Theodore Balsamon

Theodore Balsamon (born c. 1130–40, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]—died c. 1195, Constantinople) was the principal Byzantine legal scholar of the medieval period and patriarch of Antioch (c. 1185–95).

After a long tenure as law chancellor to the patriarch of Constantinople, Balsamon preserved the world’s knowledge of many source documents from early Byzantine political and theological history through his commentary (c. 1170) on the nomocanon, the standard annotated collection (since the 7th century) of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical and imperial laws and decrees.