November 901-907 A.D. Nicholas I Mystikos—Constantinople’s 89th;
Nicholas Mystikos
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Nicholas I Mystikos (modern representation)
Nicholas I Mystikos or Nicholas
I Mysticus (Greek: Νικόλαος Α΄
Μυστικός,Nikolaos I Mystikos) (852 – May 15, 925) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople from March 901 to February 907 and from May 912 to his death in 925. His
feast day in the Orthodox Church is May 16.[1]
Nicholas was born in the Italian Peninsula and had become a friend of the Patriarch Photios. He fell into disfavor after Photios' dismissal in
886 and retired to a monastery. Emperor Leo VI the Wise retrieved him from the monastery and made him mystikos, a dignity designating either the imperial
secretary or a judicial official.
On March 1, 901, Nicholas was
appointed patriarch. However, he fell out with Leo VI over the latter's fourth
marriage to his mistress Zoe Karbonopsina. Although he reluctantly baptized the fruit of this relationship, the
future Constantine VII, Nicholas forbade the emperor from entering the church and may have become
involved in the revolt of Andronikos
Doukas. He was deposed as patriarch
on February 1, 907 and replaced by Euthymios. Exiled to his own monastery,
Nicholas regarded his deposition as unjustified and involved Pope Sergius III in the dispute.
About the time of the
accession of Leo VI's brother Alexander to the throne in May 912, Nicholas was restored to
the patriarchate. A protracted struggle with the supporters of Euthymios
followed, which did not end until the new EmperorRomanos I Lekapenos promulgated the Tomos of Union in 920. In the meantime Alexander had
died in 913 after provoking a war with Bulgaria, and the underage Constantine VII succeeded to the
throne. Nicholas Mystikos became the leading member of the regency for the
young emperor, and as such had to face the advance of Simeon I of Bulgaria on Constantinople. Nicholas negotiated a peaceful settlement, crowned Simeon emperor of the
Bulgarians in a makeshift ceremony outside Constantinople, and arranged for the
marriage of Simeon's daughter to Constantine VII.
This unpopular concession
undermined his position, and by March 914 Zoe Karbonopsina overthrew Nicholas
and replaced him as foremost regent. She revoked the agreement with Simeon,
prompting the renewal of hostilities with Bulgaria. With her main supporter Leo Phokas crushingly defeated by the Bulgarians at the Battle of Acheloos in 917, Zoe started to lose ground. Embarrassed by
further failures, she and her supporters were supplanted in 919 by the admiral Romanos Lekapenos, who married his daughter Helena Lekapene to Constantine VII and finally advanced to the imperial throne in 920. The
Patriarch Nicholas came to be one of the strongest supporters of the new
emperor, and took the brunt of renewed negotiations with the Bulgarians until
his death in 925.
In addition to his numerous
letters to various notables and foreign rulers (including Simeon of Bulgaria),
Nicholas Mystikos wrote a homily on the sack of Thessalonica by the Arabs in 904. He was a critical thinker who went as far
as to question the authority of Old Testament quotations and the notion that the emperor's command was unwritten law.
References
1. Jump up^ (Greek) Ὁ Ἅγιος
Νικόλαος ὁ Α’ ὁ Μυστικὸς, Πατριάρχης Κωνσταντινουπόλεως. 16 Μαΐου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.
Sources
- Nicholas I, Patriarch of Constantinople, Letters. Greek Text and English Tr. by R. J. H. Jenkins and L. G. Westerink (Washington (DC), 1973).
- The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (ed. by Alexander Kazhdan) (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991).
|
Preceded by
Antony II |
Patriarch
of Constantinople
901–907 |
Succeeded by
Euthymios I |
|
Preceded by
Euthymios I |
Patriarch
of Constantinople
912–925 |
Succeeded by
Stephen II |
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