Photios the Great: Defender of Orthodoxy or Architect of Division?

Every year on 6 February the Orthodox Church keeps the memory of St Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, and calls him "the Church's far-gleaming beacon." For most of the last thousand years the Latin West remembered the same man as the father of the schism between Rome and Constantinople. A Catholic encyclopedia of 1911 called him "one of the worst enemies the Church of Christ ever had."¹

The disagreement is not only about one man's character. It touches the Filioque, the authority of the Pope over the Eastern Churches, and the question of which councils count as ecumenical. In 1948 a Catholic priest and historian, Francis Dvornik, argued that the old Western picture of Photios was largely legend; Kallistos Ware later called the change in the verdict on Photios "startling."² This article tells the life as the Church remembers it, then asks what the documents show.

In brief

Photios (born about 815, though estimates range from 810 to 827; died probably in the early 890s) was a layman, scholar and senior court official who became Patriarch of Constantinople in December 858, after his predecessor Ignatius had been forced out. Pope Nicholas I refused to accept the change and in 863 declared Photios deposed. The quarrel widened over the mission to Bulgaria, and in 867 Photios sent an encyclical to the Eastern patriarchs condemning Latin practices there and, above all, the addition of the Filioque to the Creed. Deposed by the new emperor Basil I in 867, Photios was condemned by a council in 869 to 870 that Catholics later counted as the Eighth Ecumenical Council. He was reconciled with Ignatius, became patriarch again in 877, and was recognized by Pope John VIII at a large council in 879 to 880, which annulled the earlier condemnation. He was deposed again in 886. His writings include the Bibliotheca, homilies, letters and the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. Dvornik argued that the supposed "second schism" under John VIII never happened and that the 869 council was raised to ecumenical status in the West only at the end of the eleventh century. Some colorful parts of the Orthodox story, however, rest on late or partisan sources.

Thesis: The documents support the Orthodox view that Photios was a lawful, learned and reconciling patriarch who defended the unaltered Creed, while also showing that he could be intemperate, that his elevation was irregular, and that several cherished details of his story are not well attested.

The life as the Church remembers it

The life published by the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) runs like this. Photios came from a devout family; his father Sergius died "as a martyr in defense of holy icons." He received an excellent education, held high office at court, and taught both the young emperor Michael and St Cyril, the future enlightener of the Slavs. When Ignatius was removed, the bishops proposed Photios. He "passed through all the clerical ranks in six days" and was consecrated on Christmas Day. Pope Nicholas, hoping to subordinate him, anathematized him when he would not submit. He oversaw the conversion of Bulgaria and sent Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs. When Latin missionaries in Bulgaria began to change Orthodox belief and practice, he wrote his encyclical and a council condemned "the arrogance of the West."³

The same life says that when Basil the Macedonian murdered Michael III in 867, Photios refused him Communion and was locked in a monastery. At the council of 869, faced with papal legates, he kept "a dignified silence." After seven years he was restored; the council of 879 recognized him, Pope John VIII annulled the earlier condemnations, and the Creed was upheld without the Filioque. Deposed again under Leo VI in 886, he died in 891 and was buried at the monastery of Eremia. The Church venerates him as a "pillar and foundation of the Church."⁴

Much of this is solid. Some of it is not.

The primary historical evidence

Photios's own writings

Photios left a large body of writing in his own voice. The most important for his quarrel with Rome are the Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs (counted as Letter 2 in the standard edition by Laourdas and Westerink) and the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, his treatise against the Filioque. Tia Kolbaba's study gives a chapter each to these and to a letter to the Archbishop of Aquileia, the three anti-Filioque texts attributed to him.⁵ His homilies survive in a Dumbarton Oaks translation by Cyril Mango, and the Bibliotheca survives complete.

The encyclical, sent in 867 (some date it to late 866), complains that within two years of the Bulgarians' baptism, Western clergy had taught them to fast on Saturdays, to despise married priests, to treat chrismation by priests as invalid, and to accept the addition of the Filioque. Photios argues that the addition introduces two sources into the Trinity and so undermines the monarchy of the Father. He invites the Eastern patriarchs to a council, mentions complaints he has received from Italy against the Pope, and asks that the Second Council of Nicaea be formally numbered as the Seventh Ecumenical Council.⁶

