Saint Theophylact, Bishop of Nicomedia

Life

When the first imperial counselor Tarasius was elected Patriarch of Constantinople as a layman, several of his friends and admirers from the lay estate received the monastic rank together with him and through him. Among these was this Theophylact. Tarasius sent him as bishop to Nicomedia. As bishop, Theophylact was a good shepherd to his rational flock and proved himself to be filled with an extraordinary compassion toward the poor and destitute. After the death of Saint Tarasius, Nicephorus occupied the patriarchal throne in Constantinople, and shortly afterward Leo the Armenian occupied the imperial throne. He was an iconoclast, and as such stirred up a great storm in the Church of Christ. Although the iconoclast heresy had been anathematized at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, this emperor nonetheless revived it and sought to substitute it for Orthodoxy. Saint Theophylact opposed the emperor to his face, and when the emperor would not relent, Theophylact said to him: "There will come upon thee, O Emperor, a fierce destruction suddenly, and thou shalt find no one to deliver thee from it!" For these words Saint Theophylact was removed from his position by imperial decree and sent into exile, where he spent thirty years enduring many hardships and insults, and where he at last gave his soul to the Lord, around the year 845.

From the Hymn of Praise

### THE EXILE OF ADAM