Ignatios 9 was a pupil of the patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasios 1, he was ordained deacon by him and became skeuophylax of Hagia Sophia; after Tarasios 1 died (in 806) he supported the iconoclasts and became metropolitan bishop of Nikaia; later he repented of this and retired to become a monk on Mt Olympus in Bithynia; cf. ODB II 894.

According to the notice in the Suda Ignatios 9 was a deacon and skeuophylax of the Great Church of Constantinople and became metropolitan bishop of Nikaia; he was a grammatikos and author of biographies of the patriarchs Tarasios 1 and Nikephoros 2, and of funeral orations, letters and verses directed against the rebel Thomas 7: Suda, ed. Adler, I 84 (Vol. II, pp. 607-608) (Ἰγνάτιος, διάκονος καὶ σκευοφύλαξ τῆς μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας Κωνσταντινουπόλεως καὶ γεγονὼς μητροπολίτης Νικαίας, γραμματικός. ἔγραψε βίους Ταρασίου καὶ Νικηφόρου τῶν ἁγίων καὶ μακαρίων πατριαρχῶν: ἐπιτυμβίους ἐλέγους: ἐπιστολάς: ἰάμβους εἰς Θωμᾶν τὸν Ἀντάρτην, ἅπερ ὀνομάζουσι τὰ κατὰ Θωμᾶν : καὶ ἄλλα).

Ignatios 9 was probably author also of the Lives of Gregory of Decapolis (Gregorios 79) and George of Amastris (Georgios 2); see I. Sevcenko, "Hagiography of the Iconoclast Period", in Iconoclasm, ed. A. A. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham, 1977) (reprinted in I. Sevcenko, Ideology, Letters and Culture in the Byzantine World, London, 1982), pp. 11-17. The Life of Gregorius Decapolita was written ὑπὸ Ἰγνατίου διακόνου καὶ σκευοφύλακος τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας: lemma, in F. Dvornik, La Vie de Saint Grégoire le Décapolite et les slaves macédoniens au IXe siècle (Paris, 1926), p. 45. One of his sources was Ioannes 244: Ignatius, Vita Greg. Dec. 24.

For a list of his works, see Tusculum-Lexikon, edd. W. Buchwald, A. Hohlweg, O. Prinz, 3rd. ed. (Munich, 1982), 360-361. For the Kanon on the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion, see Ignatios 8 (Sevcenko identifies the author of the Kanon with Ignatius the Deacon (Ignatios 9), connecting expressions of personal contrition with his lapse into iconoclasm and subsequent disgrace; Sevcenko, op. cit., p. 36, n. 63. The argument is persuasive rather than conclusive). He is also identified by Sevcenko with Ignatios the Monk, author of a Kanon on Tarasios 1; see Sevcenko, op. cit., p. 36, n. 63 (the Kanon is published by Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἀλήθεια 22 (1902), 88, 90-91; Papadopoulos-Kerameus suggested, ibid., p. 38, that the anonymous Canon on the Translation of the Relics of the Patriarch Nicephorus (text in the Menaion of 13 March) is also by him and if so, as Sevcenko notes, Ignatius the Deacon (Ignatios 9) was still alive in 846).

A monk, he was the author of the Life of the patriarch Tarasios 1: Ignatius, Vita Tarasii, title (Ἰγνατίου μοναχοῦ μερικὴ ἐξήγησις εἰς τὸν βίον τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ταρασίου). In his youth (ἐν ἀκμῇ τῆς νεότητος) he received instruction from Tarasios 1 in metrical verse and heroic poetry (μυηθεὶς ἐκ σοῦ τριμέτρων καὶ τετραμέτρων τροχαϊκῶν τε καὶ ἀναπαιστικῶν καὶ ἡρῴων ποιημάτων τὰ κράτιστα); later he took service under him and took down his daily sermons as they were delivered (ὀξυγράφῳ καλάμῳ καὶ μέλανι σημειούμενος), handing his shorthand notes to scribes to be copied before making them up into books: Ignatius, Vita Tarasii 69. He was old and ill when he wrote the Life of Tarasios: Ignatius, Vita Tarasii 70 (γήρᾳ καὶ νόσῳ καμπτόμενος).

