Theoktistos

Theoktistos was a high Byzantine official of the first half of the ninth century, known for his administrative and political skill, for his part in ending iconoclasm and for the renewal of education in the Empire. He was killed on 20 November 855, and the Church commemorates him on that day as a confessor.

He was a secret venerator of icons until the death of the last iconoclast emperor, Theophilos, in 842. In 843 he urged Empress Theodora to restore the veneration of icons officially, ending the second period of iconoclasm. After the election of Patriarch Methodius I a synod was held at Constantinople which condemned iconoclasm, an event remembered as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. The same year he called his nephews Cyril and Methodius to the capital to study, and set Methodius over a Slavic region. He is credited with a far-⁠reaching educational programme and with founding the University of the Magnaura. After long intrigues around the imperial family he was killed, on the orders of the patrician Bardas, brother of Empress Theodora, and with the consent of the young Emperor Michael III. He held the office of kanikleios, keeper of the emperor's inkwell, who prepared the royal letters.

In the Greek calendar he is commemorated on 3 December, and the OCA lists him on 20 November; he is not in the present calendar of the Russian Church.