$70. THE PATRIARCH AND THE POPE. 315
he either kept silence, or answered in the words of Christ before Caiaphas and Pilate. In the tenth and last session, attended by the elnperor and his sons, and one hundred and two bishops, the decrees of the pope against Photius and in favor of Ignatius were confirmed, and the anathemas against the Monothelites and Iconoclasts renewed. The papal delegates signed " with reser vation of the revision of the pope.7'
But the peace was artificial, and broken up again immediately after the Synod by the Bulgarian question, which involved the political as well as the ecclesiastical power of Constantinople. Ignatius himself was unwilling to surrender that point, and refused to obey when the imperious Pope John VIII. com manded, on pain of suspension and excommunication, that he should recall all the Greek bishops and priests from Bul garia. But death freed him from further controversy (Oct. 23, 877).
Photius was restored to the patriarchal see three days after the death of Ignatius, with whom he had been reconciled. He convened a council in November, 879, which lasted till March, 880, and is acknowledged by the Orientals as the Eighth (Ecumenical Council,1 but denounced by the Latins as the Pscudo- Synod us Photiana. It was three times as large as the Council of Ignatius, and held with great pomp in St. Sophia under the presidency of Photius. It annulled the Council of 8G9 as a fraud ; it rcadopted the Nicene Creed with an anathema against the Filioquc, and all other changes by addition or omission, and it closed with a eulogy on the unrivalled virtues and learning of Photius. To the Greek acts was afterwards added a (pretended) letter of Pope John VIII. to Photius, declaring the FUioque to be an addition which is rejected by the church of Rome, and a blasphemy which must be abolished calmly and by degrees.2 The papal legates assented to all, and
1 Strictly speaking, however, the Orthodox Eastern Church counts only seven (Ecumenical Councils.
8 The Roman Catholic historians regard this letter as a Greek fraud. " Ich
316 FOUETH PEEIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
so deceived their master by false accounts of the surrender of Bulgaria that he thanked the emperor for the service he had done to the Church by this synod.
But when the pope's eyes were opened, he sent the bishop Marinus to Constantinople to declare invalid what the legates had done contrary to his instructions. For this Marinus was shut up in prison for thirty days. After his return Pope John VIII. solemnly pronounced the anathema on Photius, who had dared to deceive and degrade the holy see, and had added new frauds to the old. Marinus renewed the anathema after he was elected pope (882). Photius denied the validity of his election, and developed an extraordinary literary activity.
But after the death of the Emperor Basilius (886), he was again deposed by Leo VI., miscalled the Wise or the Philoso pher, to make room for his youngest brother Stephen, at that time only sixteen years of age. Photius spent the last five years of his life in a cloister, and died 891. For learning, energy, position, and influence, he is one of the most remarkable men in the history of Eastern Christianity. He formulated the doctrinal basis of the schism, checked the papal despotism, and secured the independence of the Greek church. He announced in an Encyclical of 866 : " God be praised for all time to come ! The Russians have received a bishop, and show a lively zeal for Christian worship." Roman writers have declared this to be a lie, but history has proved it to be an anticipation of an important fact, the conversion of a new nation which was to become the chief support of the Eastern church, and the most formidable rival of the papacy.
Greek and Roman historians are apt to trace the guilt of the schism exclusively to one party, and to charge the other with unholy ambition and intrigue ; but we must acknowledge on
kann nicht glauben" says Hefele (IV. 482), "dassje ein Papst seine Stellung so sehr vergessen habe, wie es Johann VIII. gethan haben musste, wenn dieser Brief dcht ware. Es ist in demselben auch keine Spur des Papalbewusstseins, vielmehr ist die Superioritdt des Photius fast ausdriicklich anerkannt."