resignation of Patriarch Nikephoros I, and appointed the pro-iconoclast Theodotos Melissenos, the son of one of Constantine V's brothers-in-law, in his place. The new patriarch convened a Church council in Constantinople, which overturned the Second Council of Nicaea and reinstated the ban on the veneration of icons. The council was presided over by Theodotos, while Constantine attended it as his father's representative. In 819/820, he issued, jointly with his father, a novel on marriage law. Leo the Armenian was assassinated on 25 December 820 by the supporters of Michael the Amorian, who had been imprisoned for conspiring against Leo. Michael was released from prison and proclaimed emperor on the same night. The new emperor banished Constantine, along with his mother and three brothers, Basil, Gregory, and Theodosios, to the island of Prote, one of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara. There, the four brothers were castrated to make them incapable of claiming the throne in the future, and tonsured. They spent the rest of their days there as monks, although Michael the Amorian allowed them to keep part of the proceeds from their confiscated estates for their and their servants' upkeep. Basil and Gregory are still mentioned as iconophiles in 847, but nothing further is known of Constantine. Notes References Sources 800s births 9th-century Byzantine monks Byzantine people of Armenian descent Castrated people 9th-century Byzantine emperors 9th-century deaths Byzantine eunuchs Byzantine junior emperors Sons of Byzantine emperors