Saint Tarasios, Archbishop of Constantinople

Tarasios was born in Constantinople into an aristocratic family — he was an uncle of the future Patriarch Photios — and, thanks to his education, rose to the office of protoasekretis in the imperial administration.

In 784, while still a layman, he was elected patriarch of Constantinople by Empress Irene of Athens, after first securing her promise to convene an Ecumenical Council on the question of iconoclasm. In 787 he duly presided over the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, which restored the veneration of icons and annulled the iconoclast council of 754.

As patriarch he worked to restore relations with the Western Church, fought against simony, and carried out extensive charitable work. He founded a monastery on the Bosphorus, where he was buried after his death in 806.