Patriarch Gregory III of Constantinople

Patriarch Gregory III, surnamed Mammis or Μammas, was Ecumenical Patriarch during the period 1443-1450. Few things are known about his life and his patriarchate. Not even his surname is certain, with the names Mammis or Mammas being probably mocking appellations. In the generally unreliable Chronicum Majus of George Sphrantzes, it is recorded that he came from Crete, and that his real name was 
Melissenos. In other works he is referred to as Melissenos-Strategopoulos.
He was tonsured as a monk in ca. 1420, and is considered to have been the confessor of Emperor John VIII Palaiologos.Προκοπίου Τσιμάνη, Από υψηλή σκοπιά οι Πατριάρχαι Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Αθήνα 1981, τόμ. Α΄, σελ. 55 He was a supporter of the Union with the Catholic Church and participated in the Council of Ferra-Florence. He was elected Patriarch after the death of the also-unionist Patriarch Metrophanes II.
In 1450, he was forced to abdicate by the opposition of the anti-unionists to his policies, and went into exile in Rome in August 1451. He was cordially received by Pope Nicholas V, who aided him financially and tried to pressure the Byzantine emperor to restore him on the patriarchal throne. Indeed, the pro-unionists in the Latin-occupied areas of Greece continued to consider him the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople, ignoring his successor, the anti-unionist Athanasius II.
Gregory died in 1459 in Rome. He was honoured as saint and wonder-worker by the Catholic Church. He wrote two dissertations about the confutation of the works of the anti-unionist Mark Eugenikos, and one on the provenance of the Holy Spirit. Some of his letters have been preserved, while three further theological treatises, On the unleavened bread, On the Primacy of the Pope and On the Heavenly Beatitude, remain unpublished.
==References==
==Source==
*Ecumenical Patriarchate
Gregory III
Category:1459 deaths
Category:People from Crete
Category:15th-century Byzantine people
ca:Gregori Mammes
de:Gregor III. Mammas
el:Γρηγόριος Γ΄ Μαμμής