Ignatios

   Patriarch of Constantinople (qq.v.) from 847-858, and again from 867-877; son of former emperor Michael I Rangabe (qq.v.). His struggle with Photios (q.v.) is complex in terms of both its causes and its consequences. It provoked an international crisis with the papacy (q.v.), created one of the most serious internal conflicts within the eastern church, and became part of the political controversy surrounding the murder of Michael III by Basil I (qq.v.). It began in 858 when Ignatios was deposed by Bardas (q.v.) (the true ruler of the state). Bardas's favorite, the scholar Photios (q.v.), was made patriarch. This immediately split the church into two opposing camps. The supporters of Ignatios protested Photios's uncanonical appointment to Pope Nicholas I (q.v.). The pope was intent on asserting his authority over the eastern church, and used this opportunity to convoke a council in Rome that demanded that Ignatios be reinstated. In turn, a church council was convened in Constantinople in 867 that condemned and anathematized Pope Nicholas I; it further condemned the western church's addition of the filioque (q.v.) to the creed. Relations between the eastern and western churches, already strained over their competition for the allegiance of new converts in Moravia and Bulgaria (qq.v.), only complicated matters. Then, in that same year (867) Basil I murdered Michael III and assumed the imperial throne. Because Basil needed papal support in Italy (q.v.), where Byzantine troops were operating against the Arabs (q.v.), the emperor (q.v.) reinstated Ignatios (867). He then convened a church council in Constantinople in 869-870, attended by papal legates of Pope Hadrian II (q.v.). This council formally condemned Photios and declared Ignatios reinstated. The final twist to this complex affair is that when Ignatios died, Photios was reinstated as patriarch.