Conciliar acts and papal letters

The council of 869 to 870 survives mainly in a Latin translation by Anastasius the Librarian, made for Rome; the Greek survives only in an anti-Photian summary. Its definition calls Photios "the interloper and illegal occupier," and its fourth canon declares "that he never was nor is now a bishop."⁷ The acts of the council of 879 to 880 survive in Greek, and Nicholas's side in his letters. Many personal details come from Photios's enemies, such as the Life of Ignatius attributed to Niketas the Paphlagonian; Dvornik weighed these against the acts and Photios's letters and traced much of the hostile picture to Ignatius's strictest supporters.⁸

What the documents show, period by period

The first patriarchate (858 to 867)

Ignatius had been exiled and had resigned under pressure; his strict supporters never accepted that resignation. Photios was consecrated in December 858 (the OCA life and the 1911 encyclopedia place these events in 857). He was rushed through the clerical grades so that a patriarch could celebrate Christmas, and one of his consecrators was Gregory Asbestas, a bishop whom Ignatius had condemned.⁹ A council in 861, attended by Nicholas's legates, confirmed Ignatius's deposition. Nicholas said his legates had exceeded their powers, reopened the case in Rome, and in 863 declared Photios deposed. Ware notes that Nicholas claimed authority "over all the earth, that is, over every Church," which was exactly what Constantinople would not grant.¹⁰

Bulgaria turned a disciplinary dispute into a doctrinal one. Khan Boris accepted baptism from Greek clergy around 864 to 865, then turned to Rome. Nicholas's replies to Boris rank Constantinople below Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, saying its bishop received the patriarchal title "more through the favor of princes than by reason."¹¹ Photios's encyclical followed, and a council in Constantinople in the summer of 867 condemned and excommunicated Nicholas. Dvornik argued that the council's condemnations were aimed at the Latin missionaries in Bulgaria, not the Western Church as such; he points out that the encyclical speaks of "so-called" bishops preaching there.¹²

The OCA life says Photios baptized Boris himself. The Fordham introduction to Nicholas's letter says only that Boris had probably been baptized by mid-865, and Ware says he received baptism from Greek clergy; neither puts Photios at the font.¹³ The mission of Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius reached Moravia in 863 in answer to a request from Prince Rastislav, not in 865 as the OCA life has it.¹⁴

Deposition and condemnation (867 to 877)

In September 867 Basil I murdered Michael III and removed Photios. Two versions of the deposition survive. One chronicle has Photios refuse Basil Communion and call him a murderer; the papal librarian Anastasius says Basil simply persuaded him to step aside. Dvornik, who admired Photios, preferred the plainer version, observing that the dramatic story looks "as though one of Photius' admirers had concocted the parallel story in order that his hero should not be outdone by Ignatius," who had famously refused Communion to Bardas.¹⁵

The council of 869 to 870 required bishops to sign a papal formula before taking part. Photios, by Dvornik's reading of the acts, kept "an unbroken and dignified silence," and on refusing to sign his own condemnation he was excommunicated.¹⁶ Ware notes that it opened with twelve bishops, rising to 103 at later sessions.

Restoration and the council of 879 to 880

Photios and Ignatius were reconciled during his exile, and when Ignatius died in 877 Photios succeeded him. John VIII recognized him. The council that met in Hagia Sophia from November 879, with papal legates present and 383 bishops by its own count, annulled the council of 869 to 870.¹⁷ Its definition of faith restated the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople "subtracting nothing, adding nothing, falsifying nothing," and threatened clergy who altered it with deposition and laity with anathema.¹⁸ {{strong: The definition does not name the Filioque.}} George Dragas, who reads it as a condemnation of the Filioque addition, acknowledges that the problem it addresses "is not explicitly named."¹⁹ Dvornik adds that nowhere was the doctrine of the Filioque questioned, "the only objection was to the addition of the formula to the Symbol," which Rome itself did not yet use.²⁰

The authenticity of the last two sessions, where that definition appears, was doubted by a Greek scholiast in some fifteenth-century manuscripts and by some modern scholars. Dvornik defended them, noting that Photios refers to them soon afterwards in his letter to Aquileia and in the Mystagogy. In the Mystagogy, as Dvornik translates it, Photios says John VIII's legates "accepted the symbol of faith as the Catholic Church of God and his predecessors on the pontifical See of Rome had ever done."²¹

