Gennadios II Scholarios

   First post-Byzantine patriarch of Constantinople (qq.v.) from 1454-1456, 1463, and again from 1464-1465. Born George Scholarios, he was a scholarwho wrote on Aristotle (q.v.) and was versed in western scholasticism, including Thomas Aquinas (q.v.). When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople (qq.v.) in 1453, he had been living as the monk Gennadios, in a kind of exile as leader of the opposition against the union of the churches (q.v.). In January 1454, Sultan Mehmed II (q.v.) invested him with his insignia of office, as an emperor (q.v.) would have done, giving him complete authority over the millet of Rum (q.v.), as the Ottomans referred to the Orthodox (q.v.) community now under their dominion.