Saint Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople (+877–878)

Saint Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople (847–857; 867–877), in the world Nicetas, was of royal descent. When his father, the Emperor Michael I (811–813), was overthrown by Leo the Armenian (813–820), the boy Ignatius was shut up in a monastery. Life in the monastery strengthened the saint in faith and piety. Soon he was chosen abbot of the house, and later he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople.

During the minority of the Emperor Michael III (855–867) the country was ruled by his uncle Bardas, a godless and immoral man. The holy patriarch urged him to give up his sinful life and rebuked his lawlessness. When Bardas demanded that the hierarch tonsure the holy Empress Theodora as a nun, so as to remove her in this way from the government of the country, Saint Ignatius did not do Bardas’s will and excluded him from communion. For fifteen days the patriarch was tortured and pressed to renounce his rank, and then he was exiled to the island of Terebinthos. In the time of the Emperor Basil the Macedonian (867–886) Saint Ignatius was recalled from exile and restored to the hierarchal throne. After this the blessed one guided the Church for another ten years, and at last, at the age of eighty-nine, committed his soul to the Lord in peace (+877–878).