Germanus
9. Of CONSTANTINOPLE, was bishop of Adrianople, and a friend of the emperor Michael Palaeologus, at whose solicitation he was elected patriarch of Constantinople by a synod held A. D. 1267. He unwillingly accepted the office; and resigned it within a few months, and retired to a monastery, in consequence of the opposition made to his appointment, either on the ground of some irregularity in his translation, or more probably of his holding the patriarchate, while his deposed predecessor, Arsenius, was living. He was a learned man, of mild disposition, polished manners, and irreproachable morals. He was afterwards one of the ambassadors of the emperor to the fourteenth General Council, that of Lyon (A. D. 1277), and there supported the union of the Greek and Latin churches. He does not appear to have left any writings, but the Decreta of Germanus II. of Constantinople, contained in the Jus Graeco-Romanum of Leunclavius, have been sometimes improperly ascribed to him. (Niceph. Gregor. Hist. Byzant. 4.5, 8; Georg. Phranza, Chronicon, 1.3; Fabr. Bibl. Gr. vol. xi. p. 170, &c., L'Art de Vérifier les Dates.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.