Patriarch Methodios I of Constantinople

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St. Methodios I or Methodius I (Greek: Μεθόδιος Α΄), (788/800 – June 14, 847) was Patriarch of Constantinople from March 4, 843 to June 14, 847. He was born in Syracuse and died in Constantinople. His feast day is on June 14.

[edit] Life

A son of notables, Methodios was sent to Constantinople to continue his education, but instead entered a monastery in Bithynia. Eventually, he became an abbot and in 815 went to Rome, perhaps as an envoy of the deposed Patriarch Nikephoros. 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 more fervently iconoclast Emperor Theophilos.

Soon after the death of the emperor, in 843, the influential minister Theoktistos convinced the Empress Mother Theodora 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 and arranged for the end of the iconoclast controversy. A week after his appointment, accompanied by Theodora and Theoktistos, Methodios made a symbolic triumphal procession from the Blachernai to Hagia Sophia on March 11, 843. This heralded the restoration of Orthodoxy, and became a holiday in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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 well-educated, and engaged in both copying and writing of manuscripts. His own works included polemica, hagiographical and liturgical works, homilies and poetry.