The “Man in the Iron Mask” was Bishop Avedik Yevtogiatsi

According to Patriarch Maghakia Ormanian (1841-1918), the “Man in the Iron Mask” was Bishop Avedik Yevtogiatsi of Constantinople.

Ormanian wrote that Bishop Yevtogiatsi, who lived in the 18th century, was hated by the French because he fought missionary Jesuits. French envoy Charles Ferriol, Marquise d’Argental, asked the sultan to exile Yevtogiatsi to an island off Syria.

Instead, the sultan sent the bishop to Jerusalem. But the French bribed the Turkish captain to head his ship west. In Sicily, the bishop was handed to the French who put him in an Inquisition prison.

He was later moved to the island of Mount Michel in France and later to Bastille. Yevtogiatsi died in 1711 and was buried in the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris.

By Jirair Tutunjian keghart.org