Anthimus

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ANTHIMUS

The name of many saints, ecclesiastics, and statesmen in the Church. The following are significant:

(1) Anthimus, St., bishop of Nicomedia, martyr, beheaded in the Diocletian persecution of 303. Emperor Justinian I built a church in his honor, and the legend of SS. Domna and Indes (Patrologia Graeca 116: 1073–76) credits him with a letter written to his community during the persecution of Diocletian.

Feast: April 27; Greek, Sept. 13.

(2) Anthimus, St., priest and martyr during the Diocletian persecution. His Acta recount a series of conversions among Roman officials because of his courage.

Feast: May 11.

(3) Anthimus of Tyana, 4th-century bishop, adversary and friend of St. basil of caesarea, supported Basil's anti-Arian offensive, but opposed his jurisdictional arrangements, particularly in reference to the Church in armenia.

(4) Anthimus, St., hymnographer, member of a pious association of laymen called the Spoudaioi, was given to keeping vigils in the church of St. Irene in Constantinople. He became a priest (after 457) and the leader of the Chalcedonian party and was celebrated as the author of liturgical tropes or hymns for popular chanting

Feast: June 7, Synaxary of Constantinople.

(5) Anthimus I, patriarch of Constantinople (535–536). Named bishop of Trebizond in 533, he was transferred to Constantinople at the instance of Empress theodora in June of 535. Because of his Monophysite leanings and epistolary relations with severus of antioch and theodosius of alexandria, he was deposed by a synod of Constantinople under Pope agapetus i, and the decision was implemented by justinian i, who exiled him. His profession of faith is preserved by zachary the rhetor (Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium 2:96–117).

(6) Anthimus, a 14th-century anti-Latin Bulgarian archbishop, was a theologian.

(7) Anthimus II to VII were patriarchs of Constantinople. Anthimus II (June to October 1623) was supported by French policy in his opposition to Cyril Lucaris. He died at Mt. Athos, 1628. Anthimus III (1822–24); b. Naxos, c. 1760; d. Smyrna, 1842. He was exiled in 1824. Anthimus IV, Bambakis (1840–41 and 1848–52); b. Constantinople, c. 1788; d. Isle of Princes, 1878. He became metropolitan of Iconium (1825), of Larissa (1835), and of Nicomedia (1837). Elected patriarch in February of 1840, he was deposed in 1841, but reelected in 1848 and deposed again on Nov. 11, 1852, when he retired to the Isle of Princes, where he died a nonagenarian. Anthimus V (1841–42); b. Neochorion, Turkey; d. Constantinople, June of 1842. He was metropolitan of Agathopolis (1815), Anchialos (1821), and Cyzicus (1831) and was elected patriarch of Constantinople in May of 1841. Anthimus VI, Joannides (1845–48; 1853–55; 1871–73); b. Isle of Koutali, c. 1790; d. Candili, 1878. A monk on Mt. Athos, he was elected and deposed three times. A decisive opponent of Bulgarian orthodoxy, he retired to Candili in 1873 and died there almost a nonagenarian. Anthimus VII, Tsatsos (1895–96); b. Janina, c. 1835; d. Halki, December of 1913. He was a renowned preacher and theologian. Bishop of Paramythia (1869), metropolitan of Ainos (1878), then of Korytsa, Leros, and Kalymnos, he served 22 months as patriarch and retired to Halki. He rejected the ecumenical efforts of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Praeclara gratulationes (June 20, 1894) in a letter published in September of 1895 (see byzantine theology, ii).

Bibliography: (1) h. rahner, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg 1957–65) 1:603–604. b. altaner, Patrology, tr. graef (New York 1960) 248. r. janin, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:530. g. mercati, Studi e Testi 5 (1901) 87–98. m. richard, Mélanges de science religieuse 6 (1949) 5–28. (2) r. janin, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:529–530. Acta Sanctorum May 2:612–614. (3) r. janin, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:534. j. b. lightfoot, A Dictionary of Christian Biography 1:119. (4) s. pÉtridÈs, Échos d'Orient 4 (1900) 228; 7 (1904) 341–342; Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:531. k. gross, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 1:604. (5) e. stein, Histoire du Bas–Empire, tr. j. r. palanque (Paris 1949–50) 2:381–388. r. janin, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:531. h. rahner, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 1:603. (6) k. krumbacher Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (Munich 1897) 110. s. salaville, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géograhpie ecclésiastiques 3:532. (7) r. janin Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 3:532–534.