Gregory III. Moms

Gregory III. (* unknown in Crete ; † 1459 in Rome ; also Gregor (ios) Melissenos , nickname he mamme , sometimes also (probably incorrectly) ho mammas ) was patriarch of Constantinople .

Gregor was closely associated with Loukas Notaras in childhood and youth . Around 1420 he became a priest monk in Constantinople. In 1438/39 he took part in the Council of Ferrara-Florence as a representative of the absent Patriarch of Alexandria and counselor to Emperor John VIII. From that in Ferrara he became the grand protosync of the Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph II († June 10, 1439 in Florence ) appointed. It was not until two years after the death of Joseph's successor Metrophanes II (1440-1443) that Gregory himself was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople in 1445 .

As a signatory and defender of the union with the Western Church , which was concluded in Florence in 1439 , he had to face the broad resistance of opponents of the union in Constantinople, also by writing relevant writings. Apparently without notice, he left the city in August 1450 and came to Rome via the Peloponnese in 1452. In exile there, he officiated as the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople until his death in 1459, was diplomatically active for Byzantium and continued to ordain bishops, for example of the Metropolitan Neilos of Rhodes (1455) and the Constantinople Abbot Gregorios (Grigory II Bolgarinovich) as Metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania (1458).

In the Ottoman occupied Constantinople, Gregorios III. 1454 replaced by the Union opponent Georgios Scholarios (as patriarch: Gennadios II); in Rome, Isidore of Kiev succeeded him as the Greek Catholic Patriarch of Constantinople.

Works

• Jacques Paul Migne (ed.): Patrologiae cursus completus / Series Graeca. 167 vols. Paris 1857-1866. Vol. 160 (1860), 13-248. (CD-ROM 2004 ISBN 2-915937-01-x online resource ( national license ))
  • Apologia contra Marci Ephesii Confessionem. (PG 160, 13-110);
  • Responsio ad epistolam Marci Ephesii (PG 160, 111-204);
  • Ad Imperatorem Trapezuntinum de additione facta in Symbolo per Latinos (PG 160, 205-248).

literature

• Carmelo Capizzi: Gregorios III. In: LThK ³ Vol. 4, Col. 1002-1003;
• Joseph Gill : The Council of Florence. London: Cambridge Univ. Pr. 1959 (transl .: French 1964, Italian 1967);
• Joseph Gill: Personalities of the Council of Florence and other essays. Oxford: Blackwell 1964;
• Claudia Sojer: Curricula bio-bibliografici degli autori selezionati da Allacci per la 'Graecia Orthodoxa' . In: Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottferrata III s. 7 (2010) 225f.
• Jonathan Harris: The Patriarch of Constantinople and the last days of Byzantium . In: Christian host [u. a.]: The Patriarchate of Constantinople in Context and Comparison (Publications on Byzanzforschung 41). VÖAW, Vienna 2017, 9-16.

Web links

• Short biography on the website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Greek)

predecessor	Office	successor
Metrophanes II.	Patriarch of Constantinople 1443–1459	Isidore of Kiev ; Gennadios Scholarios