Emilian the Confessor Bishop of Cyzicus

Emilian was Bishop of Cyzicus, a see on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara in Asia Minor, during the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm under the emperor Leo the Armenian (reigned 813-820). He is remembered as a confessor for his refusal to abandon the veneration of the holy icons under imperial pressure, a stance for which he was deprived of his see and sent into exile.

According to the tradition, when Leo summoned the bishops and pressed them to cease teaching their flocks to venerate the icons, Emilian was the first to answer the emperor firmly, declaring that the question of icon veneration was a matter for the Church and its spiritual leaders to discuss and decide, and not one to be settled at the imperial court. His insistence on the Church's authority over doctrine, rather than the throne's, became the defining act of his confession.

Because he would not submit to the imperial decrees ordering the removal of icons from the churches, Emilian was banished into exile together with other Orthodox bishops. The synaxarion relates that he spent five years in exile, enduring much hardship and humiliation, and died around the year 820. He is commemorated principally on August 8, with a second commemoration on January 8.