JOHN X CAMATEROS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Episcopate: Aug. 5, 1198 to April or May 1206. As chartophylax John was already highly placed in the patriarchal chancery before his accession to patriarch. He was respected for his knowledge of classical literature and proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric. His two letters to Pope Innocent III, written early in his patriarchate (1199 and 1200), focus primarily on the Roman primacy and more briefly on the filioque; they constitute an important addition to the Byzantine Orthodox view that the papal claims to universal primacy were ecclesiastically indefensible.

Rome's primacy, according to the patriarch, was always understood in regional terms and was based historically on the city's political importance as the capital of the empire, rather than on St. Peter. In terms of its relationship to the other churches and patriarchates, Rome was in effect "first in rank as among sisters of equal honor." As we should expect, John's subsequent alleged submission to Innocent (based on the evidence of western sources) is unlikely, given his earlier exegesis of primacy.

The most important of John's synodal decisions concerned the teaching of Michael Glycas who had earlier written against the incorruptibility of the Eucharistic elements. The synod responded by censuring Glycas posthumously and by repeating the anathema issued by the Church in 1157 on a related Eucharistic controversy. The patriarch's literary output was otherwise modest. A response to several dogmatic questions posed by Narses of Lampron survives as well as a homily on the feast of the Epiphany and three treatises on the procession of the Holy Spirit, addressed in part to Hugh Etherianus of Pisa.

John lived to see the latinization of his church and the dismemberment of the Byzantine Empire by the fourth crusade (April 1204). Theodore I Lascaris, the imperial successor to the Angeli, urged him to join his government at Nicaea but he refused. He died a refugee-exile at Didymoteichon (June 1206).

Bibliography: f.r. gahbauer, Die Pentarchietheorie im Zeitalter des Grossen Schismas (Frankfurt am Main 1993) 199–208. v. grumel et. al., Les regestes des Actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 8 fascicules (Paris, 1932–79) fasc.3, nos.1193–1204. a. papadakis and a. talbot, "John X Camaterus Confronts Innocent III: An Unpublished Correspondence, " Byzantinoslavica 33 (1972) 26–41. j. spiteris, La Critica Byzantina del Primato Romano nel secolo XII (Rome 1979) 248–399, 324–331.

[a. papadakis]