Although Basil's reign was a period of stability during the civil war that dominated the pocket empire during the second quarter of the 14th century, some of that conflict had its origins in his marital actions.

The Scholarioi, the militia of capital, became so insubordinate that Basil had to hire foreign mercenaries to protect his person, but through their arrogance and corruption they rapidly made themselves and their master hated.

[2] Such was his unpopularity with the people of the city, that when a solar eclipse took place they took it for a sign of divine wrath and forced the emperor to seek refuge in the citadel and tried to pelt him with stones.

[3] On 17 September 1334, Basil formed a marriage alliance with the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos by marrying his illegitimate daughter Irene.

In this letter the Patriarch reprimands the metropolitan, and all the other ordained men at Trebizond, for the wickedness they had allowed to take place to the injury of the holy canons, and orders them to resolve this problem on the pain of alienating the main body of the Church.