Sylvester (or Silvestros) Syropoulos (; c. 1400 – aft. 1464) was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

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

Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...

and the '' dikaiophylax'' of the

Patriarchate of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (, ; ; , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul") is one of the fifteen to seventeen autocephalous churches that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is headed ...

. He was a native of Constantinople.Aristeides Papadakis, "Syropoulos, Sylvester", in Alexander P. Kazhdan (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 1445. It was convened in territories under the Holy Roman Empire. Italy became a venue of a Catholic ecumenical council aft ...

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

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

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: , 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). As a monk in Constantinop ...

, 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 15th-century Byzantine government officials Ambassadors of the Byzantine Empire to the Holy See 15th-century Byzantine writers People from Constantinople Greek memoirists Year of birth uncertain 1464 deaths

References

Further reading