Sergios Niketiates (Greek: Σέργιος Νικητιάτης, fl. c. 843) was a senior Byzantine official and a member of the Amorian dynasty. He is celebrated as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church on 28 June for his role in the restoration of the veneration of icons.
Biography
Sergios Niketiates is an obscure and "enigmatic" figure (as described by the Byzantinist Cyril Mango), known only through brief references in two hagiographic works: the Acts of Saints David, Symeon and George and the Synaxarium Constantinopolitanum. According to these sources, he was born in the village of Niketia, near Amastris in Paphlagonia, from which his surname derives. He was a close relative, possibly the uncle, of Empress Theodora, the wife of Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) and mother of Michael III (r. 842–867).
Under Theophilos, he became one of the leading members of the Byzantine Senate, attaining the supreme court rank of magistros. Seals attributed to him also record his progressive advancement through the ranks of hypatos, anthypatos, protospatharios, and patrikios, and that he held the office of General Logothete or Logothete of the Drome (depending on the reading of the seals).
In 843, Sergios was instrumental, along with the logothete Theoktistos and Theodora's brothers Bardas and Petronas, in bringing about the final abandonment of Iconoclasm and the restoration of the veneration of icons. This act is the basis for his commemoration as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church on 28 June.
In the same year, according to the Synaxarium Constantinopolitanum, he was entrusted with leading an expedition against the Emirate of Crete, though other sources record that Theoktistos led the campaign. It is possible that Sergios was left behind when Theoktistos was forced to return hurriedly to Constantinople. Sergios died on Crete, where the Byzantine forces were defeated by the Arabs, and was initially buried on the island in a monastery that became known after him as tou Magistrou ("of the magistros"). His remains were later moved to a Monastery of the Theotokos in the Gulf of Nicomedia, which he had founded and which became known as tou Niketiatou.
The French Byzantinist Henri Grégoire suggested that Niketiates is to be identified with "Ibn Qatuna", the admiral recorded in Arabic sources as having led the Byzantines in their sack of Damietta in 853. Although this hypothesis was taken up by some scholars (notably Alexander Vasiliev), it is rejected by modern scholars. Grégoire also hypothesized that Sergios was the brother of the later Patriarch Photios, a conjecture likewise rejected, though according to Cyril Mango he could possibly be Photios's maternal uncle.
