Jeremias II, elected patriarch in 1572 by popular acclaim, had immediately instituted a reform by disciplining the clergy and prosecuting simony (the sale and purchase of ecclesiastical offices).

Having irritated the Holy Synod, the council of bishops, by his zeal, he had been deposed in 1579.

Public clamor, however, returned him to office after nine months.

Jeremias had from 1572 to 1581 corresponded with German Lutheran theologians who sought Orthodox support for the Lutheran articles of faith contained in the 1530 Confession of Augsburg.

Although he had expressed some agreement with certain articles of the Lutheran creed, Jeremias had repudiated the Lutheran beliefs on grace and sacramental worship.

The proceedings of this Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue had been published at Wittenberg, Germany, as Acta et Scripta Theologorum Wirtembergensium et Patriarchae Constantinopolitani, D. Hieremiae (1584; “Acts and Writings of the Württemberg Theologians and His Lordship Jeremias, Patriarch of Constantinople”).

Jeremias' anti-Western spirit had caused him even to reject the Gregorian calendar, the new style of chronological computation instituted in March 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

He had in 1584 again been deposed; but once again, after two years, his popularity, backed by the goodwill of the Ottoman sultan, secures his return.