Nicholas IV Mouzalon ( el, ), (c. 1070 – 1152) was the

Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Οἰκουμενικός Πατριάρχης, translit=Oikoumenikós Patriárchēs) is the archbishop of Constantinople (Istanbul), New Rome and '' primus inter pares'' (first among equals) among the heads of th ...

from December 1147 to March/April 1151. Nicholas was born in c. 1070, and probably began his career teaching the

gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

. Emperor

Alexios I Komnenos Alexios I Komnenos ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξιος Κομνηνός, 1057 – 15 August 1118; Latinized Alexius I Comnenus) was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during ...

(r. 1081–1118) appointed him as

archbishop of Cyprus This is a list of Archbishops of Cyprus since its foundation with known dates of enthronement. According to tradition, the Church of Cyprus was created by St. Barnabas in 45 AD. The see of Cyprus was declared autocephalous by the Council of Eph ...

, but Nicholas abdicated the see in c. 1110. He spent the next 37 years in the Monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the Kosmidion suburb of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. He was elected to the patriarchal throne in 1147, replacing Cosmas II, who was accused of

Bogomilism Bogomilism (Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Pete ...

. His election however caused considerable controversy: its canonical validity was called in question, since he had voluntarily resigned from his previous see. Eventually, Nicholas was forced to resign as patriarch, and died in 1152. He wrote a number of theological works, amongst them a treatise refuting the ''

Filioque ( ; ) is a Latin term ("and from the Son") added to the original Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (commonly known as the Nicene Creed), and which has been the subject of great controversy between Eastern and Western Christianity. It is a term ...

'' addressed to Alexios I, and a vivid poetic defence of his first abdication.

Sources

* 1070s births 1152 deaths 12th-century patriarchs of Constantinople Archbishops of Cyprus 12th-century Byzantine writers Mouzalon family Officials of Manuel I Komnenos {{EasternOrthodoxy-bishop-stub