SERGIUS II, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Reigned June 1001 to July 1019; d. Constantinople. Sergius belonged to the family of photius, and became a monk and hegoumenos, or abbot, of the Monastery of Manuel. He received a synodical letter from Pope sergius iv (1009–12) upon the latter's election; according to later tradition, because of the pope's use of the term filioque, Sergius excommunicated him, removing his name from the diptychs. This action was first cited by Cerularius after 1054, and is repeated thereafter in numerous theological tracts against the Latins.

In asserting the right of the patriarch to decree public honors for a saint, Sergius condemned symeon the new theologian to banishment when he attempted to organize public veneration for his deceased master Symeon Eulabes, the Elder. The patriarch had permitted a private cult after reading the justifying reasons, but had forbidden all festivity. Sergius supported the great landowners against Emperor Basil II in the matter of the allelengyon, or collective responsibility, for the payment of taxes by the community when, to preserve the peasantry, Basil put the burden of furnishing taxes for the impoverished on the dynatoi, the powerful. However, in 1016, he accepted the charistikion, whereby monasteries were deeded to lay people or to other monasteries, which was opposed by his predecessor sisinnius ii. Sergius asserted his right to the title Ecumenical Patriarch. His synodal tome on the profane alienation of monastic property and his canonical decisions on marriage have been preserved.

Bibliography: Patrologia Graeca ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1857–66) 119:741. t. niggl, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiberg 1957–65) 9:687. v. laurent, Échos d'Orient 33 (1934) 301–305; 35 (1936) 73–75. a. michel, Humbert und Kerullarios (Paderborn 1924–30) 1:1629; 2:17–24; Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumsckunde und für Kirchengeschichte 41 (1933) 133–137; 141–147; Historisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft 70 (1951) 53–55. j. darrouzÈs, Les Regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople, ed. v. grumel, v.1, fasc. II–III (Paris 1989) 815–25. v. grumel, Revue des études byzantines 10 (1952) 5–23. h. g. beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich 1959) 94, 136, 274, 599. j. koder, "Normale Mönche und Enthusiasten: der Fall des Symeon Neos theologos" in Religiöse Devianz, ed. d. simon (Frankfurt am Main 1990) 97–119. j. p. thomas, Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire (Washington, D.C.1987) 155, 164–5, 217, 228, 233.

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