Paisios Ligarides
Paisios Ligarides (Παΐσιος Λιγαρίδης, born Pantaleon Ligarides (Παντολέων Λιγαρίδης; latinized Ligaridus; c.1610 – 1678) was Greek Orthodox scholar and Metropolitan bishop, from 1657 until his death Patriarch of Alexandria and as such also known as Paisius of Alexandria.
Born in Chios, he taught literature and theology in the Greek college in Rome established in 1577 by Pope Gregory XIII. He was at first supportive of reconciliation of Orthodox with Catholic theology, but later returned to Greek Orthodoxy and wrote against both Catholicism and Calvinism. Leaving Rome, he went to Constantinople, and later (1646) to Târgoviște in Wallachia where he established (or revived) a Greek school. In 1651 he travelled to Palestine in the company of patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem, taking monastic vows and adopting the monastic name of Paisius. In 1652, he received the titular office of Metropolitan of Gaza from Paisius.
In 1655, he wrote a very long Chrismology [Chrismologion] of Constantinople, the New Rome, the first comprehensive collection of the mass of Greek oracular and prophetic produced in reference to the Fall of Constantinople .[1]
He became patriarch of ALexandria in 1657, and was appointed as head of the Great Moscow Synod of 1666 by the Tsar. After 1666, he wrote an account of the Synod's condemnation of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the form of a polemical essay in support of the absolute authority of the Russian Tsar in theological matters.[2]
References
- Constantine Sathas, Νεοελληνική Φιλολογία: Βιογραφία των εν τοις γράμμασι διαλαμψάντων Ελλήνων (1453-1821) Athens (1868), 814-816.
- Andronikos Dimitrakopoulos, Ορθόδοξος Ελλάς (1872), 161f.
- "Paisios (1657–1677)". Official web site of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
- V. Grumel, "Ligaridès, Paisios" in: Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, Paris (1930–1950) vol. IX, 749-757.
- Gerhard Podskalsky, Griechische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkenherrschaft (1453-1821) (1988), 251ff.
- Harry T. Hionides, Paisius Ligarides (1972).