Bryennios, Philotheos

D.D. (Athens, 1880; Edinburgh, 1884), metropolitan of Nicomedia; b. at Constantinople, March 26 (old style), 1833 graduated in 1856 at the " Theological School in Chalce of the Great Church of Christ," and having distinguished himself was then sent to Germany for further study, and attended lectures in Leipzig, Berlin, and Munich. In 1861 he became profe or of ecclesiastical history, exegesis, and other studies, in his alma mater: and in 1863, master and director. In December, 1867, he was called to Constantinople to be the head of the " Great School of the Nation " in the Phanar, and so remained until in 1875 he was sent by the Most Holy Synod of Metropolitans and Patriarch to the Bonn Old-Catholic Conference (Aug. 10-16, 1875), and while there received the patriarchal letter announcing his appointment as metropolitan of Serrae in Macedonia, which position he a umed December, 1875. In 1877 he was transferred to the metropolitan see of Nicomedia. In 1880 he went to Bucharest as commi ioner of the Eastern Ovthodox Patriarchal and other independent churches, to settle the matter of the plundering of Greek monasteries in Moldavia and Wall a chia. In 1882, as instructed by the Holy Synod of metropolitans in Constantinople, and the Patriarch Joachim III., he wrote a reply to the encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII. concerning Cyrillus and Method i us, the Apostles to the Slaves, which was published, with the approbation and at the expense of the Holy Synod, in Constantinople. His fame in the West rests upon his discovery in 1873 of the Jerusalem Manuscript, so called because found in the Jerusalem Monastery of the Most Holy Sepulchre in the Phanar, or Greek portion of Constantinople. This MS. of two hundred and forty small octavo pages c 40 ontains (1) A Synopsis of the Old and New Testaments in the order, of Books by St. Chrysostom; (2) The Epistle of Barnabas; (3) The First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians; (4) The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians; (5) The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles; (6) The spurious letter of Mary of Ca oboli; (7) Twelve pseudo-Ignatian Epistles. The Epistles to the Corinthians were published by him with prolegomena and notes in Constantinople, 1875, and at once attracted the attention of scholars, because the text was for the first time entire. "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," which Bryennios himself did not at first rightly estimate, is of still greater value both for its age and its contents, being no le than a catechetical church manual from the post apostolic age. Having discovered its unique importance in 1878, he set to work to prepare a suitable edition of it; and being an erudite patristic scholar he produced it in Constantinople, 1883, with ample notes and prolegomena in Greek. His edition is the basis of the rich literature on the Didache' which has grown up in a short time. See his autobiography which he prepared for Schaff's work on the Didache, New York, 1885, rev. ed. 1886, pp. 289-296.