Tarasius
Imperial secretary and layman chosen patriarch of Constantinople in 784. He made a general council the condition of his acceptance and led the Second Council of Nicaea, which restored the veneration of images.
Theophanes says that when the empress Irene asked the people of Constantinople to name a patriarch, all called for Tarasius, the imperial secretary. He told them that he was a layman in the emperor’s service, that the church of the capital was cut off from the other churches, and that he would accept only if a council were held. He was consecrated on 25 December 784 (Theophanes, Chronicle AM 6277 (pp. 458–460)).
He was threatened by the soldiers who broke up the first assembly in 786 and went to Nicaea for the second in 787 (Theophanes, Chronicle AM 6278–6280 (pp. 461–463)). The bishops who returned from iconoclasm at the council made their submission to him and to the pope together (Council of Nicaea (787), session 1). See the Second Council of Nicaea Restores Icons.
In the timeline
- AD 787, firm dateThe Second Council of Nicaea Restores Icons
A council called by the empress Irene and led by the patriarch Tarasius, with legates of Pope Hadrian I, overturns the iconoclast council of 754. It decrees that images are to be set up and honoured, and that worship in the full sense belongs to God alone.