Photios I was born c. 810 or 820 in Constantinople and died 891 in Bordi (Armenia). He was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886. In the Eastern Orthodox churches he is called St. Photios the Great. Photios a powerful and influential Patriarch of Constantinople. As a scholar, Photios possessed a tremendous knowledge of Greek literature. He was a leading intellectual of his time, "the leading light of the ninth-century renaissance". He was a central figure in both the religious conversion of the Slavs to Christianity and the Photian schism.