Having studied at Constantinople, he became bishop of Naupaktos and played a major role in the rivalry between the Epirote Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, exiled in the Empire of Nicaea.
In 1199 or 1200 he was appointed as metropolitan of Naupaktos, a post he continued to hold until 1232, when he retired to a monastery at Kozyle near Arta, where he died the following year.
The clash led to the forcible deposition and exile of Apokaukos in 1220, and was resolved only in May 1221 after a synod including representatives from most of the senior sees in Greece and the Epirote domains.
[3] During the same period Apokaukos also emerged, along with Demetrios Chomatenos and George Bardanes, as one of the leading supporters of Epirote political and ecclesiastical independence from the Empire of Nicaea, where the exiled Patriarch of Constantinople resided after the city had fallen to the Crusaders.
His writings, which show him to be less knowledgeable in the law and less exacting in its application than his colleague, are remarkable for their clear and humorous portrayals of daily life and popular culture".