St Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople.

Commemorated May 12 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

He was the son of the head of the imperial senate, who was killed by the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus. This same wicked Emperor castrated the senator's son, this Germanus, and drove him by force into a monastery . As a monk, Germanus shone like a star by his life of good works. Because of this, he was chosen first as Bishop of Cyzicus and then, when Anastasius 11 became Emperor in 715, as Patriarch of Constantinople. As Patriarch, he baptised the infamous Copronymos who, at the time of his baptism, fouled the water with filth, and the Patriarch prophesied that, when he became Emperor, he would bring some foul heresy into the Church. And this came to pass. When Copronymos became Emperor, he restored the iconoclast heresy. Leo 11 the Isaurian, Copronymos's father, began the persecution of icons and, when Patriarch Germanus opposed him, the furious Leo cried: 'I am Emperor and priest!', then deposed Germanus from his throne and sent him into exile to a monastery, where the saint spent ten further years until God called him to Himself in the Kingdom of heaven, in 740.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK