Patriarch John VIII of Constantinople

John VIII Xiphilinos (c. 1010/1012 in Trebizond, † 1075 ) was from 1064 until his death Patriarch of Constantinople Opel.

He was a pupil of John Mauropous, who later became Archbishop of Euchaita. At this time he met the later historian Michael Psellos know. Xiphilinos was head of the Faculty of Law, University of Constantine Opel. Under Constantine IX. he fell out of favor at court and entered with Psellos in the famous monastery on the Olympus Mons a. While Psellos soon returned back to the court, he was abbot of a monastery in Anatolia and finally, against his will in 1064 after the death of Constantine III. Lichoudas elected Patriarch of Constantinople Opel, though he would rather have stayed Abt.

When the Dowager Empress Eudocia Makrembolitissa wanted to get married again, it was particularly Xiphilinos who insisted that she had to take an oath to never to marry again, she had given her dying husband hold. In order to change his mind, she submitted to the Patriarch with the help of the court eunuchs the suggestion that she could marry his brother Bardas. Xiphilinos seems to have been impressed by the proposal and submitted it to the Senate. Eventually, however, he agreed to the marriage of the Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes with Dowager to, probably because his brother was generally regarded as unsuitable spouse, as the historian John Skylitzes reported.