Career
Born ca. 1163/4, Mesarites is first recorded in 1200, during the attempted coup of John Komnenos the Fat. At the time, Mesarites was skeuophylax of the Church of the Pharos in the Great Palace of Constantinople, and wrote an eyewitness account of the events. After the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he initially remained in the city.
The discussion failed to breach the rift between the two parties, as the Greeks refused to subordinate themselves to the Latin clergy.
As Metropolitan of Ephesus, he headed a mission in 1214/5 to Constantinople for discussions with the new papal envoy, Cardinal Pelagius of Albano. Mesarites wrote a report of his discussions with Pelagius, where he highlights his intransigence, intolerance towards the Greek Orthodox clergy and insistence on Papal primacy.
In 1216 he officiated at the marriage of Irene Laskarina, the eldest daughter of the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris, and Andronikos Palaiologos.
