Michael considered high-ranking members of the Byzantine aristocracy who refused to embrace the union as threats to his reign, and they were imprisoned, flogged, blinded, or murdered.

When Acropolites and Xiphilinos presented the invitation of his daughter's hand in return for ceding his ancestral title, John refused this offer.

[7] Following the suppression of Papadopoulos' revolt, a second embassy from Michael arrived at Trebizond, composed of Demetrios Iatropoulos, logothetes ton oikeiakon, and a high ecclesiastic, who offered the bargain once again.

"The title of Basileus, the purple boots, the robes embroidered with eagles, and the prostrations of the powerful chiefs of the aristocracy, were dear to the pride of the citizens of Trebizond, and attached them to the person of the emperors.

However, when he reached Constantinople, his hosts induced him, before he entered the city, to lay aside his purple boots and imperial robes out of respect for Michael Palaiologos—despite the fact his future father-in-law was absent campaigning against the Turks.

Next was his half-sister Theodora, daughter of Manuel I by his Georgian wife, Rusudan, who apparently deposed him in 1284 to rule for a short time before making a "sudden flight" (in Michael Panaretos' words) from Trebizond; Michel Kuršanskis suggests he may have taken refuge in Tripolis.

His account of John's reign—which amounts to three paragraphs—concludes with the statement that it was "during his reign the Turks seized Chalybia and launched a great invasion, so that all those places became uninhabited.

Pope Nicholas IV wrote two letters in 1291 inviting John II to convert to Catholicism, join in a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land and be Christianity's envoy to the Mongols.

The following year an English embassy to the Mongols passed through Trebizond; Anthony Bryer notes John did little for them except lend them "his palace chef to show how the local delicacies of the Empire were cooked.

[17] Also in the first years of this decade there is evidence that the Franciscans established a convent in Trebizond, which not only served as their base for evangelizing Anatolia, but provided friars to minister to the Genoese in that city.