Germanus II of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
Church	Church of Constantinople
In office	4 January 1223 – June 1240
Predecessor	Manuel I of Constantinople
Successor	Methodius II of Constantinople
Personal details
Born	Anaplous,Thrace
Died	June 1240 (1240-07)
Denomination	Eastern Orthodoxy

Germanus II Nauplius (Greek:Γερμανός Ναύπλιος; died June 1240) wasEcumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (in exile atNicaea) from 4 January 1223 until his death in June 1240.^[1]

He was born atAnaplous in the second half of the 12th century. At the time of theFourth Crusade in 1204, he served as a deacon in theHagia Sophia; following thesack of Constantinople, he retired to a monastery atAchyraous.^[1]

In 1223, he was selected by theNicaean emperorJohn III Doukas Vatatzes to fill the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which had relocated inNymphaion after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. Germanus II assumed the patriarchal throne on 4 January 1223 and quickly proved himself a valuable ally toVatatzes.^[1] Throughout his patriarchate, Germanus II strove to re-establish his authority as the head of the politically splinteredOrthodox world, all the while supporting Vatatzes' in his claim to the Byzantine imperial inheritance. Thus Germanus II clashed with the prelates ofEpirus for their support of the Epirote rulers, and especially theArchbishop of Ohrid,Demetrios Chomatenos, who had presided over the coronation ofTheodore Komnenos Doukas as emperor atThessalonica, directly challenging Nicaea's position. After the Epirote defeat atKlokotnitsa in 1230 however, the Epirote bishops were gradually won over; in 1232, the schism was healed with the Epirote church recognizing his authority, followed by a tour of the region by Germanus II in 1238.^[1][2]

By contrast, Germanus II was willing to bow to political realities on the issue of theBulgarian Church. In 1235, he convened a council inLampsacus on theHellespont that included Eastern Patriarchs, dignitaries from the Greek and Bulgarian churches,abbots from a number ofmonasteries including fromMount Athos. This Council recognized the Bulgarian Church as a juniorpatriarchate.^[3] In part this was the result of political necessity, as a condition for the alliance between Vatatzes and theBulgarian EmperorIvan Asen II, but it was also seen a necessary move to detach the Bulgarian Church from its post-1204 submission toRome. Similar motives lay behind his recognition of theautocephalous status of theSerbian Church.^[4]

Although a fierce critic of the perceived "errors" of the Catholic Church, and author of numerous anti-Catholic treatises,^[1] he was initially willing to a rapprochement with Rome. In 1232, he sent a group ofFranciscans, with whose demeanor and desire for reconciliation he had been impressed, as envoys to the Pope. Germanus II proposed the convening of a full ecumenical council, aiming at the reunion of the Churches.^[5] In response, a delegation ofFranciscans andDominicans arrived at Nicaea in 1234, but their remit was limited, they had no authority to conduct any negotiations, only to sound out the emperor and the patriarch. The Latin delegation attended a council held inNymphaion, but it broke up in acrimony between the Greeks and Latins. The papal envoys fled back to Rome, while the Nicaeans went on toattack Constantinople.^[6]

• Angold, Michael (1999). "Byzantium in exile". InAbulafia, David (ed.).The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 5, c.1198–c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 543–568.ISBN 978-1-13905573-4.
• Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991).The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-504652-8.

• Biography at the website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople(in Greek)
• Vougiouklaki, Penelope (2003).Γερμανός Β΄ Ναύπλιος.Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World, Eastern Mediterranean (in Greek).Foundation of the Hellenic World. Archived fromthe original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved21 June 2012.

• 12th-century births
• 1240 deaths
• 13th-century patriarchs of Constantinople
• People from the Empire of Nicaea
• 13th-century Byzantine writers

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