The "second schism" that never was

Western historians long held that John VIII excommunicated Photios again after 880. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia still says so, adding that the renewed schism lasted seven years.²² {{very-strong: Dvornik argued that no such second excommunication took place.}} Ware, summarizing him, says communion between Constantinople and Rome "remained unbroken" during Photios's second patriarchate.²³ Dvornik also argued that in the West the council of 869 to 870 was not counted among the ecumenical councils until reforming canonists at the end of the eleventh century, who found its canon against lay interference useful in the investiture struggle, added it to the list. The modern Catholic edition of the conciliar decrees accepts this: the council "was included in the list of ecumenical councils only later, that is, after the eleventh century."²⁴

The end

Leo VI deposed Photios in 886 and made his own brother Stephen patriarch. The charges and the place of exile are obscure. The OCA gives 891 as the year of death; Dvornik, working from a hostile collection's count of years, suggests February 892; the 1911 encyclopedia reports 897.²⁵ {{debated: No exact date of death can be fixed.}}

The scholar

His Bibliotheca, addressed to his brother Tarasius, describes 279 books he had read, many now lost. Its preface says he wrote it when appointed ambassador "to Assyria." The 1920 translator J. H. Freese took this to mean Baghdad; Warren Treadgold argued for the embassy of 845 to the caliph at Samarra, noting that some scholars regard the preface as partly a literary fiction.²⁶

His homilies show the pastor. When a Rus' fleet attacked Constantinople in June 860, he preached repentance to a terrified city. Later chroniclers say that the Virgin's robe was dipped in the sea and a storm destroyed the Rus' ships. Mango points out that Photios's own two sermons, preached at the time, mention a procession with the robe but no storm, and speak of a sudden, unexpected withdrawal; whether a storm struck the fleet afterwards cannot be settled from them.²⁷ On Holy Saturday 867 he preached at the unveiling of the apse image of the Virgin and Child in Hagia Sophia: "before our eyes stands motionless the Virgin carrying the Creator in her arms as an infant."²⁸

What can we actually verify?

(a) Contemporary or near-contemporary documentary evidence

• His two patriarchates, the councils of 861, 867, 869 to 870 and 879 to 880, Nicholas's condemnation of 863 and John VIII's recognition: attested by conciliar acts and papal letters.
• His own views: the encyclical, the Mystagogy, letters, homilies and the Bibliotheca.
• The irregular speed of his ordination and the role of Gregory Asbestas: admitted even by Dvornik.

(b) Later hagiographical tradition

• The refusal of Communion to Basil, which Dvornik doubts.
• That he baptized Boris personally, which the sources consulted do not support.
• The exact date and place of death, which differ between sources.
• His veneration as a saint. Dvornik found his name in Synaxaria from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries and concluded that "Photius must have been canonized in the second half of the tenth century at the latest." Following Martin Jugie, he thought the name was probably added by acclamation to the list of saintly patriarchs under Patriarch Sisinnios (996-998).²⁹

(c) Reported miracles

Few miracles are attached to Photios. A twelfth-century Synaxarion calls him "wonderworker," and the Byzantines connected his intercession with the Rus' withdrawal of 860.³⁰ The storm story is later than his own sermons and is not confirmed by them.

The Orthodox position

Dogma. The Church confesses the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople without addition: the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father." Photios's defense of the monarchy of the Father expresses that faith; the site's article on the Filioque sets out the wider argument.

Common tradition. Photios is honored as a saint and a confessor of Orthodoxy on 6 February. Many Orthodox writers, and the 1848 Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, call the council of 879 to 880 the Eighth Ecumenical Council.³¹ Dragas acknowledges, however, that the Orthodox Church "does not enumerate any more beyond the Seven," so the title expresses a widely held judgment, not a formal enumeration. The site's guide to the Seven Ecumenical Councils sets out the councils all Orthodox count, and its article on how the Orthodox Church knows which councils are ecumenical explains why the status of 879 to 880 is still discussed.

Theological opinion. How far each of Photios's arguments in the Mystagogy should be pressed, and whether his encyclical was wise, are matters on which faithful Orthodox can and do differ. Holiness in a saint does not mean that every letter he wrote was prudent.

The strongest objections

"His elevation was uncanonical, so Ignatius was the true patriarch"

Adrian Fortescue argued in 1911 that Photios was ordained without the required intervals, by a consecrator under censure, to a see whose bishop had not freely resigned.³² The first two facts are real. In reply, Ignatius's removal was confirmed by a synod in 861 with Rome's own legates present; laymen had been made patriarch before (Tarasius, a saint and a close relative of Photios, was appointed from the imperial service in 784); and after Ignatius died, John VIII recognized Photios, and the council of 879 to 880 settled the matter with Rome's consent.

