Photius
Photios I (c.
810–893), also known as Photius or Fotios, served as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople twice: 858–867 and 877–886.
Venerated as St. Photios the Great in Eastern Orthodoxy, he is considered the most influential Patriarch since John Chrysostom and the foremost intellectual of his era.
Born into a noble Constantinopolitan family, he was a scholar and statesman rather than a monk.
A central figure in the Christianization of the Slavs, he became embroiled in the Photian Schism, a pivotal conflict marking the fracturing of unity between Eastern and Western Christianity.
