Paul Palaiologos Tagaris

Paul Palaiologos Tagaris
Latin Patriarch of Constantinople
Double-headed eagle on an altar cloth, believed to have belonged to Paul Tagaris, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art[1]
Diocese	Constantinople (Roman Catholic)
Installed	1379/80
Term ended	1384
Other post(s)	Bishop of Taurezion (Greek Orthodox)
Orders
Ordination	c. 1368
Personal details
Born	c. 1320/1340
Died	after 1394
Nationality	Greek
Denomination	Eastern Orthodox, between 1379–1394 Roman Catholic
Previous post(s)	Patriarchal exarch of Antioch (c. 1368–1370) Bishop of Taurezion (c. 1375)

Paul Palaiologos Tagaris (Greek: Παῦλος Παλαιολόγος Τάγαρις, c. 1320/1340 – after 1394) was a Byzantine Greek monk and impostor. A scion of the Tagaris family, Paul also claimed a somewhat dubious connection with the Palaiologos dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire at the time. He fled his marriage as a teenager and became a monk, but soon his fraudulent practices embroiled him in scandal. Fleeing Constantinople, he traveled widely, from Palestine to Persia and Georgia and eventually, via Ukraine and Hungary to Italy, Latin Greece, Cyprus and France.

During his long and tumultuous career, Paul was appointed an Orthodox bishop, sold ordinations to ecclesiastical offices, pretended to be the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, switched from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism and back again, supported both the See of Rome and the Avignon anti-popes in the Western Schism, and managed to be named Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. In the end, his deceptions unmasked, he returned to Constantinople, where he repented and confessed his sins before a synod in 1394.