Bardanes was born in
Athens some time in the late 12th century. He came under the tutelage of the city's
archbishop,
Michael Choniates, under whom he received his education. When Athens was captured by the
Crusaders in 1205, Bardanes followed his master to his exile on
Keos, serving as his secretary (
hypomnematographos and
chartophylax). In 1214 he went to the capital of the
Latin Empire,
Constantinople, to represent Choniates in the discussions between Greek Orthodox prelates and the Papal representative, Cardinal
Pelagius of Albano. By 1218 he was serving in the bishopric of
Grevena as
chartophylax. By this time he had established a friendship and correspondence with another prominent cleric, the
Metropolitan of Naupaktos John Apokaukos, and through the latter's intercession, was appointed in 1219 as
Metropolitan of Corfu by the ruler of
Epirus,
Theodore Komnenos Doukas. From this position Bardanes, along with Apokaukos and the
Archbishop of Ohrid Demetrios Chomatenos, became one of the leading proponents of political and ecclesiastical independence of Epirus from the
Empire of Nicaea, where the exiled
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople resided after the city had
fallen to the Crusaders. In 1228, Bardanes authored the letter of the Epirote clergy to
Patriarch Germanus II which effected a
schism between the two Churches that lasted until 1233, when again it fell to Bardanes to compose the letter that ended it. In 1235/6, the ruler of
Thessalonica Manuel Komnenos Doukas sent Bardanes to Italy, as an envoy to
Frederick II Hohenstaufen and
Pope Gregory IX, but he fell ill at
Otranto and was unable to carry out his mission. He died in ca. 1240. ==References==