St Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople (+847)
Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was the son of rich Sicilians. By God’s will, while still young, he made for a monastery on the island of Chios and restored it at his own expense. In the reign of the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Armenian (813–820), while Nicephorus (commemorated 2 June) was patriarch, Methodius held a high post at the emperor’s court. Once the patriarch sent him to Rome to meet the pope. The saint’s return was delayed, and meanwhile the emperor threw Nicephorus from his throne and installed the iconoclast Theodotus Melissenus (815–822) as chief shepherd. After the death of Leo the Armenian Methodius returned to Constantinople and, in the rank of presbyter, fought tirelessly against the heretics. The emperor treated the Christians with a show of goodwill and even released many venerators of icons imprisoned by his predecessor, but he soon showed his true nature and renewed the persecution of the Orthodox. Saint Methodius too was shut up in the prison of Akritas. After Michael the Stammerer his son Theophilus (829–842) ascended the throne. The son, more educated than his father, released Methodius as a learned man well versed in church and secular affairs alike. Once out of prison, the father resumed the struggle against the heretics, which the emperor tolerated for some time.
At last, after a defeat in battle with the Arabs, Theophilus brought his wrath down on Saint Methodius, claiming that God had punished him for keeping close to an “idol-worshipper” (as the heretics called the venerators of icons). The savage lawless one tortured the blessed confessor terribly. He was mercilessly beaten, his jaws were broken, and a hideous wound was left on his face. Then Saint Methodius was exiled to the island of Antigoni and shut up with two robbers in a deep cave. In this dark cavern, where not even a ray of sunlight penetrated, the blessed father suffered for seven years, until the end of the Emperor Theophilus.
After Theophilus his son Michael III (842–867) became king, but because the heir to the throne was under age, the country was in fact governed by his mother, the icon-venerating Empress Theodora. She set free the Christians imprisoned for defending Orthodoxy and drove out the heretic patriarch Annius, and Saint Methodius was chosen in his place. In 842 a local council was convened in Constantinople under Methodius’s presidency, which restored the veneration of icons and decreed that the Triumph of Orthodoxy be celebrated every year. This feast was celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent according to an order composed by the blessed father.
The last years of the Venerable Methodius’s life passed peacefully. He laboured much to restore the churches and holy icons destroyed by the heretics. At last, in 846, the holy father commended his soul to the Lord in peace.
