Demetrios Chomatenos

emetrios Chomatenos studied law in Constantinople and served two Patriarchs as notarios before 1204. After the Latin conquest he appears to have sought refuge in Macedonia where he was appointed chartophylax of the metropolitan of Ohrid, John Kamateros. There, he became famous as a theologian and as an expert on canon law and in 1217 he was appointed archbishop of Ohrid by Theodore Doukas. In this capacity, he presided over an ecclesiastical court, which examined cases assembled from an area extending from Kerkyra (Corfu) to Drama. Padoslav of Serbia and Theodore Doukas also consulted with Chomatenos on legal matters, which is why there survive a great number of letters containing Chomatenos' answers. The work that he has left behind, however, is not only of a legal nature: it also comprises hagiological texts, poems and interpretations of the Scriptures and of Aristotle. In Ohrid Chomatenos had a library of his own containing law books, which he claimed to have brought over from Constantinople.