January 1111-1134
A.D. John IX Agapetus—Constantinople’s 108th; Expands Library
John IX of
Constantinople
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
He was a cleric from within
the scholarly, philosophical branch of the Church hierarchy, and had risen
through the ranks of the patriarchal clergy.[2] He sought to reverse the secularising trend within
the clergy by banning them from acting as advocates in civil courts. A lifelong
scholar, he sought to reclaim the great, but dispersed, collection of books
within the capital, as there was no central library. He made it a practice to
acquire the book collections of deceased powerful men, and then had the
patriarchal staff recopy them. His measures greatly expanded the range of
titles held in the Great Church to which teachers were attached.[3]
Within religious matters, he
pushed the trend of making the patriarchal clergy, rather than the monastic
community, the authoritative voice of Orthodoxy.[4] He also convened a synod in Constantinople in 1117
which condemned the doctrine of Eustratius of
Nicaea as Nestorian, despite the defence offered by the Patriarch.[5] During his patriarchate some efforts were made by
Emperor Alexios I
Komnenos to bridge the schism between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church but
these failed, as Pope Pascal II in late 1112 pressed the demand that the Patriarch
of Constantinople recognise the Pope's primacy over "all the churches of God throughout the
world". This was something the patriarch could not do in face of
opposition from the majority of secular clergy, the monastic world, and the
laity.[6]
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