Sylvester (or Silvestros) Syropoulos ( el, Σίλβεστρος Συρόπουλος; c. 1400 – aft. 1464) was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

official, the grand ecclesiarch (''megas ekklesiarches'') of the

Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...

and the ''

dikaiophylax The ''dikaiophylax'' ( el, δικαιοφύλαξ, "guardian of the laws") was a Byzantine judicial office of the 11th–15th centuries. The title is first attested in the middle of the 11th century, both in Constantinople and the provinces. Its ho ...

'' of the

Patriarchate of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( el, Οἰκουμενικὸν Πατριαρχεῖον Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, translit=Oikoumenikón Patriarkhíon Konstantinoupóleos, ; la, Patriarchatus Oecumenicus Constanti ...

. He was a native of Constantinople.Aristeides Papadakis, "Syropoulos, Sylvester", in

Alexander P. Kazhdan Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan (russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Кажда́н; 3 September 1922 – 29 May 1997) was a Soviet-American Byzantinist. Among his publications was the three-volume ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'', a comp ...

(ed.), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'' (Oxford University Press, 1991 nline 2005.Matthew R. Lootens
"Silvestros Syropoulos"
in Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle'' (published online 2016), accessed 21 September 2017. Syropoulos was a member of the Byzantine delegation to the

Council of Florence The Council of Florence is the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1449. It was convoked as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in ...

in 1438–39. He signed the decree of union of the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

churches. Upon his return to Constantinople, he claimed to have acted under duress and disavowed the union. He became a supporter Archbishop

Mark of Ephesus Mark of Ephesus ( Greek: Μάρκος ό Εφέσιος, born Manuel Eugenikos) was a hesychast theologian of the late Palaiologan period of the Byzantine Empire who became famous for his rejection of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439) ...

, leader of the anti-unionist movement. In 1443, he composed his ''Memoirs'' (Ἀπομνημονεύματα, ''Apomnemoneumata''), an important first-hand account of the council, especially of its behind-the-scenes intrigue. Although his account is biased against the council, he was not a fabricator and his partisanship is generally no worse than that of the council itself. According to its most recent editor, his memoirs were redacted and reissued around 1461.

References

*Fotini Kondyli, Vera Andriopoulou, Eirini Panou and Mary B. Cunningham (eds.).
Sylvester Syropoulos on Politics and Culture in the Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean
'. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies, 16. Farnham and Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. *V. Laurent.
Les ‘Mémoires’ du grand ecclésiarque de l'Église de Constantinople Sylvestre Syropoulos sur le Concile de Florence (1438–1439)
'. Paris, 1971. This is a critical edition with a French translation. *
Vera historia unionis non verae inter graecos et latinos: sive concilii Florentini exactissima narratio
'. The Hague, 1660. First publication of his memoirs edited by

Robert Creighton Robert Creighton or Crichton (1593–1672) was a Scottish royalist churchman who became Bishop of Bath and Wells. Life He was son of Thomas Creighton and Margaret Stuart, who claimed kinship with the ancient Lords of Ruthven, and was born at Du ...

. {{Authority control Byzantine officials Ambassadors of the Byzantine Empire to the Holy See 15th-century Byzantine writers People from Constantinople Memoirists Year of birth uncertain 1464 deaths

References

Further reading