Hierarch
Saint (Hierarch) Michael the Confessor, Bishop of Synnada
ок. 750 — 826 (в церковном месяцеслове — † ок. 821)
Also known as: Свт. Михаил исповедник, еп. Синадский, Прп. Михаил исповедник, епископ Синадский (Фригийский), Михаил Синадский, Михаил Исповедник
Bishop of Synnada in Phrygia and participant in the Seventh Ecumenical Council, exiled by the iconoclast emperor Leo V the Armenian to Eudokias for defending the veneration of icons; he died there in exile.
Michael became a monk in his youth and was sent by Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople (784–806) to a monastery the patriarch had founded, together with St Theophylact, later Bishop of Nicomedia. Tarasius consecrated Michael Bishop of Synnada in Phrygia, and in 787 he took part in the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea. Historians identify him with the Bishop Michael who led Byzantine embassies to Charlemagne.
When Emperor Leo V the Armenian revived iconoclasm, Michael, with Patriarch Nicephorus and other bishops, firmly defended the veneration of icons. He refused to remove icons from churches and was exiled to Eudokias, where he died; the Church calendar gives the year as about 821, scholarly sources 826. He is praised in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy; according to hagiographic sources, his head is kept at the Great Lavra of St Athanasius on Mount Athos. He is commemorated on 23 May (5 June).