Hierarch
Saint (Hierarch) Aemilian of Cyzicus
† после 815
Also known as: Свт. Емилиан Кизический, Исп. Емилиан, епископ Кизический, Священноисповедник Емилиан Кизический, Emilian the Confessor
Bishop of Cyzicus and ninth-century confessor who defended the holy icons before the iconoclast emperor Leo V the Armenian and died in exile after 815.
St Aemilian was Bishop of Cyzicus, successor of Bishop Nicholas who had taken part in the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787; a lead seal of his survives. When Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820) revived iconoclasm, Aemilian defended the veneration of icons and the independence of the Church from the state.
On 24 December 814 he attended an audience at the palace together with Patriarch Nicephorus and the bishops Theophylact of Nicomedia, Michael of Synnada, Euthymius of Sardis and Joseph of Thessalonica, at which the emperor tried to open a debate on icons. According to his Life he was the first to answer firmly that such a question must be discussed and settled in the Church by clergy, not in the imperial palace.
After the deposition of Patriarch Nicephorus and the iconoclast council of 815 he was sent into exile, where he died as a confessor. The Synaxarion of Constantinople commemorates him on 8 August, and a canon to him was written by St Theophanes the Branded. The Russian Church keeps his memory on 8 August and 8 January.