The Life
first systematically articulated the Eastern position against the Filioque. Photius was born around 820 in Constantinople into a noble Christian family that suffered for the holy icons during the second wave of Iconoclasm under Emperor Theophilus. His paternal uncle was Patriarch Tarasius, who presided over the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787. After the restoration of the icons in 843, the familyu2019s position was restored. Photius received the finest classical Christian education and rose to be head of the imperial chancery (protasekretis). In 858 Patriarch Ignatius was deposed and Photius, then a layman, was elected patriarch and ordained through all the orders within six days. Conflict with Pope Nicholas I led to the Council of 867, which condemned the Filioque addition and declared the pope deposed. After the assassination of Michael III, Basil I deposed Photius; he was restored in 877 after the death of Ignatius. The Council of 879u2013880 brought reconciliation with Pope John VIII. Forced to abdicate by Leo VI in 886, he composed the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, the Bibliotheca, the Amphilochia, and the Encyclical Letter. He reposed on February 6, 893.
Saint Photius was born around 820 in Constantinople into a deeply pious and noble Christian family. His father Sergius held the imperial guard rank of spatharios. His paternal uncle was Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople (784–806), the great patriarch who presided over the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 that restored the veneration of the holy icons. The second wave of Iconoclasm began under Emperor Leo V (813–820) and continued under Emperors Michael II (820–829) and Theophilus (829–842). The Photius family suffered persecution under Emperor Theophilus for their defense of the holy icons. Sergius lost his position and wealth; the family was likely exiled. Some sources say Sergius and his wife were martyred. The young Photius was likely exiled with them in his childhood. After the restoration of the icons in 843 under Empress Theodora and Patriarch Methodius (the famous Triumph of Orthodoxy commemorated on the First Sunday of Great Lent), the family’s position was restored.
Saint Photius received the finest classical Christian education available in the Eastern Roman Empire of the middle ninth century. He mastered the classical Greek literary tradition (Homer, Plato, Aristotle, the Attic tragedians, the classical historians), the theological writings of the great fathers, the philosophical traditions of the Greek schools, and the practical disciplines of grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and the natural sciences. He became one of the most learned figures of the entire ninth-century Byzantine intellectual revival; he is widely regarded as the leading light of the ninth-century renaissance. As a layman he pursued a distinguished career in the imperial civil service, holding the position of head of the imperial chancery (the protasekretis), the officer responsible for the imperial correspondence and documentation. He served as imperial diplomat on a mission to Baghdad to the court of the Abbasid Caliph. He gathered around himself a circle of students, teaching them the classical learning he had absorbed. His famous Bibliotheca is a collection of summaries of 280 books that he had read in his youth.
In 858 Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople was deposed by Emperor Michael III for political reasons. The Emperor selected Saint Photius, then a layman about thirty-eight years old, to replace him. Saint Photius was elected patriarch and ordained through all the ecclesiastical orders within six days. His election was unusual; the canonical preference was for the election of a bishop or experienced cleric to the patriarchal throne, but the election of a distinguished layman who was ordained through the orders before his enthronement was not without precedent in the Eastern Christian Church (Saint Tarasius and Saint Nicephorus had been similarly elected from the laity earlier in the same century). The Roman Pope Nicholas I (858–867), who had received complaints from the Ignatian party, objected to the deposition of Ignatius. After his papal legates exceeded their instructions in 861 by certifying Photius’s elevation, Nicholas reversed their decision in 863 by excommunicating Photius. The unprecedented papal action was contrary to the ancient teaching about the limited jurisdiction of the Roman bishop.
In 867 Saint Photius responded to Pope Nicholas’s excommunication by calling a major council of more than a thousand bishops and clergy meeting in Constantinople. The council condemned Pope Nicholas I and declared him deposed for his interference in the internal affairs of the Church of Constantinople and for his interference in the affairs of the new Bulgarian Church. The council also made the first official condemnation by the Eastern Christian Church of the addition of the Filioque to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (the Western theological position that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son," which the Frankish missionaries had been teaching among the Bulgarians). Saint Photius composed his famous Encyclical Letter to the Eastern Patriarchs around this time, documenting the theological errors of the Western Frankish missions and articulating the apostolic position on the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Encyclical Letter is the foundational document of the entire later Eastern Christian theological position against the Filioque.
