patriarch of Constantinople, was one of the finest geniuses of his time, and his merit raised him to the patriarchate; for Bardas having driven Ignatius from the see, Photius was consecrated by Abbotius in 859. He condemned Ignatius in a synod, whereupon the pope excommunicated him, and he, to balance the account, anathematized the pope. Basilus of Macedon, the emperor whom Photius had reproved for the murder of Michael the late emperor, expelled him, and restored Ignatius; but afterward re-established Photius, upon Ignatius's death, in 878. At last, being wrongfully accused of a conspiracy against the person of Leo the philosopher, son and successor to Basilus, he was expelled by him in 886, and is supposed to have died soon after. He wrote a Bibliotheca, which contains an examen of 280 authors; we have also 253 epistles of his; the Nomocanon under 14 titles; an abridgment of the acts of several councils, &c. He was a person of prodigious reading, and the greatest scholar almost of any age.