Editing Isaac I Komnenos (section)

====Downfall of Keroularios====
[[File:Michael Keroularios.jpg|right|thumb|Patriarch Michael Keroularios on his throne, from the ''[[Madrid Skylitzes]]'']]
The only point of criticism raised by Psellos is his haste and severity, judging that by a more gradual and judicious, step by step approach, he would have reaped greater success with far less opposition.{{sfn|ODB|loc="Isaac I Komnenos" (C. M. Brand, A. Cutler), pp. 1011–1012}}{{sfn|Sewter|1953|pp=238–239}} Thus his appropriation of Church lands provoked the reaction of Michael Keroularios, with whom Isaac's relations had been steadily deteriorating. The Patriarch's role in Isaac's accession and his extensive new powers over the Church quickly went to his head. He is said to have admonished and berated the emperor, even going as far as threatening to destroy him "like an oven he had made".{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}{{sfn|ODB|loc="Michael I Keroularios" (A. Kazhdan), p. 1361}} He is also alleged to have worn [[imperial purple]] boots, a privilege restricted to the emperor, and which may indicate, according to Kaldellis, that Keroularios was influenced by [[Papal]] theories and conceived of the secular and clerical powers as co-equal, a traditional Byzantine approach known as a [[Symphonia (theology)|symphonia]].{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}

Finally, on 8 November 1058, while Keroularios was visiting a church outside the [[Walls of Constantinople|city walls]], and hence was away from his supporters in the urban mob, Isaac sent the [[Varangian Guard]] to arrest him and take him to [[Prokonnesos]], where he was placed under house arrest. Isaac applied considerable pressure on Keroularios to resign, but the latter steadfastly refused. In the end, the emperor decided to convene a [[synod]] against the Patriarch. This too was to take place away from the capital, somewhere in [[Thrace]], with Psellos, who had himself been earlier persecuted by Keroularios, as the chief accuser. In the event, Keroularios died on 21 January 1059, before the synod could take place. Isaac appointed the bureaucrat Constantine Leichoudes as the new patriarch.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=221}}{{sfn|ODB|loc="Michael I Keroularios" (A. Kazhdan), p. 1361}}