"The 869 council is ecumenical and condemned him"

Catholics who hold this point to the papal legates who presided over it and to its reception in later Western canon law, and the Catholic Church still numbers it as the Eighth Ecumenical Council. The difficulty, on the Catholic side's own scholarship, is that John VIII annulled it, that it was not counted as ecumenical in the West for two centuries, and that the East never received it.³³ The question of papal supremacy in the early Church lies underneath this objection.

"He invented Latin heresy to win a jurisdictional fight"

This charge has support. Dvornik himself called the encyclical and council of 867 a "futile attack on the Patriarch of Old Rome" and judged that "the lapse was inconsiderate, hasty and big with fatal consequences."³⁴ The Orthodox reply is that the Filioque was a real theological question, already disputed between Franks and Greeks, and that Photios did not raise it first. Ware puts it this way: "the west was the original aggressor, not the east."³⁵ His later conduct also counts: he worked with John VIII, and Rome's legates signed the decisions of 880.

"The Orthodox case also leans on a forgery"

This is fair. The 1848 Encyclical cites a letter of John VIII to Photios that compares those who added the Filioque to Judas. Hergenröther and Dvornik both judged that letter a forgery, Dvornik placing it in the fourteenth century.³⁶ Orthodox writers would do better not to rely on it; the case for Photios does not need it.

What we can say confidently

• Photios was Patriarch of Constantinople from December 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886.
• Nicholas I condemned him; a council in 869 to 870 deposed him; John VIII and the council of 879 to 880 recognized him and annulled that condemnation.
• No "second schism" under John VIII occurred.
• He opposed the Filioque addition in his encyclical of 867 and later in the Mystagogy.
• He was venerated as a saint in Constantinople by the late tenth century; the Orthodox Church keeps his memory on 6 February.

What remains disputed

• Whether his first appointment was canonically sound.
• Whether his encyclical of 867 was a justified defense of the faith, an overreaction, or both.
• Whether the definition of 879 to 880 condemns the Filioque doctrine or only the addition to the Creed.
• Whether the council of 879 to 880 should be called ecumenical.
• The date of his birth and death, and the details of his last exile.

Conclusion

Was Photios a defender of Orthodoxy or an architect of division? The evidence does not support the old Western portrait of an ambitious schismatic, and it does not support a flawless hero either. He was a great scholar and pastor who, in a bitter dispute over jurisdiction and missions, named a theological issue that still divides East and West. He lost his temper in 867, and Dvornik, his strongest defender, said so. He was also the man who later made peace with Rome, stood by the Creed as the Fathers handed it down, and, in Dvornik's words, showed himself "a genuine Christian, generous enough to forgive his enemies and to take the first step towards reconciliation."³⁷

For the Orthodox Church the heart of his memory is that confession of faith: the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Creed is not ours to alter. To honor him well is to hold that faith as he did at his best, firmly and with a readiness to be reconciled. Readers can find more lives in the Lives of the Saints collection, and the wider story in the site's account of why the Orthodox and Catholic Churches split.

