Euthymius of Sardis
Bishop of Sardis
Euthymius of Sardis or Euthymius the Confessor (Greek: Εὐθύμιος Σάρδεων; 751 or 754 – 26 December 831) was metropolitan bishop of Sardis between ca. 785 and ca. 804, and a leading iconophile during the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. Martyred in 831, he is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, celebrated on 26 December and March 8.
Life
Euthymius was born in 751 or 754 in Ouzara, probably in Lycaonia in central Asia Minor. At an early age he entered a monastery, and sometime between 784 and 787, he was ordained as metropolitan bishop of Sardis by Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople. In this capacity he took part in the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, where he played a leading role in the council's decision to condemn Byzantine Iconoclasm. Euthymius spoke in several of the council's sessions, advocating the reinstatement of the exiled bishops Theodore of Amorium and Basil of Ancyra, the reinstatement of traditional veneration of icons as proposed by Tarasios and Pope Hadrian I, and the anathematizing of Iconoclasm and its supporters. According to his hagiography, sometime between 787 and 790 he participated in an embassy to the Abbasid court at Baghdad, where he distinguished himself by his ability and succeeded in securing a peace settlement with the Caliphate, but such a mission, let alone a peace treaty, is nowhere else attested for this period.
Under Emperor Nikephoros I (r.
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