Mitrofan Kritopoulos

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<br>Patriarch Mitrofan Kritopoulos (Greek Πατριάρχης Μητροφάνης Κριτόπουλος; about 1589, Veria – May 30, 1639, Wallachia) – Patriarch of Alexandria (September 1636 – May 20, 1639), monk, .<br>Biography<br>Born into a noble family, his father’s name is Theodore. He received his primary education in his hometown of Verria. From childhood he was destined for a church career, and already at the age of twelve he became Proto-Apostolic of Metropolitan Arseny of Verry.<br><br>He was a monk on Mount Athos. Mitrofan Kritopoulos was a close of Cyril Lukaris, through whom he was sent to study at Oxford in 1617. After that, he lectured for some time in Germany and Switzerland. Around 1624 he published the Orthodox Confession of Faith, which he wrote for eight months. In it, he argues that the Church cannot be tied to any confession of faith. This is a example of the spread of Protestant confessionalism to territory: the Orthodox Church turned out to be only one of many Christian trends.<br><br>In 1625, while in Helmstedt, at the request of university professors Georg Calixtus and Hermann Konring, Mitrofan compiled „Confessions of the Eastern, Catholic and Apostolic Church”, in which he set out the teachings of the Orthodox Church on certain controversial points, distancing himself from both Lutheranism and Catholicism. However, on the question of the number of sacraments, he nevertheless made concessions to Protestantism.<br><br>Kritopoulos was a talented lecturer who attracted large audiences in European countries. But he also had a very bad temper and was even arrested once in Venice for trying to beat up a publisher who published one of his most controversial writings. In 1631 he returned to Constantinople, and in 1634, with the help of his patron Cyril Lukaris, who already occupied the throne of Constantinople at that time, became the Patriarch of Alexandria. However, gratitude was not among the virtues of Mitrofan: he soon began to conduct active intrigues against his benefactor Kirill.<br><br>In 1636, the name of Patriarch Mitrofan was marked in the list of the Patriarchs of Alexandria as “one of the gifted books to the library”, in fact, most of the rare printed publications (since 1477) have a “dedication” (ex-libris) of Mitrofan, who, returning to Egypt from his travels, brought from are books for the library.<br><br>He died on May 30, 1639 in Wallachia.<br>

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