Nicholas the Mystic

ON S. NICHOLAS THE MYSTIC,

PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

A.D. 925.

Nicholas the Mystic, Patriarch of Constantinople (S.)

G. H.

[1] Of Leo the Wise or Philosopher the Emperor of Constantinople the Mystic had been S. Nicholas, that is, not only a Senator of his more secret council, but the eye or President of the Senate itself; and from this excellent Magistracy he was translated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Memory in the MS. calendars of the Greeks, and at last full of days and merits migrated to Christ, on this XV of May: on which day the deposition of the holy, or τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις, Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas is inscribed in the very ancient Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople, which is of the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus at Paris. Of the same Patriarch Nicholas the sacred memory on the same day is celebrated in the MS. Menaea of Milan of the Ambrosian library, marked with the letter O and number 148, and in one Menaea of the Duke of Savoy: but in the other it is referred to the following day XVI of May, as also in the Paris ones of Cardinal Mazarin. But on the day before or on the XIV day of May, in the MSS. of Dijon of Peter Francis Chifletius, S. Nicholas Patriarch of Constantinople is said to have rested in peace, and there is added this distich.

Ὁ Νικόλαος ἐκλιπὼν σκίαν βίου. Πρὸς ἄσκιον μετῆλθε φωτὸς χωρίον.

Nicholas leaving the shadow of the age, Was translated into the shadowless place of light.

[2] Among the wives, whom Leo the Wise successively married, the first was S. Theophano, Created Patriarch in the year 895. who is referred by the Greeks to the day XVI of December, the fourth was Zoë, whom in that dignity to have lived one year and eight months, Leo the Grammarian writes in the Chronography, calling this Zoë his aunt, so that no surer author of the notice asked concerning S. Nicholas can be had. S. Antony Cauleas the Patriarch therefore being dead, whose Acts we illustrated on the day XII of February, in his place Nicholas the Mystic of the Emperor was advanced in the year 895, whom believed to surpass others in wisdom and prudence Cedrenus says: but what then happened, Leo the Grammarian thus narrates on page 481. Taormina a city of Sicily was taken by the Africans, by the sloth or more truly the treason of Eustathius the Drungary of the fleet, and Caramalus, and also Michael Charactus, found there, very many of the Romans in that calamity being slain. Returned into the city by the Emperor and Patriarch reproved, and by Michael Charactus convicted of treason, they were condemned to death: but Nicholas the Patriarch interceding with the Emperor, For two guilty he obtains life: death was forgiven: and subjected only to stripes, their goods being confiscated, they were thrust among the monks. And on page 483, From Zoë, he says, his fourth wife Leo received a son Constantine, he baptizes Constantine the son of Leo the Emperor. who on the feast of the Lights by Nicholas the Patriarch in the great Church, the Emperor Alexander, the Patrician Samonas and all the Nobles receiving the boy from the font, was baptized … But that same Zoë the Emperor declared Augusta, whom on that account the Patriarch forbade the thresholds of the Church: so that thenceforth likewise by the right part of the Church, the wonted way being utterly left, even to the Mitatoricium he should pass through. Samonas then was advanced an Accubitor, because to every crime and depravity he afforded the Emperor a helping hand, and against the Church they began to meditate. he is sent into exile, For Nicholas the Patriarch being called to them on the first day of February, with prayers they insisted, that they be received into the Church. But when they could not bend him, from the public banquet, to which he had been called, cast out and led through the Bucoleon, and placed in a boat, they conveyed to Hieria: from which on foot to Galacrenes bedewed with much snow he came. In his place Euthymius the Syncellus a grave and most temperate man was substituted, whom they say by a divine revelation undertook that office. For the Emperor wished to set down a heresy and law, Cedrenus by which it should be lawful for a man to marry three or four wives, very many most learned men contributing aid to it. These things Leo treating of wives successively to be married, and Cedrenus consents, whose interpreter wrongly inserted "at the same time" three or four wives that it should be lawful to marry. Of that prohibition once brought forth consult the matrimonial questions of Matthew the monk, in book 8 of the first volume of Greco-Roman Law, and the things which Cardinal Baronius inserted into his Annals at the year nine hundred and one, where he alleges the constitution promulgated by this Emperor Leo, by which he prohibited a third marriage, that those contracting it should be punished with the penalty established by the sacred Canons. Meanwhile that same one, who sanctioned these things, after a third wife dead, still took a fourth. For which matter by Nicholas the Patriarch he was cast out of the Church, and all those tumults followed in his ejection and the substitution of Euthymius, that Church being divided with a schism, some adhering to Nicholas, but others to Euthymius. But how this fourfold marriage of Leo the Emperor in the succession of wives was, from the Preambles of Constantine Porphyrogenitus to the edict of union from book 2 of the Novels of Eastern Law he describes, and there it can be seen in volume 1 page 105. But let us rather hasten to the restoring of S. Nicholas to his See: to which leading us by the hand Leo the Grammarian relates writing thus.

