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236 general council. This was done, and the council was held at Constantinople in the year 861. It deposed Ignatius, although he had the support of the people, and its decision was ratified by the papal delegates. Then the friends of Ignatius, that is to say, the real representatives of the Greek Church, appealed to the pope, who threw over his delegates, and convoked a synod at Rome, which decided in favour of Ignatius, and pronounced excommunication on Photius in case he should dare to retain the patriarchate ( 863). Photius replied by insisting on the equality in rank of the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople. The emperor summoned another council at Constantinople four years later, at which the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem were represented; and this council pronounced a sentence of deposition on the Roman pontiff. But Photius was in a precarious position, only able to hold on by the support of his patron Michael; and when that was removed by the murder of the emperor, he was seized and imprisoned in a convent, and Ignatius restored to the patriarchate. In the year 869 a council was held in St. Sophia, which the Latins reckon as the "Eighth Œcumenical Council." It condemned Photius and confirmed the right of Ignatius to be patriarch of Constantinople.

This miserable quarrel ended happily. The rival patriarchs were both really good men, and ultimately they were reconciled. Even Ignatius, who had owed so much to the papacy, could not endure the arrogant interference of Pope John with the missionary work which the Greek Church was carrying on in Bulgaria with remarkable success; and the pope had threatened to excommunicate him too, when death removed him from his difficulties (Oct. 23, 877). Three days later Photius was quietly restored to the patriarchate. It was not to be expected that the pope would find him more complacent. In the year 879, a council, three times as large as Ignatius's council, met with much pomp in St. Sophia, pronounced the previous council a fraud, re-affirmed the Nicene Creed without the Filioque clause on which the Latins were in-