Paul IV of Constantinople

Paul IV of Constantinople, also known as Paul the New (Greek: Paulos ho Neos), was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in the late eighth century. Surviving chronicles describe him as a native of the island of Cyprus. He was chosen to succeed Patriarch Nicetas I and was consecrated in 780, during the reign of Emperor Leo IV, called the Khazar. His brief tenure fell at the end of the first Byzantine iconoclast period, when imperial policy still officially rejected the veneration of religious images, a policy inaugurated under Leo III and enforced with particular severity under Constantine V.

Earlier in his career Paul appears to have accommodated himself to iconoclasm, or at least not to have resisted it openly, which made his appointment under Leo IV possible. Byzantine historians, above all Theophanes the Confessor, portray him as a man of personal piety who later judged that compliance a serious fault. After Leo IV died in 780, the empress Irene took the regency for her young son Constantine VI and showed herself favourable to the restoration of icons. Paul, who had fallen ill, is reported to have expressed repentance for having accepted the patriarchal throne under iconoclast conditions and for having failed to defend the holy images.

In 784 he resigned the patriarchate. According to the account preserved in the chronicles, he told the empress that an ecumenical council was required to reverse iconoclasm and that he himself lacked the standing and strength to carry through such a restoration. He recommended Tarasios, then protoasekretis (chief imperial secretary) and still a layman, as his successor. Tarasios was elected, rapidly advanced through the clerical ranks, and in 787 presided at the Second Council of Nicaea, the seventh ecumenical council, which formally restored the veneration of icons. Paul’s resignation was therefore an important preparatory step in the first restoration of icons in the Byzantine Empire.

After laying down office he withdrew to the Monastery of Florus in Constantinople and took up the monastic life. He died there in 784, only a short time after his resignation. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is venerated as a saint under the name Paul the New and is commemorated on 30 August together with the earlier Constantinopolitan patriarchs Alexander and John. The sources for his life are sparse, consisting mainly of brief notices in chronicles and liturgical synaxaria; they do not record a year of birth, the name of a native town, or any detailed account of his family or early career.