the Hagia Sophia, and soon after married Empress Theophano, bolstering his legitimacy. The marriage provoked some clerical opposition, aggravated by the tremendous enmity the arch-conservative Patriarch Polyeuctus felt towards the young upstart empress. Both Theophano and Nikephoros had previously been bereaved of a spouse, and the Orthodox Church only begrudgingly accepted remarriage. Polyeuctus banned Nikephoros from kissing the holy altar until the emperor performed a penance for having remarried. Further complications arose when Nikephoros was alleged to have been godfather to one or more of Theophano's children, which placed the couple within a prohibited spiritual relationship. Nikephoros organised a council which nullified the relevant rules, on the grounds that they had been pronounced by the discredited iconoclast emperor Constantine V Copronymus. Polyeuctus did not accept the council as legitimate, and declared Nikephoros excommunicated until the emperor sent Theophano away. In response, Bardas Phokas and another person testified that Nikephoros was not in fact godfather to any of Theophano's children, at which Polyeuctus relented and allowed Nikephoros to return to full communion and keep Theophano as his wife. Nikephoros' gruff military style proved counterproductive in diplomacy and at court. Soon the empire was at war on multiple fronts, the heavy taxes needed to support the wars were widely unpopular particularly as they coincided with a few years of poor harvests which brought famine. When the emperor tried to relieve the suffering by limiting the wealth of the monasteries, he alienated the church. A widespread conspiracy developed to remove the emperor. On the night of 10 and 11 December 969, his nephew John I Tzimiskes (969–976) crossed the Bosphorus in a storm, was smuggled into the palace and allowed into the imperial chambers where he woke and killed his uncle. John was good-looking and irrepressibly charming and the contemporary writers record that he and Theophano were lovers. They had come to an understanding on the conspiracy against the emperor. On the night of the assassination Theophano suspiciously left the imperial bedchamber, leaving the doors unbolted. Downfall John now proposed to marry Theophano. However, the empress had by now been too damaged by gossip and rumors. Patriarch Polyeuctus refused to perform the coronation unless John punished those who had assisted him in the assassination, removed the "scarlet empress" from the court, and repealed all his predecessor's decrees that ran contrary to the interests of the church. John calculated that his legitimacy would be