From this document scholars, such as Laurent,[2] deduce that in June 1466 Mark II was actually Patriarch, that he and his family had previously been in Crete and that they opposed the East-West Union of Churches established in the Council of Florence and supported by the Republic of Venice.
Mark became Metropolitan of Adrianople in 1464,[3] and in autumn 1465 (or early 1466) he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople with the support of lay archons such as the Chartophylax George Galesiotes and the Grand Ecclesiarch (i.e. Head Sacristan) Manuel (the future Patriarch Maximus III of Constantinople), as well as the secretary of the Sultan Demetrios Kyritzes.
[2] On the other hand, it is known that some bishops refused to commemorate him during the Divine Liturgy, as a sign that they did not recognise him as patriarch, probably accusing him of simony.
[4] Symeon was successful in obtaining the throne, giving 2000 pieces of gold as a present to the Ottoman government, thus beginning a simoniac practice that marked the history of the Patriarchate of Constantinople for the following centuries.
Many scholars, such as Kiminas (2009),[6] Runciman (1985),[4] Grumel (1958)[7] and Bishop Germanos of Sardeis (1933–1938)[8], as well as the official website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,[5] follow the chronicles of Dorotheos of Monemvasia and place the reign of Mark II before Symeon I of Constantinople, even if with some slightly different suggestions about the precise dates of the reign, however generally in the range from 1465 to 1467.