Office and Career
Theoctistus was a eunuch courtier of the Byzantine imperial court who rose through its highest dignities, holding the titles of patrikios and later magistros. Under the emperor Michael II he served as chartoularios tou kanikleiou, the keeper of the imperial inkstand within the imperial household, and under the emperor Theophilos (who reigned from 829 to 842) he held the senior office of logothetes tou dromou, the post often described as the empire's foreign minister.
When Theophilos died in January 842, leaving the throne to his two-year-old son Michael III, Theoctistus joined the regency council established to govern in the child's name. He quickly emerged as its dominant member, ruling in practice alongside the empress-dowager Theodora and described in the sources as the effective co-ruler beside the empress.
The Restoration of the Icons
In 843 Theoctistus prevailed upon the Empress Theodora to officially reintroduce the veneration of icons, bringing to an end the second period of iconoclasm. Early that year the regency convened a council at Constantinople, gathered at Theoctistus's own residence, which repudiated iconoclasm, re-affirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea of 787, and deposed the iconoclast patriarch John the Grammarian.
With the enthronement of a new patriarch, Methodius I, a synod was convened in Constantinople to condemn iconoclasm. This restoration of the icons became known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, and the sources credit Theoctistus as a driving force behind it.
Patronage of Learning
Theoctistus is credited with initiating a far-reaching educational program and, by the account of the synaxarion, with establishing the school of Magnaura in Constantinople. He sponsored leading intellectual figures of the age, among them Constantine-Cyril and Leo the Mathematician, and is associated with the revival of secular learning in Byzantium.
According to the synaxarion he invited his nephews Cyril and Methodius to Constantinople for their studies and arranged for Methodius to be placed in command of a Slavic administrative region.
Death and Veneration
His record in military and foreign affairs was mixed: he suffered defeats at the Battle of Mauropotamos in 843 and in a campaign on Crete, but later oversaw naval successes, including the sack of Damietta in 853. As Michael III came of age, the regency's control of the government was challenged, and on 20 November 855 Theoctistus was arrested and put to death by his adversaries, the assassination being carried out at the instigation of Bardas, the emperor's uncle.
The Orthodox Church commemorates him on November 20 with the title of Confessor, with liturgical hymns dedicated to his memory.
