Tryphon of Constantinople

Saint Tryphon was patriarch of Constantinople from 14 December 928 until August 931, in the tenth century. The Church remembers him as a humble monk, loved by the people for his virtues, who was removed from the throne at the emperor's will and died in a monastery in 933.

Before becoming patriarch he lived in the monastic world of the Opsikion theme in Asia Minor. He is thought to be the monk Tryphon to whom Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos addressed four letters between 914 and 918, replying to words of consolation; one speaks of a request to send a remedy, another of an unspecified favour. A letter of Theodore Daphnopates, written in the name of the emperor Romanos Lekapenos at the end of 931 or the start of 932, says that he was ordained deacon at twelve and priest at fifteen, in the course of a controversy about the proper age for ordination.

After the death of Patriarch Stephen II on 19 July 928, the emperor Romanos I Lekapenos raised Tryphon to the patriarchal throne on 14 December 928. The emperor wanted his son Theophylact, still a boy, to become patriarch. Later chronicles say that Tryphon promised to step down when the young man was old enough, but whether such an agreement existed remains uncertain. When Theophylact turned sixteen, in 931, the emperor asked Tryphon to resign. The saint refused to give the throne to a boy, seeing in it a great scandal. The emperor was angry but did not dare to arrest him, for the people and clergy loved him.

In August 931 a synod opened proceedings against him, ending in his removal or forced resignation. Metropolitan Arethas of Caesarea, a contemporary of the events, supported the emperor's demand in a letter to the synod and accused the patriarch of breaking the canons. It is also told (in the later chronicle of John Skylitzes) that Tryphon was tricked into signing a blank sheet, on which the court then wrote his act of resignation; historians treat this version critically, but it has remained in church tradition. Tryphon retired to a monastery, where he lived as an ascetic for two more years and five months and fell asleep in 933. The throne stayed vacant until Theophylact was installed. His feast is on 19 April.