Patriarch Symeon I of Constantinople
| Symeon I | |
|---|---|
| Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople | |
| Church | Church of Constantinople |
| In office | autumn 1466 – end 1466 end 1471 – early 1475 April 1482 – autumn 1486 |
| Predecessor |
Mark II Dionysius I Maximus III |
| Successor |
Dionysius I Raphael I Nephon II |
Symeon I of Trebizond (Greek: Συμεών Α΄ o Τραπεζούντιος) was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople three times: for a short time in 1466, from 1471 to 1475 and from 1482 to 1486. In 1484 he presided over the Synod of Constantinople of 1484 which repudiated the Union of Florence.
Symeon was born between 1400 and 1420 to a noble family of the Empire of Trebizond. After Trebizond's fall to the Ottomans in 1461, all the nobles of the former empire were forced by Mehmed the Conqueror to move to Constantinople and Symeon too, who was already a monk, went to the capital. The Trapezuntine nobility formed a separate faction among the Greeks of the capital, led probably by the scholar and politician George Amiroutzes. This faction supported Symeon as its own candidate for the patriarchal throne against the faction led by lay archons such as the Great Chartophylax George Galesiotes and the Grand Ecclesiarch (i.e. Head Sacristan) Manuel, the future Patriarch Maximus III.
In autumn 1466 Symeon successfully obtained the throne after he presented the Ottoman government with 2000 pieces of gold, thus beginning a simoniac practice that marked the history of the Patriarchate of Constantinople for the following centuries. Here a new player made an entrance in disputing the patriarchal throne: Mara Branković, daughter of the Serbian Despot Đurađ Branković and one of the stepmothers of Mehmed II. Although Mara remained a lifelong Christian, she was quite influential with Mehmed. Mara was outraged by the simoniac action of Symeon, and she went to Constantinople to complain to Mehmed. In response to her requests, and to a donation by her of 2000 pieces of gold, the Sultan deposed Symeon and appointed to the Patriarchate the candidate of Mara, Dionysius I. Symeon retired for some years in a monastery near Stenimachos.
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