Venerable Theophanes the Confessor of Sigriane, the Chronicler

St. Theophanes was born around 760 in Constantinople to Isaac, strategos of the Aegean Sea theme, and his wife Theodota. He served at the imperial court, rising to the rank of spatharios, and married Megalo, daughter of a patrician; by mutual agreement the couple preserved chastity in view of a future monastic calling. He founded a monastery on the island of Kalonymos in the Sea of Marmara, then another in the district of Sigriane in Asia Minor on his family estate, becoming its abbot. There he spent years copying manuscripts and, continuing the work of George Synkellos, composed the celebrated "Chronographia" — a chronicle of church and world history from 285 to 813, a vital source for Byzantine and early Islamic history. Under the iconoclast emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820), he refused to accept the heresy and was imprisoned for nearly two years, then exiled to the island of Samothrace, where he died only 23 days later, on 12 March 817 (some sources say 818).