Saint Ignatius of Constantinople

Ignatius of Constantinople (Greek: Ἰγνάτιος; 798 – 23 October 877) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 847 to 858 and from 867 to 877. Ignatius lived during a complex time for the Byzantine Empire. The Iconoclast Controversy was ongoing, Boris I of Bulgaria converted to Christianity in 864, and the Roman pontiffs repeatedly challenged the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Eastern Church in Bulgaria. As patriarch, Ignatius denounced iconoclasm, secured jurisdiction over Bulgaria for the Eastern Church, and played an important role in conflicts over papal supremacy. At the time Ignatius lived, relations remained tense between the Eastern and Western Churches. Constantinople was embroiled in several controversies. The Pope, as head of the Western Church, maintained that he had supreme and universal authority over both Churches, but the Eastern Church opposed his claim. Indeed, Photius I, who replaced Ignatius as patriarch when was deposed in 859, condemned the pope and the Western Church in 867 for adding the Filioque ("and the Son") to the Nicene Creed. The Eastern and Western churches also competed to convert the Slavs, and both Churches sought to dominate the Christianisation of Bulgaria. At that time, the Eastern Church faced internal struggles, too. Most notably, the Church had not yet resolved the Iconoclast Controversy. Although the seventh ecumenical council, also known as the Second Council of Nicaea, had decided in favor of icon veneration in 787, Iconoclasm continued. Ignatius was born in 798 and died on 23 October 877. He was originally named Niketas, and was a son of the Emperor Michael I and Empress Prokopia. As a child, Niketas was appointed nominal commander of the new corps of imperial guards, the Hikanatoi. When he was fourteen, Emperor Leo V the Armenian had Niketas forcibly castrated, which made him ineligible to become emperor, and effectively imprisoned in a monastery after his father's deposition in 813.