Confessor for the Icons
Methodius lived through the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm, when imperial policy under Leo V and his successors again condemned the making and veneration of religious images. Aligned with the deposed patriarch Nikephoros and the party that defended the icons, he was sent on a mission to Rome in 815 and, on his return, fell under the suspicion of the imperial authorities.
Arrested in 821 under Michael II and again imprisoned under Theophilos, he endured exile and bodily suffering rather than abandon the cause of the images. These trials, borne without martyrdom, earned him the rank of Confessor by which he is commemorated.
Patriarch and the Triumph of Orthodoxy
After the death of Theophilos, the regency of the Empress Theodora, acting through the minister Theoktistos, reversed the iconoclast policy. The iconoclast patriarch John VII Grammatikos was deposed, and Methodius was raised to the patriarchal throne; a synod at Constantinople confirmed the deposition and his succession.
On 11 March 843, accompanied by Theodora, the young emperor Michael III, and Theoktistos, Methodius led a solemn procession from the church of Blachernae to Hagia Sophia and restored the icons to the churches. The event was thereafter kept annually as the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Great Lent. He is credited with the composition of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy read at that observance. As patriarch he favored a moderate reconciliation with formerly iconoclast clergy and remained active in manuscript copying, theological writing, hagiography, and liturgical composition until his repose in 847.
