Saint Tarasios of Constantinople

Tarasios of Constantinople (also Saint Tarasius and Saint Tarasios; Greek: Ταράσιος; c. 730 – 25 February 806) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 25 December 784 until his death on 25 February 806. Tarasios was born and raised in the city of Constantinople. A son of a high-ranking judge, Tarasios was related to important families, including that of the later Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople. He had an elder brother, Sisinnios, who was captured during the invasion of Calabria in 788–789. Tarasios had embarked on a career in the secular administration and had attained the rank of senator, eventually becoming imperial secretary (asekretis) to the Emperor Constantine VI and his mother, the Empress Irene of Athens. When Patriarch Paul IV of Constantinople retired to a monastery, he recommended the lay administrator Tarasios as his successor. Since Tarasios exhibited both Iconodule sympathies and the willingness to follow imperial commands when they were not contrary to the faith, he was selected as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople by Empress Irene in 784, even though he was a layman at the time. Nevertheless, like all educated Byzantines, he was well versed in theology, and the election of qualified laymen as bishops was not unheard of in the history of the Church. He reluctantly accepted, on condition that church unity would be restored with Rome and the Oriental Patriarchs, and a council be called to address the iconoclast controversy. To make him eligible for the office of patriarch, Tarasios was duly ordained to the deaconate and then the priesthood, prior to his consecration as bishop. Before accepting the dignity of Patriarch, Tarasios had demanded and obtained the promise that the veneration of icons would be restored in the church. As a part of his policy of improving relations with Rome, he persuaded Empress Irene to write to Pope Adrian I, inviting him to send delegates to Constantinople for a new council, to repudiate heresy.