory, a follower of Photius, he dismissed the saintly patriarch and imprisoned him as a bad actor in the Armenian monastery, making his brother Stephen Patriarch in his place. Photius remained under house arrest for five years, deprived of all human comfort. It is as if the Lord God wanted to refine it like gold in the furnace to the end. In this period of his life, he wrote “The Mystagology of the Holy Spirit,” in which he refuted the issue of the emanation of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (Philico). He rested in the Lord, perfected with virtues, on February 6, 891. Many miracles have just happened to his body.

The church celebrates him on the day of his repose, February 6.

For more information about Saint Photius and his bishopric period, see the history section of the site

Troparia with a melodious melody
Since you are similar to the apostles in their circumstances, and a teacher of the world, pray, O Photius, to the Lord of all, to grant safety to the world, and great mercy and mercy to our souls.

Qandaq with the eighth tune
Let us now praise, with the blossoming of hymns, the harp of the spirit that meditates on God, the dazzlingly luminous star of the Church, the divine guide for the upright, the all-steadfast resister of heresies, and let us cry out to Him, Hail, O Most Honored Photius.