Later in 867, Basil I the Macedonian (867–886) usurped the imperial throne from Emperor Michael III, who was assassinated. The new emperor needed the support of the Ignatian party and Pope Nicholas’s successor Pope Adrian II. He deposed Saint Photius and restored Patriarch Ignatius to the patriarchal throne. The so-called Fourth Council of Constantinople (the Ignatian Council of 869–870) confirmed the deposition of Saint Photius. He spent the next several years in a monastery on the Bosphorus, continuing his theological writing. After the death of Patriarch Ignatius in 877, Saint Photius was restored to the patriarchal throne by Emperor Basil I, who had been reconciled with him. The restoration was confirmed at the great council of 879–880 in Constantinople (the Photian Council, considered the Eighth Ecumenical Council by some Eastern Orthodox traditions). Pope John VIII (872–882) sent legates to the council. The council confirmed Saint Photius as legitimate Patriarch, abolished the decrees of the Ignatian Council, and reaffirmed the prohibition against any additions to the Creed. The council brought peace between Rome and Constantinople which lasted until the Great Schism of 1054.
In 886, after the death of Emperor Basil I, the new Emperor Leo VI (886–912) forced Saint Photius to abdicate the patriarchal throne. The precise reasons are complex; the emperor wanted to make his sixteen-year-old brother Stephen the patriarch. Saint Photius spent the last seven years of his life in retirement at the Armoniou Monastery, continuing his theological writing. He composed during this period his great work the Amphilochia, a collection of three hundred and eighty-five responses to theological questions posed by his correspondent Amphilochius of Cyzicus. He composed his great theological treatise the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, the authoritative Eastern Orthodox response to the Western Filioque doctrine. He composed extensive biblical commentaries, homilies, and many letters during his retirement years. He reposed peacefully on February 6, 893, at the age of about seventy-three.
The biblical foundation of Saint Photius’s theological position on the procession of the Holy Spirit is the apostolic teaching of the Lord himself in the Gospel of Saint John. The Lord taught his apostles in the Upper Room discourse before his Passion that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter (Paraclete), proceeds from the Father alone. The Lord did not say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; the grammatical and theological precision of his statement establishes the apostolic theological position. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Son into the world for the economy of salvation, but he proceeds eternally from the Father alone. May we, in our own particular vocations, hold fast to the apostolic theological positions that the Lord himself has taught.
Saint Photius reposed peacefully on February 6, 893, at the Armoniou Monastery, at the age of about seventy-three. He had served the Christian Church through one of the most difficult and complex periods in the entire history of the Eastern Christian Church. He had been Patriarch of Constantinople twice (858–867 and 877–886). He had been deposed twice (in 867 by Basil I and in 886 by Leo VI). He had composed an extraordinary theological corpus that has shaped the entire later Eastern Christian tradition: the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, the Bibliotheca, the Amphilochia, the Encyclical Letter to the Eastern Patriarchs, extensive biblical commentaries, homilies, and many letters. He was glorified as a saint and is commemorated on February 6 in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is one of the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy alongside Saint Gregory Palamas and Saint Mark of Ephesus.
Photius gives the Christian Church a particular gift: the early Eastern dramatization that the apostolic Faith requires the continuing theological articulation against the continuing theological errors that emerge in every age of the Christian community. He came from a family persecuted for the holy icons. He received the finest classical Christian education. He rose to be head of the imperial chancery before his elevation to the patriarchate in 858. He served as Patriarch twice (858–867 and 877–886). He convened the Council of 867 that condemned the Filioque addition. He was deposed by Basil I and restored by the same emperor. The Council of 879–880 brought peace with Rome until 1054. He composed the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, the Bibliotheca, the Amphilochia, and the Encyclical Letter. He reposed on February 6, 893. We may not be patriarchs. But we are all called to hold fast to the apostolic theological positions that the Lord himself has taught and that the apostolic fathers have transmitted to us.