John IX (Patriarch of Jerusalem)

John IX of Jerusalem ( Greek Ιωάννης Θ΄ Ιεροσολύμων ) - the Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1156/1157-1166. John occupied the pulpit after the First Crusade , when only the Latin Patriarchate existed in Jerusalem between 1098 and 1187. Very little is known about the Orthodox patriarchs of this time. One of the few reliable information about John IX is his participation in the council against the named patriarch of Antioch Sotirich Panteugen in May 1157 ^[1] .

The first study specifically dedicated to this patriarch was undertaken in 1973 by Benedict Englezakis ( B. Englezakis , “Jean le Chrysostomite, Patriarche de Jérusalem au XIIe siècle”). B. Englezakis discovered the previously unpublished typicon of the monastery of John Chrysostom in (northern part of the island of Cyprus ). Under April 24, it mentions a certain John Chrysostomite ( Greek Ἰωάννου τοῦ Χρυσοστομίτου ), which Englesakis identified in John IX of Jerusalem ^[1] . In 1994, Peter Planck identified him with John Merkopul, the author of the double life of John of Damascus and Cosmas the Melodist . The same researcher discovered a 13th-century manuscript containing a collection of epigrams , 7 of which relate to John IX and shed light on some stages of his life's journey. In all these poems, John is referred to as the "creator" ( Greek. Εἰκόνες ), that is, some works of art; at the same time, by virtue of the traditions of that time, the designation of John as their “creator” indicates the customer rather than the artist ^[2] . According to Epigram VII, John took the monastic rank in the Palestinian Lavra of Sava the Sanctified , which does not contradict the hypothesis about the authorship of the lives of Damaskin and Melodist, who were both monks there ^[3] . From another epigram, it is known that in Constantinople he held not only the post of titular patriarch of Jerusalem, but also was the rector of the monastery of St. Diomedes , located in the metropolitan suburb of Jerusalem (on the site of the southern part of the fortress Edikul ) ^[4] .

Leo Allacy in the work “De Ecclesiæ occidentalis et orientalis perpetua consensione” (1648, p. 871) mentions the work of John about the descent of the Holy Spirit ^[5] . John ’s reasoning about the three reasons against unleavened bread was published in 1698 by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheus II, in the treatise Τόμος Αγάπης: Κατά Λατίνων ^[5] .