GERMANUS II, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

1222 to 1240; b. Anaplai (Propontis), c. 1175; d. Constantinople, 1240. As a deacon of hagia sophia, he took refuge in the monastery of St. George of Achyranus during the Latin siege of Constantinople in 1204. The Emperor john iii Ducas Vatatzes had him elected patriarch in 1222. Following the fall of Constantinople to the Latins (1204) the Byzantine Empire was in danger of being split into many independent principalities; that fate threatened the Byzantine Church. Germanus attempted to prevent such schisms, and wrote to Pope gregory ix with a view toward union of the Churches. At the instigation of the emperor, he received envoys from Rome at Nicaea in 1231, but soon concluded to the impossibility of an understanding. In Cyprus he favored the conciliating attitude of Archbishop Neophytus, which caused difficulties between 1229 and 1231. He recognized the title of patriarch of the Bulgarians assumed by the archbishop of Trnovo in 1235, but would not concede that the Bulgarian Church should become autocephalous. He worked for reunion with the Armenians, but his death prevented a successful conclusion. He was buried in the monastery of Kyriotissa in Nicaea. Of his writings, many still unedited, those dealing with the azymes, purgatory, and the filioque display an anti-Latin feeling; but his letters and homilies testify to his zeal and pastoral care; and he may have been the author of some poetry.

Bibliography: germanus II, Homiliae, Patrologia Graeca, ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1857–66) 140:621–751; Orationes, ibid. 98:221–384. k. baus, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 4:754–755. j. a. frabricius and c. c. harles, Bibliotheca Graeca, 12 v. (4th ed. Hamburg 1790–1809) 9:162. m. roncaglia, Les Frères mineurs et l'Église orthodoxe au XIII ^e siècle (Cairo 1954). d. m. nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford 1957).

[p. joannou]