The Life of Patriarch Ignatius

A window into the complex world of competing church factions, imperial powers, and the papacy, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius is the vivid account of two major ecclesiastical struggles of the ninth century. One was between opposing patriarchs of Constantinople-the learned Photius (858-867, 877-886) and the monk Ignatius (847-858, 867-877)-and gave rise to long periods of schism, intrigue, and scandal in the Greek Orthodox world. The other was between Patriarch Photius and the papacy, which at its low point saw Photius and Nicholas I trade formal condemnations of each other and adversely affected East-West relations for generations afterward.

The author of this account, Nicetas David Paphlagon, was a prolific and versatile writer, but also a fierce conservative in ecclesiastical politics, whose passion and venom show through on every page. As much a frontal attack on Photius as a record of the author's hero Ignatius, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius offers a fascinating, if biased, look into the complex world of the interplay between competing church factions, the imperial powers, and the papacy.

This important historical document is here critically edited and translated into English for the first time and includes annotations, maps, and indexes.