The life of St Joseph I of Constantinople
When the imperial delegation set out for the Council of Lyons in early 1274 to complete the union, Joseph withdrew rather than take part, retreating to the Peribleptos Monastery, and resigned the patriarchate outright on January 9, 1275, once the union he had opposed went through anyway. Years of exile followed, first at the Monastery of Anaplous and then in the town of Chele on the Black Sea, before he returned to Constantinople in 1280.
Michael VIII's death in 1282 changed everything: his son Andronikos II reversed his father's policy toward Rome, removed the pro-union patriarch who had replaced Joseph, and recalled the very man who had once given up his office rather than bend. Joseph served this second term until shortly before his death on March 23, 1283, remembered as a confessor for the union he had refused to accept even at real personal cost.
