Saint David II of Trebizond

David Megas Komnenos (Greek: Δαυίδ Μέγας Κομνηνός, romanized: David Megas Komnēnos; c. 1408 – 1 November 1463) was the last Emperor of Trebizond from 1460 to 1461. He was the third son of Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and Theodora Kantakouzene. Following the fall of Trebizond to the Ottoman Empire, he was taken captive with his family to the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, where he and his sons and nephew were executed in 1463. In July 2013, David and his sons and nephew were canonized by the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Their feast day was determined as 1 November, the anniversary of their deaths. David had played an important role throughout the reign of his older brother and predecessor John IV. He had been given the courtly title of despotes, which in Trebizond designated the heir to the throne. David had participated in his brother's expeditions against the Genoese, and also fulfilled various diplomatic tasks. In 1458 he ratified his brother's treaty with the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in Adrianople, and later the same year he conveyed his niece Theodora to her husband, Uzun Hassan of the Ak Koyunlu. David ascended the throne shortly after his brother's death, sometime in April 1460. Although John IV had made his nephew Alexios V his heir, Alexios was a minor; according to Laonikos Chalkokondyles David, with the support of the Kabasitanoi archontes, pushed the young emperor aside and took the throne for himself. With the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the threat Mehmet II posed to the pocket empire had increased. David's brother John had spent the following years up to his death building alliances to protect the empire, with the Georgian princes to the east and with Uzun Hassan of the Ak Koyunlu, and David seems to have counted on their support. The Muslim rulers of Sinope and Karaman appear to have been enlisted as allies by John or Uzun Hassan.