Isaias of Constantinople

Isaias of Constantinople
Isaias of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
	Isaias and Theognostus of Kiev
Church	Church of Constantinople
In office	11 November 1323 – 13 May 1332
Predecessor	Gerasimus I of Constantinople
Successor	John XIV of Constantinople
Personal details
Born	?
Died	13 May 1332

Isaias (sometimes spelled Esaias, Jeaias or Jesaias;^[1] Greek: Ἠσαΐας; died 13 May 1332) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1323 to 1332.

The Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos had Isaias confined to the monastery section of the Magnaura school in Constantinople in 1327, possibly due to the Patriarch's support for the emperor's grandson, Andronikos III Palaiologos during the civil war of 1321–1328. Upon the overthrow of Andronikos II by his grandson on 23/14 May 1328, a delegation was sent to the monastery to retrieve Isaias. On his way back to the palace, Isaias was escorted not by the usual ecclesiastics, but by a troupe of musicians, dancing girls and comedians, one of whom had him so helpless with laughter that he almost fell off his horse.^[2]

References

^ G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, Rutgers University, 1969, p. 586.
^ J. J. Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, Alfred A. Knopf Pub., 1997, p. 338.