Author of sixty-three extant letters and addressee of one, from his friend Nikephoros 71: Ignatius Diac., Epp. (ed. Mango and Efthymiadis). His name is not recorded as author of the letters in the single manuscript containing them, but he identifies himself by name as Ignatios in one letter, Ep. 38, and the last letter, from Nikephoros 71, is addressed to an Ignatios. He was bishop of Nikaia: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 8, 9. A number of letters were written when he was certainly or probably bishop: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 1-3 (letters alluding to ἡ καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐκκλησία and concerning payments due from his church to the state), 4 (Ignatios 9 bewails the difficulties of his post, alluding to ὁ τῆς ἱερωσύνης ζυγὸς), 6, 7-8 (he alludes to his church and identifies it, Ep. 8, line 9, as Nikaia), 9 (he alludes to his ordination at Nikaia, the burden of the priestly office - τὸ τῆς ἱερᾶς ζεύγλης ἄχθος, his own eagerness to acquire the office - ἡ προπετὴς πρὸς τὴν ἱερωσύνην ταχυτής - and his intention to celebrate the forthcoming Easter at Constantinople), 10 (he alludes to his own church and to sacred vessels belonging to it which had been loaned to the newly reinstated church at Taïon and never returned), 11 (he was the superior of the bishop of Noumerika), 13 (Ignatios 9 had visited Prainetos and hoped but in vain to meet the bishop of Helenopolis), 14-18. In one letter, Ep. 11, Ignatios 9 describes himself as having been consecrated to God long previously, as thoroughly educated in the Scriptures and as having held the highest post in the Church at Constantinople (τὸ ἐν τῷ μεγίστῳ τετάχθαι βαθμῷ τῆς μητρὸς καὶ βασιλίδος πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν); the latter can not refer to the post of bishop, because Ignatios 9 was never patriarch of Constantinople, and should probably be understood as an allusion to the post of deacon and skeuophylax recorded in the Suda (see above). He had once been a monk: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 31 (he claims to have broken an initial promise to Christ and done wrong, then to have become a monk but to have again erred by taking part in worldly business), 58 (Ignatios 9 alleges that he was persuaded by Leo 284 among others to abandon his life as a monk on Mt Olympus - με τῆς ἐν ἀρχῇ μοναδικῆς ἡσυχίας αὐτοὶ κατεσπάσατε). Four letters were written before 826: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 21-24 (all addressed to Democharis 1, q.v. for the date). Two others were written when the emperor was an iconoclast (therefore before 842): Ignatius Diac., Epp. 27, 30. Another could not have been written before c. 830: Ignatius Diac., Ep. 37 (the islands of Crete, Cyprus, Euboia, Lesbos, Sardinia and Sicily are either lost to the empire or no longer secure). Four letters were written from the monastery of Pikridion, in or soon after the year 843: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 43-46 (Ep. 43 alludes to the patriarch Methodios 1). Another letter, Ep. 41, was possibly written from the monastery of Pikridion. Four letters were addressed to the patriarch Methodios 1 and therefore date between 843 and 847: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 52-55. Three letters, Epp. 38-40, were written in c. 843, when Ignatios 9 had apparently recanted from a previous doctrinal position but was nevertheless suffering great hardship (the allusion is probably to his abandonment of iconoclasm around the time of the Triumph of Orthodoxy). One letter, Ep. 49, was written between 843 and 846; it was addressed to the bishop of Nikomedeia, Ignatios 6. One letter, Ep. 32, was written in or after 842; it alludes to compositions commissioned from Ignatios 9 in praise apparently of the empress Eirene 1 and of the reigning empress Theodora 2. Another, Ep. 33, was written before 846 (it alludes to Ioannikios 2 as still alive). In three letters Ignatios 9 describes himself as an old man or elderly, and as suffering ill health: Ignatius Diac., Epp. 31, 42, 63. See further Stephanos Efthymiadis, Vita Tarasii, intro., pp. 38-50.

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