Michael I Rhangabes

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Michael I Rhangabes, was an obscure Byzantine nobleman who had married Procopia, the daughter of Nicephorus I, and been made master of the palace. He became Byzantine emperor after a revolt against his brother-in-law, Stauracius 811.

Elected with the support of the Orthodox party in the Church, Michael diligently persecuted the iconoclasts on the northern and eastern frontiers of the empire, but meanwhile allowed the Bulgars to ravage a great part of Macedonia and Thrace.

Having at last taken the field, in the spring of 813, he was defeated near Bersinikia, and Leo the Armenian was saluted emperor in his stead in the following summer. Wishing to avoid civil war, Michael surrendered to the usurpers and so escaped the mutilation or execution that usually befell desposed emperors. Michael became a monk in the island of Prote, where he lived unmolested until his death in 845.

Michael and Procopia were the parents of St. Ignatius of Constantinople.

Sources

  • Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire Vol 4, 2005

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