Isidore of Kiev

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His Eminence Isidore of Kiev
Latin Patriarch of Constantinople
Diocese	Constantinople
Installed	20 April 1458
Term ended	27 April 1463
Predecessor	Gregory Mammas
Successor	Basilios Bessarion
Other post(s)	Cardinal-bishop of Sabina
Orders
Consecration	1437
Created cardinal	18 December 1439
Rank	Cardinal bishop
Personal details
Born	1385 Monemvasia, Byzantine Greece, Byzantine Empire
Died	27 April 1463 Rome, Papal States
Nationality	Greek
Denomination	Roman Catholic (formerly Eastern Orthodox)
Previous post(s)	Metropolitan of Kiev (1433–1458) Cardinal-Priest of Santi Marcellino e Pietro (1439–1451) Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals (1450) Dean of the College of Cardinals (1461–1463) Administrator of Nicosia (1458–1463)
Coat of arms

Styles of Isidore of Kiev
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Sabina e Poggio Mirteto (suburbicarain)

Isidore of Kiev, also known as Isidore of Thessalonica or Isidore, the Apostate (Greek: Ἰσίδωρος τοῦ Κιέβου; Russian: Исидор; Ukrainian: Ісидор; 1385 – 27 April 1463), was a Byzantine Greek Metropolitan of Kiev, cardinal bishop, humanist, and theologian. He was one of the chief Eastern defenders of reunion at the time of the Council of Florence.^[1]

Early life[]

Isidore was born in southern Greece in circa 1385.^[1] He arrived at Constantinople, became a monk, and was there made hegumenos of the monastery of St Demetrius. He knew Latin well, and had considerable fame as a theologian. He was also an accomplished orator; he seems from the beginning to have been eager for reunion with the West.^{[citation needed]}

It was the time when the Court of Constantinople, on the eve of its final destruction by the Turks, was considering the chance of rescue from the Western princes as a result of reuniting with Rome. In 1434 Isidore was sent to Basel by John VIII Palaiologos (1425–1448) as part of an embassy to open negotiations with the Council of Basel. Here he made a mellifluous speech about the splendour of the Roman Empire at Constantinople. On his return he continued to take part in all the preparations for reunion among his own people.^{[citation needed]}

Metropolitan of Kiev[]

Isidore's Sluzebnik liturgical book

In 1437, Isidore was appointed Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' (seated in Moscow) by Emperor John VIII Palaeologus to draw the Russian Orthodox Church into communion with the Roman Catholic Church and secure Constantinople's protection against the invading Ottoman Turks. Grand Prince of the Grand Duchy of Moscow^{[a 1]} Vasili II (1425–62) met the new Metropolitan with suspicion. However, Isidore assured him that he would return from the ecumenical council without betraying the Orthodox faith.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

The large delegation of theologians and philosophers set out with a great following on 8 September 1437, travelled via Riga and Lübeck, and arrived at Ferrara on 15, August, 1438. On the way he offended his suite by his friendly conduct towards the Latins. At Ferrara and at Florence, where the council moved to in January, 1439, Isidore was one of the six chief speakers on the Byzantine side. Together with Bessarion he steadfastly worked for the union, and never swerved afterwards in his acceptance of it.^{[citation needed]}

After the council, Pope Eugene IV made him his legate for all Ruthenia and Lithuania. On his way back news reached Isidore, at Benevento, that he had been made Cardinal-Priest of the Title of St Peter and Marcellinus. This was one of the few cases at the time in which a person not of the Latin Rite was made a cardinal.^{[citation needed]}

From Buda, in March 1440, he published an encyclical calling on all Rus' bishops to accept the union, but when he at last arrived in Moscow (Easter, 1441), and proclaimed the union in the Kremlin church, he found that Vasily II and most of the bishops and people would have none of it. Then, at Vasily's command, six Rus' bishops met in a synod, deposed Isidore, and shut him up in prison.^{[citation needed]}

The Grand Duchy of Moscow^{[a 1]} princes denounced the union with Rome, but Isidore persisted. On his return from Italy, during his first Pontifical Divine Liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, Isidore had a Latin Rite crucifix carried in front of the procession and named Pope Eugene IV during the prayers of the liturgy. He also read aloud the decree of unification. Isidore passed a message to Vasili II from the Vatican, containing a request to assist the Metropolitan in spreading the Union in Rus'. Three days later, Isidore was arrested by the Grand Prince and imprisoned in the Chudov Monastery. He was denounced by certain Rus' clergymen, who were under pressure of Vasili II, for refusing to renounce the union with "heretical Rome".^{[citation needed]}

Exile[]

In September 1443, after two years of imprisonment, Metropolitan Isidor escaped to Tver, then to Lithuania and on to Rome. He was graciously received by the pope in 1443. Pope Nicholas V (1447–1455) sent him as legate to Constantinople to arrange the reunion there in 1452, and gave him two hundred soldiers to help the defence of the city. On 12 December of that year he was able to unite three hundred of the Byzantine clergy in a celebration of the short-lived reunion.^[2]

Before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 he subsidized the repair of fortifications at his own expense and he was wounded in the early hours of the sack. He managed to escape the carnage by dressing up a dead body in his cardinal's robes. While the Turks were cutting off its head and parading it through the streets, the real cardinal was shipped off to Asia Minor with a number of insignificant prisoners, as a slave and later found safety in Crete. He composed a series of letters describing the events of the siege. He warned of the danger of further expansion of the Turks in the multiple letters and even seems to be the earliest eyewitness to have compared Mehmed II with Alexander the Great.^[3][4]

Later he came back to Rome. Here he was made Bishop of Sabina, presumably adopting the Latin Rite. Pope Pius II (1458–64) later gave him two titles successively, those of Latin Patriarch of Constantinople and Archbishop of Cyprus, neither of which he could convert into real jurisdiction. He was Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals from October 1461.^{[citation needed]}

In popular media[]

Cardinal Isidore is portrayed by in 2012 film Fetih 1453. In the film, the Cardinal is depicted to be a prisoner after the fall of Constantinople.

He is played by Lex Gigeroff in the 2006 film The Conclave.

See also[]

• Greek scholars in the Renaissance

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Histories of the Council of Florence describe the adventures of Cardinal Isidore.
• Sergey F. Dezhnyuk, "Council of Florence: The Unrealized Union", 2017.ISBN 978-1543271942
• Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Paepste, I (3rd and 4th ed., Freiburg im Br., 1901), 585, etc., and his references.
• The Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXI, 1, contain two versions of the letter to Nicholas V (pp. 665–95, 696–702); see Krumbacher, Byzantinische Litteraturgeschichte (Munich, 1897), 311
• Strahl, Geschichte der russischen Kirche, I (Halle, 1830), 444
• Frommann, Kritische Beitraege zur Geschichte der Florentiner Kircheneinigung (Halle, 1872), 138 seq.
• Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, VII (Freiburg im Br., 1886), passim.
• Silvano, Luigi, "Per l'epistolario di Isidoro di Kiev: la lettera a papa Niccolò V del 6 luglio 1453", Medioevo Greco 13 (2013), 223–240 (edition of a letter to Pope Nicholas V)
• Silvano, Luigi, "Per l'epistolario di Isidoro di Kiev (II): la lettera al Doge Francesco Foscari dell'8 luglio 1453", Orientalia Christiana Periodica 84.1 (2018), 99–132 (edition of a letter to Doge Francesco Foscari).
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links[]

• Source
• Исидор (митрополит) in online Russian Biographical Dictionary (in Russian)