Stylianos of Neocaesarea
STYLIANOS OF NEOCAESAREA
Ninth-century Byzantine archbishop. One of the most bitter opponents of the Patriarch photius, Stylianos, also known as Mapas, refused to recognize Photius as legitimate patriarch even after the latter's reconciliation with Rome in the Union Council (879–880). He denied the validity of ordinations made by Photius and tried to justify his intransigent position in two letters addressed to Pope stephen v that are preserved, in a biased form, in the anti-Photianist collection. After the abdication of Photius (886), Stylianos refused to accept the new patriarch Stephen, brother of the Emperor leo vi, because he had been ordained a deacon by Photius. He abandoned the obstinately schismatic "Little Church" probably in 899, as is learned from a letter addressed to him by Pope john ix. The compiler of the anti-Photianist collection who preserved this correspondence and interpreted it in his own way, reproached Stylianos for "straying from the path of truth." Stylianos is the author of a short treatise on the Holy Trinity.
Bibliography: b. de montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana (Paris 1715) 88–90, Holy Trinity. j. d. mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Graz 1960–) 16:425–442, correspondence with Rome. f. dvornik, The Photian Schism (Cambridge, Eng. 1948); The Patriarch Photius in the Light of Recent Research (Munich 1958).
[f. dvornik]