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However, Justinian is often criticized by secular sources as a despot. Even some dissent occurs in Orthodox [[Holy Tradition]]. For example, the [[hagiography]] of St. [[Eutychius of Constantinople|Eutychius]] paints a more complicated portrait of the Emperor:
:"After the death of the holy [[Patriarch]] Menas, the [[Apostle Peter]] appeared in a vision to the emperor Justinian and, pointing his hand at Eutychius, said, 'Let him be made your [[bishop]].' At the very beginning of his patriarchal service, St Eutychius [not Justinian himself] convened the [[Fifth Ecumenical Council]] (553), at which the [[Church Fathers|Fathers]] condemned the heresies cropping up and anathematized them. However, after several years a new heresy arose in the Church: [[Aphthartodocetism ]] [asartodoketai] or "imperishability" which taught that the flesh of Christ...[was] not capable of suffering. St Eutychius vigorously denounced this heresy, but the emperor ''Justinian'' himself inclined toward it, and turned his wrath upon the saint. By order of the emperor, soldiers seized the saint in the church, removed his patriarchal vestments, and sent him into exile to an Amasean monastery (565)."<sup>[http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?FSID=101008]</sup>
However, Father Asterios Gerostergios in his book ''Justinian the Great: The Emperor and Saint'', refutes the assertion that Justinian succumbed in his last years to the heresy of aphthartodocetism. It is commonly accepted that, after a lengthy reign in which Justinian spared no effort to try to bring the Monophysites back into the fold of the Orthodox Church, people were weary of the aged emperor. Thus, it is commonly asserted that Justinian adhered to the aphthartodocetist heresy, which was essentially an extreme form of Monophysitism, and deposed Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople for his supposed refusal to conform to this teaching.
