Jeremiah II, Patriarch of Constantinople

Jeremiah II, Patriarch Of Constantinople, was born in 1536. He was elected patriarch May 5, 1572; in 1579 he was driven from his see, but after the death of Metrophanes (1580) he regained his position. Shortly after he was imprisoned by order of the sultan on a charge of high treason. Liberated through the intervention of the ambassadors of France and Venice, he was again exiled to Rhodes in 1585. Finally, in 1587, he was again reinstated in the patriarchate by paying 500 ducats yearly to the party who had held it during his exile. The Church funds had been so reduced in consequence of all these struggles that there was no money to meet the expenses for worship. Under these circumstances, Jeremiah was obliged to seek help from the czar, in return for which he was obliged to create the metropolitan of Moscow a patriarch. This was accordingly done; but, Jeremiah having stopped at Kief on his return to Moscow. a number of bishops, who had accompanied him on his journey, and who had vehemently opposed his course, left him, and joined the Church of Rome. Some writers say that Jeremiah was persecuted for attempting to unite the Greek and the Latin churches. He was the patriarch with whom the Tübingen theologians entered into a correspondence in 1573, with the intention to bring over the Greek Church to the Reformers, and which resulted, as is well known, in the rejection of Luther's doctrines by the Greek Church. (See Chr. F. Schnurrer, Orationes acad. historiam liter. illustrantes, ed. H.E.G. Paulus, Tüb. 1828, p. 113 sq.). Jeremiah II died in 1594. See Acta et Scripta Theologorum Wirtembergensium et Patriarchoe Constantinopolitani D. Hieremsioe (Wirtemberg, 1584); Acta Orientalis Ecclesioe contra Lutheri heresim, monumentis, notis ac dissertationibus illustrata (Rome, 1739). See also Sobranie Gosoudarst. Gramot, vol. 2; Haigold, Beilagen zum neuveränderten Russland (Riga, 1769), vol. 1; Levesque, Hist. de Russie, 3, 117; Vicissitudes de l'Église des deuxcrites en Pologne et en Russie, 1, 47); Document relatif au Patriarcat Moscovite (Paris, 1857); Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Générale, 26, 668. SEE GREEK CHURCH.