The life of St Nicholas Mystikos of Constantinople
Tonsured a monk in the years that followed, he was drawn back into public affairs when the emperor Leo VI recalled him and named him imperial secretary, the office of Mystikos that gave him the name he is remembered by. In March of 901 he rose to the patriarchal throne itself.
His tenure soon collided with the emperor's own private life. Leo VI, having already lost three wives, married a fourth time in search of a legitimate male heir, and Nicholas, holding a fourth marriage against the Church's own law, refused him communion. Leo answered by sending Nicholas into exile and turning instead to Rome, whose delegates approved the marriage in his patriarch's place.
Nicholas returned to his throne only after Leo's death, resuming his office in 912, and in 925 convened a council that closed the question for good, forbidding fourth marriages in the Church under any circumstance. In those same years he led a seven-man regency for the child emperor Constantine VII, corresponding at length with the Bulgarian ruler Symeon in an effort to hold off open war between their peoples. He reposed in 925.
