Saint Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople

Life

His predecessor, the Patriarch Paul, secretly abandoned the throne, departed to a monastery, and received the schema. Irene and Constantine were then ruling. At the counsel of Paul, Tarasius, a senator and imperial counselor, was elected patriarch in the year 783. He quickly passed through all the ecclesiastical ranks and became patriarch. A man of high learning and great zeal in the Orthodox faith, Tarasius accepted this office reluctantly, in order to aid in the victory of Orthodoxy over heresies, and especially over iconoclasm. Under him the Seventh Ecumenical Council was convened in Nicaea in the year 787, where iconoclasm was condemned and the veneration of holy icons was restored and confirmed. Tarasius was very merciful toward the destitute and the poor, creating shelters for them and giving them food. But toward the powerful he was resolute in the defense of the faith and of morality. When Emperor Constantine drove away his lawful wife Mary and took a certain kinswoman of his, living with her and demanding from the patriarch a blessing for the marriage, Tarasius not only refused him the blessing but first counseled him, then rebuked him, and at last excluded him from Holy Communion. Before his death he was seen answering the demons, saying: "I am not guilty of that sin! I am not guilty of that sin either!" until his tongue grew too weak, and he began to defend himself with his hands, driving them away from him. When he breathed his last, his face shone with a radiance like sunlight. This truly holy hierarch reposed in the year 806. He governed the Church for twenty-two years and four months.

From the Hymn of Praise

### THE RADIANT CREATOR