Photius now had to go into exile to Stenos on the Bosphorus, where his uncle Tarasius had built a monastery. He was certainly treated as a prisoner, but he was not starved nor tortured as Ignatius had been. The worst he complains of is that he is guarded by soldiers, and separated from his friends and books. Meanwhile he wrote an enormous number of letters. The undaunted courage of this really wonderful man never let him despair for a moment. He spent these years of exile encouraging his friends, consolidating his party and waiting for another turn of the wheel. He had to wait just eight years.
Ignatius was again Patriarch. Hitherto all we have heard of him has been good. He had bravely borne outrageous injustice and ill-treatment, his attitude towards the Roman See had been all that was correct, and now that see had restored to him his rights. Alas! at the end of his life Bulgaria proved too great a temptation for him, and because of these everlasting Bulgars he at last fell foul of his best friends. Was it that he now wanted to conciliate all his Byzantines by standing out for the aggrandizement of his see, or was there something in the air of Constantinople that made its Patriarch jealous of Rome? Ignatius, too, now begins to copy his rival and to try to filch Bulgaria from the Roman Patriarchate. He ordains an Archbishop for Bulgaria and persuades the Bulgar Prince to drive out the Latin hierarchy. One can imagine how edifying these quarrels between their mighty Christian neighbours must have been to the new converts. Pope Adrian II was dead; his successor was John VIII (872–882). John had prepared a bull of excommunication for Ignatius, when the news arrived in Rome that the Patriarch had ended his chequered life (October 23, 877). The Roman Church, forgetting this last episode, remembering only the trials he had so patiently borne and his otherwise unfailing allegiance to her, has canonized him. "It is very indulgent of her," says Mgr. Duchesne.[1] We may, perhaps, say
- ↑ Égl. sép. p. 216. St. Ignatius of Constantinople occurs in our Martyrology on October 23rd: "At Constantinople St. Ignatius, Bishop, who, when he had reproved Bardas the Cæsar for having repudiated his wife, was attacked by many injuries and sent into exile; but having been restored by the Roman Pontiff Nicholas, at last he went to his rest in peace."
