Athanasius II of Constantinople

Athanasius II was the last Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople before the Fall of Constantinople. He served from 1450 to 1453.

Life

Athanasius was born in Crete early in the fifteenth century. He was elected patriarch of Constantinople in 1450, succeeding the deposed Gregory III. After the Fall of Constantinople, he escaped and retired to Mount Athos where he settled into a monastic house on the site of the old Monastery of Xistrou that he dedicated to St. Anthony the Great.

At a later date he left Athos for a monastery in Ukraine where he died at an unknown date.

His cell at Mount Athos eventually became the base on which the Skete of St. Andrew, a dependency of the Vatopedi Monastery, was founded.