Section 01: Foundations
The making of Mark Eugenikos before the council: his birth in Constantinople in 1392 into a learned ecclesiastical family, his education under John Chortasmenos and George Gemistos Plethon, his early career as a rhetor running his late father’s school — where the future Patriarch Gennadios II Scholarios was among his pupils — and his turn from the world to the monastic life and the priesthood, in which his early theological and anti-Latin writings took shape.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox / Byzantine
Contents
| File | Topic |
|---|---|
| Constantinople and Formation | Birth in 1392; family (the deacon George Eugenikos, the physician’s daughter Maria); baptismal name Manuel; education under Chortasmenos and Plethon; the rhetor and schoolmaster of the declining city; Scholarios and the circle formed around him |
| Monk and Teacher | The turn to monasticism (Antigone, then the Mangana monastery); ordination to the priesthood; the scholarly and ascetical life before Florence; his early writings — the irenic letter to Patriarch Joseph II, the Monody on the fall of Thessalonica, the treatise on predestination, and the first anti-Latin work on the procession of the Spirit |
How to Use
- Read Constantinople and Formation for the family, the teachers, and the lay career; read Monk and Teacher for the monastic turn, the ordination, and the early writings that show Mark was no narrow apophatic monk but a trained dialectician.
- The historical setting these years presuppose — the shrinking empire under John VIII — is in Section 02.
Cross-References
- For the Byzantine Church of the late empire, see The Byzantine Church.
- For the hesychast theology Mark inherited, see St. Gregory Palamas.
References
- See the collection README for the principal sources; each content file carries its own full reference list.