[3] Leo being dead, Alexander reigning with Constantine, When the Emperor Leo, tossed by a grave disease, had designated as his successor his brother Alexander, and had besought that he should protect his son Constantine; he met his last day on the eleventh day of May: which day of death Cedrenus also assigns. The month of May only Zonaras indicates: but Curopalates Scylitzes says he departed life on the 11th of June. That year was nine hundred and eleven. Then, says Leo the Grammarian, Alexander reigned together with Constantine the son of Leo one year twenty-nine days: he is restored to his See. and a messenger being sent to Nicholas at Galacrenes, he deposed Euthymius the Patriarch, and restored Nicholas a second time. But Alexander held at Magnaura a Silentium, and celebrated a council, and summoned Euthymius from Agathus: and the same with Nicholas the Patriarch being bidden to sit, the assessors of the judgment were attentively occupied with his deposition, with disgrace plucking the venerable beard of the venerable and in all things admirable man, and inflicting other reproaches and injuries: which quietly and meekly the honorable and sacred man bore. After which at the house of Agathus having died, in his own monastery near Psamathium he was deposited… The Emperor Alexander foreseeing himself to die, With others he is constituted Procurator of the Emperor Constantine, Nicholas the Patriarch, and Stephen the Magister, and John the Magister Elada, and John the Rector, and Euthymius, and Basilitzes, and Gabrielopulus being instituted Procurators, to Constantine the son of Leo left the Empire… He therefore having attained the power of the Palace, Nicholas the Patriarch provided for the common affairs, and bore the care of the daily business of the kingdom…

[4] But in the month of August Simeon Prince of Bulgaria, an army being prepared against the Romans, with a grave multitude came to Constantinople; and a rampart from Blachernae to the gate called Chryse being drawn around, besieged the City: and elated on high by other hopes of his, promised that he would subdue it altogether with no labor. But the defenses of the walls being proved against him, and the security and garrison of the City, from the abundance of people and the engines, being beheld, deceived in hope, to the place called Hebdomum to offer treaties of peace he returned. The Procurators gladly accepting the offered peace, he is reverently received by Simeon Prince of Bulgaria, Simeon sent Theodore the Magister to treat of it. But Nicholas the Patriarch, Stephen and John the Magister, the Emperor being led with them, going even to Blachernae, brought the twin sons of Simeon into the City, who in the Palaces together with the Emperor banqueted. But to Nicholas the Patriarch approaching Simeon, Simeon himself bent his head. The Patriarch therefore about to pour forth a prayer over him, in place of a Diadem placed his own head-covering on his head. With immense and the greatest gifts therefore received Simeon and his sons returned to their native land, discordant among themselves on account of the conditions of the aforesaid peace…

[5] Constantine the Emperor declared all the power of the Empire recalled from his mother and translated to himself, he dwells in the Palace, and commanded Nicholas the Patriarch, and Stephen the Magister to be present with him in the Palace… The Emperor and Patriarch ordered John Garidas called to them to be Domestic of the Schools, fearing lest Phocas should fall into rebellion… But Nicetas the Patrician, the father-in-law of Romanus, having gone into the Palace, cast Nicholas the Patriarch thence… But in the fifth week of the sacred fasts, he is present at the nuptials of Constantine. in the month of April, the marriage-pledge of the nuptial contract of Helena the daughter of Romanus is delivered by Constantine the Emperor, and on the third weekday of Easter, called of Galilee, it is blessed, and with her with the nuptial garlands he is crowned by Nicholas the Patriarch: and then Romanus is declared father of the Emperor, and in place of Romanus Christopher his son is instituted Hetaeriarches… he crowns Romanus Lecapenus Emperor: But on the twenty-fourth of the month of September, with the dignity of Caesar; but on the seventeenth of the month of December, on the feast of the Forefathers of Christ the Lord, with the diadem of the Empire by Constantine the Emperor and Nicholas the Patriarch Romanus is adorned: then on the day of the holy Lights he crowns Theodora his wife. Soon on the seventeenth day of the month of May in the fifth Indiction Christopher the son of Romanus is proclaimed Emperor, and on the twentieth of the same month on the feast of holy Pentecost is crowned by Constantine: and these two alone in the solemn procession of the same day went through the city. Moreover in the month of July in the eighth Indiction, on the Lord's day, the concord of the whole Church was entered into by Romanus, all the Metropolitans and Clerics, who from the divided sides of Nicholas and Euthymius had stood with divided minds, returning to consent…

