His writings show him to be a student not only of Western philosophy but of controversy with Jews and Muslims, of the great Hesychast question (he attacked Barlaam and defended the monks; naturally, the Barlaamites were "latinophrones"), in short, of all the questions that were important in his time. He has another kind of importance as the first Patriarch of Constantinople under the Turks. From this point of view he stands at the head of a new period in the history of his Church; the principles that regulated the condition of Orthodox Christians in the Turkish Empire are the result of Mehmed II's arrangement with him.