Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople
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St. Tarasios or Tarasius (Greek: Ταράσιος), (c. 730–February 25, 806), Patriarch of Constantinople from December 25, 784 until his death in 806.
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[edit] Background
Tarasios was born and died at Constantinople. A son of a high-ranking judge, Tarasios was related to important families, including that of the later Patriarch Photios. Tarasios had embarked on a career in the secular administration and had become imperial secretary (asekretis). Since he exhibited both Iconodule sympathies and the willingness to follow imperial commands, he was selected as patriarch by the Empress Irene in 784, even though he was a layman at the time. Nevertheless, like all educated Byzantines, he was well versed in theology.
He reluctantly accepted, on condition that church unity was restored with Rome and the oriental Patriarchs.[1] To make him eligible for the office of patriarch, Tarasios was speedily tonsured and inducted into the priesthood.
[edit] Seventh Ecumenical Council
Before accepting the patriarchate with the due show of reluctance, Tarasios had demanded and obtained the promise that icons would be restored. As a part of his policy of improving relations with the church in Rome, he persuaded Empress Irene to write to Pope Hadrian I in Rome, inviting him to send delegates to Constantinople for a new council, to repudiate heresy. The Pope agreed to send delegates, although he disapproved of the appointment of a layman to the patriarchate. The council convened in the Church of the Holy Apostles on 17 August 786. Mutinous troops burst into the church and dispersed the delegates. The shaken papal legates at once took ship for Rome. The mutinous troops were removed from the city, and the legates reassembled at Nicaea in September, 787. The Patriarch served as acting chairman (Christ was considered the true chairman). The council, known as the Second Council of Nicaea, condemned Iconoclasm and formally approved the veneration of icons. The patriarch assumed a moderate policy towards former Iconoclasts, which incurred the opposition of Theodore of Stoudios and his partisans.
[edit] Divorce of Constantine VI
About a decade later, Tarasios became involved in a new controversy. In January 795 Emperor Constantine VI, divorced his wife, Maria of Amnia and Tarasios reluctantly condoned the divorce. The monks were scandalised by the patriarch's consent. The leaders of the protest, Abbot Plato and his nephew Theodore of Stoudios, were exiled, but the uproar continued. Much of the anger was directed at Tarasios for allowing the subsequent marriage of the emperor to Theodote to take place, although he had refused to officiate. Under severe pressure from Theodore of Studios, Tarasios excommunicated the priest who had conducted Constantine's second marriage.
[edit] End of Patriarchate
Tarasios continued to loyally serve the subsequent imperial regimes of Irene and Nikephoros I. The patriarch's reputation suffered from criticism of his alleged tolerance of simony. On the other hand his pliability proved most welcome to three very different monarchs and accounts for Tarasios' continuation in office until his death. The later selections of the laymen Nikephoros and Photios as patriarchs may have been in part inspired by the example set by Tarasios.
His feast day is on February 25.
[edit] References
- The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, third edition
- Byzantium: the Early Centuries by John Julius Norwich, 1988.
| Preceded by Paul IV |
Patriarch of Constantinople 784–806 |
Succeeded by Nikephoros I |
