Blemmydes (or Blemmida)

Blemmydes (Or Blemmida)

a learned Greek of the 13th century, is especially known on account of his endeavors to unite the Greek and Romish Churches. He was a monk and priest in a Macedonian monastery, at a time when the emperor Ducas Vatazes (1222-55) called a meeting to Nicaea, for the sake of bringing about such a union (1233). Blemmydes took part in the colloquy, and with great skill and learning he defended the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (comp. Leo Allatius, Graecice Orthodoxce Scriptores, p. 1-60). The emperor's son, Theodore Lascaris, made him patriarch of Constantinople, but Blemmydes remained and died in his monastery. See Leo Allatius, De Ecclesice Occidentalis et O-ientalis Perpetua Successione, lib. ii, c. 14; Tiibinger Quartalschrift, 1847, pt. 1; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchenlexikon, s.v.; Herzog, Real-Encyclop. s.v. (B. P.)