Photios on Committing Past Wrongs to Oblivion

¹ Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: As for the things that took place at that time, may God consign them to deep oblivion, and may He turn us to keep them in forgetfulness and in freedom from the memory of wrongs. For silence does far better in these matters than even some brief and abridged discussion of them. Nevertheless, at that time, when we were being driven from the throne, and when the whole roster of the hierarchs and priests of God was being grievously afflicted by the harsh ills of being deprived of their own thrones, I said to those who were then present: If you hold your whole wrath against me, let these men go free; but as for me, frame whatever charge your will may dictate to lay upon me, and carry it out. In exchange for the freedom and release of all these, I am ready even to confess the charge against myself—provided only that it contain no impiety—and to fill your will to the full. For I deliver myself up, conceding to you the accusation against me, to do to me whatever your impulse may wish. Only do not bring this pitiable and tragic story into the Church of God, nor hand over so great and so numerous a people, devoted from of old to Orthodoxy and consecrated to God—so far as it lay within our judgment—to death and famine and exile and every evil; nor make the sacred rites of Christians a laughingstock to all Greeks and barbarians, nor set them forth as such; nor with so great a shame blot out the ordinances of Christians. And these things I both solemnly protested and was ready to do, undertaking to ransom the salvation of the many innocent and blameless ones in exchange—as those men would say—for my own destruction. But the sacred ordinance bore into the aforesaid roster not only him who was first absolved of their assault, and all the rest, but simply all who at any time bore the marks of priesthood and godliness. Yet those matters, as we have said, let silence and reputation keep. And the Lord of inscrutable judgments and the good Giver of things unhoped for, looking only upon our purpose at that time, beyond all expectation and beyond every human hope, justly overlooked all those things that had been ventured against us; and the heart of our exalted and great emperor—held fast and carried about, as it is, in His hand—He stirred to take up His mercies upon us; and what He had foreordained, as He has shown, this also, beyond all reason, as you see, He brought to fulfillment.