Saint Nicholas Mysticus, Patriarch of Constantinople

Life

He became renowned for his extraordinary strictness of life. Emperor Leo married for the fourth time, for which the patriarch forbade him entry into the church and defrocked the priest who had performed the wedding. For this the emperor deposed the patriarch and drove him into a monastery. The delegates of Pope Sergius III approved the emperor's fourth marriage. But when the emperor died, Nicholas returned to the patriarchal throne and convened a council in the year 925, at which a fourth marriage was generally forbidden to Christians. He reposed in the year 930. "Mysticus" denotes the senior member of the imperial council. This saint, therefore, was first a courtier of high rank, and afterward he left the vanity of the world and was tonsured as a monk. He ended his life peacefully in 930.