EUTYCHIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE : Patriarch of Constantinople; b. in Phrygia c. 512; d. Apr. 5, 582. He became monk and abbot at Amasia in Pontus, and in 552 went to Constantinople as his bishop's ambassador. Here he so effectually combated the Antiochian theology, and made such an impression on the emperor Justinian that the latter, upon the death of the patriarch Mennas (Aug., 552), appointed him patriarch of Constantinople. He played a great part in the Three Chapter controversy (q.v.); presided at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 553); conducted the consecration ceremonies for St. Sophia (562); but finally fell into disfavor with the emperor, whose aphthartodocetic [maintenance of perpetual virginity of Mary and denial of the reality of the human birth of Jesus] leanings he was unwilling to tolerate; and on Jan. 22, or Apr. 12, 565, he was exiled to his former cloister. He was thence recalled by Justin II., in 577, as successor to the patriarch John III. Scholasticus. He is honored by the Church as a saint. Of his writings, only fragments of a sermon on the Eucharist are preserved (MPG, lxxxvi. 2, pp. 2392-2401), in which the Greek Fathers' symbolic-dynamic view of the Eucharist reached its climax. His intimate friend the presbyter Eustratius, wrote his biography (MPG, lxxxvi. 2, pp. 2273-2390).

G. KRÜGER.