Benjamin I.

Benjamin I. (Christodoulou) (born January 18, 1871 in Edremit ; † February 17, 1946 ) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 1936 to 1946 and honorary head of Orthodox Christianity.

As Metropolitan of Hereklia (Eregli) he was elected by the Holy Synod in January 1936 to succeed the late Patriarch Photios II . His defeated opponent Maximos Vaportzis , favored by the Greek government, was to succeed him as Patriarch Maximos V in 1946. Benjamin I was the first Patriarch of Constantinople to receive an official papal representative in the person of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII), who was a Vatican diplomat in Turkey during the Second World War. In his pontificate u. a. the award of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Albania. The Orthodox Church of Poland withdrew under pressure from the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the parts of the country occupied by the Soviet Union after the Hitler-Stalin Pact .

In 1941 a devastating fire destroyed the seat of the Patriarch in Phanar on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, which could only be rebuilt under Patriarch Demetrius I (1972–1991).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Fernau: Between Constantinople and Moscow: Orthodox Church Policy in the Middle East 1967–1975 . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-32-286470-3 , p. 23
2. ↑ Bartholomeos I : Speech by Patriarch Bartholomew on the occasion of the canonization of Pope John XXIII. (PDF) October 10, 2014, p. 4 , accessed January 31, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Stalin and the princes of the church. In: The time . November 11, 1948, accessed January 31, 2016 . 
4. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Fernau: Between Constantinople and Moscow: Orthodox Church Policy in the Middle East 1967–1975 . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-32-286470-3 , p. 39

predecessor	Office	successor
Photios II.	Patriarch of Constantinople 1936–1946	Maximos V.