ANDRONICUS II PALAEOLOGUS, BYZANTINE EMPEROR

Patriarchate 1282 to 1328; b. Constantinople, 1256; d. May 24, 1332. He was the son of Michael VIII Palaeologus and Theodora Ducas. At 15 he was married to the daughter of Stephen V of Hungary and associated in the Emperorship (1271). Breaking with his father's conciliatory policy toward Rome after the Sicilian Vespers had destroyed the Anti-Constantinopolitan designs of Charles of Anjou, he deposed john xi beccus and restored the deposed anti-union Patriarch, Joseph. On Joseph's death (March 1283), he imposed Gregory of Cyprus (d. 1289) in the patriarchate, forcing his mother Theodora to renounce communion with Rome.

Because of his devotion to theology and ecclesiastical politics, he tried to pacify the followers of the deceased Patriarch Arsenius, deposed by michael viii, and to institute a reform of clergy and monasteries under the hermit Athanasius, who became patriarch in 1289 but abdicated in 1293. Under the patriarch John (Comus) in 1295 the emperor convoked a reform synod; when he attempted an alliance with the Serbs and espoused his daughter to the already married Kral Stephen Urosh II; he was reproached in a synod (1300) and ceded. He restored Athanasius as patriarch (1304–12) and deposed Niphon of Cyzicus as patriarch in 1315 for simony, replacing him with a layman, John XIII Glycas (1315–19), then with Gerasimus (1320–21), and then with the monk Isaac (1323).

The reign of Andronicus was accompanied by a series of disasters including interior religious quarrels, the continual threat of western crusading attacks, Italian colonizing enterprises, and Turkish invasions. The attempt to exclude his grandson, andronicus iii, from the throne resulted in civil war and on May 24, 1328, he was deposed and finished his life in a monastery.

Bibliography: l. brÉhier, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912—) 2:1782–92. Cambridge Medieval History, 8 v., (1923) 4: 613–614. f. dÖlger, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:523. i. sykutres, Hellenika, 2 (1929) 267–333; 3 (1930) 15–44, on the Schism of Arsenius (in Greek). g. ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, tr. j. hussey from 2d German ed. (Oxford 1956) 426–444.

[j. geiger]