[6] But in the month of September in the second Indiction, Simeon Prince of Bulgaria, all his forces being led out against Constantinople, prepares an expedition. Thence Thrace and Macedonia he depopulates, scatters fires everywhere, again he goes to the Prince of the Bulgarians, overturns all things, and even to the trees cuts them down. Conveyed besides to Blachernae, he demanded that Nicholas the Patriarch and certain of the Nobles, that they might confer of peace, be sent to him. Hostages therefore being given on each part they met, first indeed Nicholas the Patriarch, then Michael the Patrician Stypiotes, and John the Mystic, who from the Emperor held the second place. And these indeed had a treaty of peace with Simeon: but Simeon sent them back: but he himself desired to see the Emperor, by many of his prudence, fortitude and skill being made more certain… then the Emperor being led to him The Emperor together with the Patriarch Nicholas going to Blachernae and the holy little shrine, stretched out his hands to prayers: then falling prone to the earth, he watered the sacred pavement with tears; beseeching the Mother of God free from stain, that she would soften the inflexible and rigid heart of the proud Simeon, and inspire the things that are of peace: and the sacred little chest, in which the venerable robe of the holy Mother of God is reposited, being opened, that being taken thence, from the faith in which toward the immaculate Mother of God he was powerful, like a helmet putting it around his head the Emperor, fortified with most firm arms, the fleet a companion of the way, with shields and arms adorned, to the appointed place with Simeon to treat went… he conciliates peace, Simeon leaping down from his horse approached the Emperor, and a greeting being given to each other, they moved the treaty of peace… Simeon wondering at the moderation and speeches of the Emperor with reverence, agreed that peace be composed. When therefore they had bidden farewell to one another, they were mutually separated…

[7] But on the twenty-fifth day of the month of December, Romanus girded his sons Stephen and Constantine with the crown of the Empire: but also the Patriarch tonsured Theophylactus his son a Cleric, and ordained him Subdeacon, and at last promoted him Syncellus, when before to the holy Entrance with the Subdeacons enrolled he had proceeded… he dies May 15 But on the fifteenth day of the month of May in the third Indiction Nicholas the Patriarch met death, after the second proclamation having possessed the throne thirteen years: and his body in the monastery of Galacrenes founded by him was deposited.

[8] Thus far Leo the Grammarian, a coeval author and an eye-witness in his Chronography, which by the Indictions wrongly defined some uncareful amanuensis disturbed. For as before on page 497 line 7 was read the nineteenth Indiction when only the ninth was to be placed, so in the now transcribed the same ninth Indiction is wrongly called the fifth, namely in the year 921, in which Christopher the son of Romanus Lecapenus on the XX day of May on the feast of Pentecost was crowned Emperor. In that year namely with the Cycle of the Moon 10, of the Sun 6, with the Dominical letter G, Easter was celebrated on the very Kalends of April, and the feast of Pentecost on the said XX of May. By the same error then the eighth Indiction for the tenth, the second for the eleventh, and the third for the thirteenth is noted, and so in the Continuator the IX Indiction to be read Combefis observes in the Notes. S. Nicholas therefore died on the XV of May of the year 925. in the year 925. But he was restored to his See by Alexander the Emperor, in the year 911 or the beginning of the following. For he reigned only one year and twenty-nine days: and so this second time S. Nicholas presided over the Church thirteen years. The same Nicholas was called the Elder, or the first of that name, with respect to those who afterward succeeded, and they were Nicholas Chrysoberges under Basil the son of Romanus Lecapenus after the year 980; and Nicholas the Grammarian, under Alexius Comnenus the elder in the XII century: but there is extant in volume 1 of Greco-Roman Law book 4 among the Synodal Sentences a Constitution under the title of Nicholas the Elder, that the Patriarchal letters be granted gratis to those asking them, as there on page 249 it can be read.

* The monastery of Galacrenes founded by himself.

* nay the ninth

* read X

* read XI

* read XIII