An Imperfect Confessor: St. Paul the New of Constantinople (+784)

 

The holy Patriarch Paul IV, called the New, was from Cyprus. He was a reader in the Church, and shone both by his words and his virtuous acts when he was elected Patriarch against his will on the Second Sunday of the Fast in 780, after the see had long been empty because of the iconoclast heresy. Under pressure from the terrible Emperor Leo IV the Khazar, he had then to sign a document in which he declared that he would not venerate images. But the Emperor died soon after his consecration, and he retracted the undertaking. The heresy, however, continued to spread its venom; and as the Patriarch, being a sick man, felt himself powerless to resist it, he preferred to renounce his charge and retire to the Monastery of Florus; without, however, telling Empress Regent Irene (7 Aug.).

Informed at once of this, the ruler and her son Constantius VI went to the holy prelate to ask him why he had resigned. Blessed Paul, in tears, declared to them: ‘I should not have accepted the responsibility of being at the head of a Church that is out of Communion with the other episcopal thrones.’ Having left him with great sorrow and bitterness, the rulers sent him an embassy of patricians and members of the Senate, to try to persuade him to change his mind. He said to them very firmly: ‘If an Ecumenical Council is not summoned to rectify the error that is in our midst, there is no way of saving you.’ When they asked him why he had been willing to sign the libellous document of the heretic Emperor, he replied: ‘It is this that distresses me so much, and because of this I have decided to do penance, praying God not to punish me for having failed to preach the truth from fear of your folly.’ He fell asleep in peace two or three months later (784), calling forth great mourning in the palace and among the Orthodox, as he was admired by all for his virtue and piety. Through his exhortations and the firm resolution of the Empress, and of his successor Saint Tarasius (25 Feb.), preparations were begun for the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which was to re-establish the veneration of the holy icons (787).

 

Source: The Synaxarion of Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra, Vol. 6., August 30, pp. 660-661.