TRYPHON OF CONSTANTINOPLE

On May 2, the Church honors the memory of St. Tryphon of Constantinople (+933). The saint was a patriarch and was revered by the church people. Evidence of this, taking into account the circumstances of that time, is the very appearance of his name in the calendar. Unfortunately, these days Tryphon is a forgotten saint and a forgotten patriarch. Tryphon’s patriarchate lasted almost four years. Secular historians characterize it as “colorless” and “weak.” But God, according to the Apostle, chooses “things that mean nothing” (1 Cor. 1:28).

Before his election as Patriarch, Tryphon was a monk in one of the monasteries of Constantinople or Asia Minor. After the death of the previous Patriarch Stephen II on July 18, 927, the see of the archbishops of Constantinople was widowed for five months. Tryphon was loved by the church people for his piety and righteousness, which those in power did not fail to take advantage of - no matter how inappropriate and paradoxical it may sound.

The fact is that the ruling Emperor Romanus I Lekapinus (920–944) was preparing to “transfer” the patriarchal throne to his youngest, fourth son. However, the youth Theophylact, the name of the “heir” to the Ecumenical Throne, was still a minor. Ironically, in the person of the ascetic and the “little prince”, at that moment two names seemed to oppose each other: Theophylact - translated as “protected by God”, and Tryphon, literally: “gentle, pampered, spending his life in luxury.” This is exactly what their names meant, but in reality, everything was the opposite. The ruling circles wanted the ascetic Tryphon to soon give way to the favorite of the throne, Theophylact.

For this purpose, before the enthronement of the new patriarch, the authorities introduced a separate ritual: those elevated to the sacred degree were offered a scroll, on which the recipient had to put his signature as proof of his own literacy. “Tryphon, by the grace of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch,” wrote Tryphon. It was stated that the sole purpose of this was to obtain a signature as proof of the candidate’s literacy.

In fact, they needed the signature to write a further text in which the future Patriarch would promise his abdication from the seat as soon as, in 931, Prince Theophylact reached his majority. This was the time after the victory over iconoclasm, when monks in the Church, due to their enormous contribution to the fight against the defeated heresy, had a special position. The Patriarch himself, undoubtedly, had to be literate. Therefore, in the context of time and circumstances, such a new “sacred act of signature” within the framework of the rite of installation was not perceived as something extraordinary.

If the patriarch himself or his supporters subsequently objected, saying that the document, apart from the signature, had no content, the court casuists could say that the patriarch was one of the simple monks. Therefore, having signed, he could not read the further text, thereby hiding his illiteracy. Thus, the position of his opponents was win-win. As a result, he was forced to “renounce” the patriarchate, that is, he was simply deposed and sent to the very monastery in which he had previously labored.

However, the Roman Bishop Nicholas I (820–867) refused to recognize the election of Theophylact, since the latter, being 13 years old, was too young (the age of majority was then considered fourteen). But, most importantly, Theophylact ascended the throne of the archbishops of Constantinople under the living Patriarch Tryphon. It turned out that, after his abdication, Constantinople became a dowager diocese for two years. But it seemed that the circumstances themselves helped Theophylact. In 933, a year after his abdication, the deposed Tryphon suddenly died in the monastery.

Then Theophylact was able to become a patriarch. He loved the external side of worship, into which, according to contemporaries, he introduced “theatrical elements” that the ascetics did not like. We don’t know what these ‘elements’ were. In addition to worship, Theophylact was very fond of horses. To such an extent that he once interrupted the celebration of the eucharist in order to be present at the birth of his beloved mare. He lived a long, prosperous and hectic life, and was close to dying, in the words of the Book of Genesis about the death of biblical characters, “filled with days” (cf. Gen. 25:8).

As a result, Theophylact remained the only legitimate son of Emperor Roman who survived his father. In 944, Romanus was overthrown by his own sons. But the people did not accept their rule and soon all three, the deposed emperor and his two sons… were sent by force to the monastery. Theophylact crowned Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (+959), who had displaced them, as Emperor. A decade after the resignation of his father Romanus, in 955, Theophylact died in a fall from a horse. “Fly down to the great Last Supper of God, to devour the carcasses of the mighty, the carcasses of horses and those who sit on them,” the Lord Jesus proclaims to the birds of prey in the Apocalypse (Rev. 19:17-18). It might have seemed to contemporaries that Theophylact was comprehended by precisely this divine prophecy.