Notes

1. Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople," Lives of the Saints, 6 February, oca.org; Adrian Fortescue, "Photius of Constantinople," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911), newadvent.org. ↩
2. Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church (Penguin), ch. 3, "Byzantium: The Great Schism," as reproduced in the IntraText digital edition (intratext.com, ENG0804). ↩
3. OCA, "Saint Photius." ↩
4. OCA, "Saint Photius." ↩
5. Tia M. Kolbaba, Inventing Latin Heretics: Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth Century (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008), publisher's description and table of contents (chs. 4-6). On Letter 2 see also the Ca' Foscari RAP record G20001, citing B. Laourdas and L. G. Westerink, eds., Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1983). ↩
6. Photios, Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs (Ep. 2), summarized from the anonymous English version posted for a University of Oregon course ("Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs (866)," pages.uoregon.edu), checked against Francis Dvornik, The Photian Schism: History and Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 119-20, and Fortescue, "Photius." No quotation is taken from the anonymous version. ↩
7. Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870), introduction, Definition and canon 4, in Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (1990), as reproduced at papalencyclicals.net. ↩
8. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 120-21, 136-37 and passim. ↩
9. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 51; Cyril Mango, The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), introduction, 3-4; Fortescue, "Photius." ↩
10. Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3. ↩
11. Nicholas I, Responses to the Questions of the Bulgars (866), ch. 92, trans. W. L. North from MGH Epistolae VI, Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University. ↩
12. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 119-22. ↩
13. OCA, "Saint Photius"; North, introduction to Nicholas I, Responses; Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3. ↩
14. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 102-3. ↩
15. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 136-37. ↩
16. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 148-49; Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3. ↩
17. Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3; Dvornik, Photian Schism, 193-95. ↩
18. Council of Constantinople (879-880), definition (horos), trans. George Dion Dragas, "The Eighth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople IV (879/880) and the Condemnation of the Filioque Addition and Doctrine," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999): 357-69, as reproduced at oodegr.com. ↩
19. Dragas, "Eighth Ecumenical Council." ↩
20. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 196. ↩
21. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 194-96 and 196 n. 2, translating Photios, Mystagogy 89 (PG 102:380). ↩
22. Fortescue, "Photius." ↩
23. Dvornik, Photian Schism, ch. 7 ("The Second Schism of Photius, a Historical Mystification"); Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3. ↩
24. Dvornik, Photian Schism, part 2, chs. 2-3, esp. 326; Tanner, Decrees, introduction to Constantinople IV. ↩
25. OCA, "Saint Photius"; Dvornik, Photian Schism, 262; Fortescue, "Photius." ↩
26. Photius, The Library of Photius, vol. 1, trans. J. H. Freese (London: SPCK, 1920), preface and n. 3; Warren T. Treadgold, "The Preface of the Bibliotheca of Photius: Text, Translation, and Commentary," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 343-49, at 343 and 347. ↩
27. Mango, Homilies, 3-4, 76-77 (Homilies III and IV). ↩
28. Mango, Homilies, 279 (date and occasion), 295 (Homily XVII). ↩
29. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 387-89. ↩
30. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 387-88. ↩
31. Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (1848), §5.xi, English text at orthodoxinfo.com; Dragas, "Eighth Ecumenical Council." ↩
32. Fortescue, "Photius" (which makes Tarasius the elder brother or uncle of Photios's father); on Tarasius, Dvornik, Photian Schism, 3, 7 (who calls him Photios's uncle); Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3 (the synod of 861). ↩
33. Tanner, Decrees, introduction to Constantinople IV; Dragas, "Eighth Ecumenical Council" (on the Roman Catholic count of 21 councils); Dvornik, Photian Schism, part 2. ↩
34. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 433. ↩
35. Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 3. ↩
36. Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (1848), §5.ix; Dvornik, Photian Schism, 197. ↩
37. Dvornik, Photian Schism, 432. ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Photios. Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs (Ep. 2). In Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia, vol. 1, edited by B. Laourdas and L. G. Westerink. Leipzig: Teubner, 1983. Anonymous English version, "Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs (866)," pages.uoregon.edu.
• Photios. Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. PG 102:279-400. Excerpt as translated in Dvornik, The Photian Schism.
• Photius. The Library of Photius. Vol. 1. Translated by J. H. Freese. Translations of Christian Literature, Series 1, Greek Texts. London: SPCK; New York: Macmillan, 1920.
• Mango, Cyril, trans. The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Dumbarton Oaks Studies 3. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
• Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870). Definition and canons. In Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman P. Tanner. London: Sheed & Ward; Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990. papalencyclicals.net.
• Council of Constantinople (879-880). Definition (horos). Translated by George Dion Dragas (see below).
• Nicholas I. The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars, A.D. 866 (Letter 99). Translated by W. L. North. Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Orthodox Church in America. "Saint Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople." Lives of the Saints, 6 February. oca.org.
• Ware, Kallistos (Timothy). The Orthodox Church. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Chapter 3, as reproduced in the IntraText digital edition.
• Dragas, George Dion. "The Eighth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople IV (879/880) and the Condemnation of the Filioque Addition and Doctrine." Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999): 357-69.
• Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848: A Reply to the Epistle of Pope Pius IX, "to the Easterns." English text at orthodoxinfo.com.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Dvornik, Francis. The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948.
• Kolbaba, Tia M. Inventing Latin Heretics: Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth Century. Research in Medieval Culture. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58044-133-9.
• Treadgold, Warren T. "The Preface of the Bibliotheca of Photius: Text, Translation, and Commentary." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 343-49.

Sources from the tradition being discussed (Catholic)

• Fortescue, Adrian. "Photius of Constantinople." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.