Hierarch Photius the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople

Saint Photius the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople (c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), was the towering Byzantine scholar-churchman of the ninth century. Born into a prominent Constantinopolitan family, he held high imperial office as protasekretis before being elevated as a layman, rushed through all clerical ranks, to the patriarchal throne in 858 after the deposition of Patriarch Ignatius. He occupied the see twice (858–867 and 877–886), and became the central figure of the "Photian Schism" with Rome, a dispute with Pope Nicholas I over jurisdiction in Bulgaria and over the Filioque, which Photius condemned as heresy. He is best remembered for the Bibliotheca (Myriobiblion), a vast compendium of summaries of 280 classical and early Christian works, many surviving today only through his epitomes. He died in exile on 6 February 893 and was canonized as a Holy Hierarch; feast 6/19 February. Distinct from Photius, Metropolitan of Kiev (d. 1431), already catalogued separately as photius_of_kiev.