Family and Early Life
Photius was born around 815 in Constantinople into a wealthy and noble family devoted to the veneration of icons. He was related to Patriarch Saint Tarasius of Constantinople, and his mother was sister to Patriarch John VII. His father, recorded as having held a position of guardianship over the emperor and the palace, was an iconophile.
During the second period of Iconoclasm, which began in 814, the family suffered persecution for their support of icon veneration; one account relates that they were exiled when Photius was seven years old and that his parents were eventually martyred for the faith. The family's standing was restored after the restoration of the icons in 842.
Photius received an outstanding education spanning theology, history, grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, law, the natural sciences, and medicine, though the surviving sources record no detail of how he obtained it. He became a teacher of grammar, rhetoric, theology, and philosophy, and counted the Byzantine scholar Leo the Mathematician among his friends.
Imperial Service
Before his elevation to the patriarchate, Photius held high office in the imperial administration. He served as captain of the guard (protospatharios) and later as chief imperial secretary (protasekretis). His brother Sergius married Irene, sister of the Empress Theodora, a connection that aided his entry into public service.
He took part in an embassy to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. One account places this mission around 855, when he was about thirty-five, sent to negotiate an end to the persecution of Christians.
First Patriarchate (858–867)
In 858 the tensions between Patriarch Ignatius and the Caesar Bardas led to Ignatius's removal and exile. Photius, still a layman, was rapidly advanced through holy orders: tonsured a monk on 20 December 858, he was ordained lector, sub-deacon, deacon, and priest over the following days, and on Christmas Day was consecrated a bishop and installed as patriarch. The sources relate that he resisted the appointment.
Papal legates initially confirmed Photius at a synod held in 861, which affirmed him as the lawful and canonical patriarch. Pope Nicholas I, however, objected that Photius had been raised from the lay state, and pressed territorial demands. When these were refused, Nicholas deposed Photius and reappointed Ignatius in 863, beginning the conflict known as the Photian Schism.
A council held in Constantinople in 867, attended by a large body of clergy, in turn condemned the pope, rejecting his claims of primacy, his interference in Bulgaria, and the innovative addition of the Filioque to the Creed. That same year, after the murder of Bardas in 866 and the assassination of the Emperor Michael III by Basil I in 867, Photius was deposed and sent into exile, and Ignatius was reinstated on 23 November 867.
Second Patriarchate (877–886)
Around 876 Photius was recalled to Constantinople to educate the children of the emperor and to serve as an advisor; he was reconciled with Ignatius. Following the death of Ignatius on 23 October 877, and on Ignatius's own recommendation, Photius was restored to the patriarchal throne on 26 October 877.
A council convened in Constantinople in November 879, attended by legates of Pope John VIII who recognized Photius as the legitimate patriarch. Photius maintained firm positions throughout: he upheld ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Bulgaria, declined to apologize, and refused to accept the Filioque, defending the autonomy of the Eastern Church. Bulgaria's return to Roman jurisdiction was nominally conceded but remained in practice an autocephalous church.
In 886, after the death of Basil I, the new emperor Leo VI deposed Photius, despite having been his pupil. Photius was sent into exile to a monastery in Armenia, tried for treason in 887, and banished to the monastery of Gordon, also recorded as Bordi, where he died on 6 February 893 at approximately seventy-eight years of age.
Writings
Photius left a substantial body of work that established him, in the judgment of later scholarship, as a leading light of the ninth-century renaissance. His best-known work is the Bibliotheca, also called the Myriobiblon, a collection of extracts and abridgements covering 280 volumes of earlier authors.
Among his other works are the Amphilochia, some three hundred questions and answers on difficult points of Scripture addressed to Amphilochius of Cyzicus; treatises against the Manichaeans and Paulicians; the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, a treatise on the procession of the Holy Spirit; and a Lexicon.
Veneration
After his death in 893, Photius came to be venerated as a saint in the environs of Constantinople. His canonization is dated to the tenth century, though the precise date is unclear. His name appears in a manuscript of the Typicon of the Great Church of Constantinople dating to the middle of the tenth century, where he is named as a saint with a commemoration on 6 February.
Some chronicles relate that his body received respectful treatment after his death and indicate that it was permitted to be buried in Constantinople, although he had died in exile in Armenia. In Orthodox tradition he bears the titles Confessor of the Faith, Equal to the Apostles, and Pillar of Orthodoxy. Even Pope Nicholas I had acknowledged Photius's great virtues and universal knowledge.
