Ioannicius II was a fourteenth-century Serbian hierarch, a native of Prizren, who rose from service in the royal chancery to lead the Serbian Church, first as archbishop and then, from 1346, as its first patriarch. He is commemorated on September 3 and is venerated as a wonderworker.
Before his ecclesiastical career, Ioannicius served at the court of King Stefan Dušan, where, according to the sources, he held the office of logothete or royal chancellor. The anchor tradition records that he became Archbishop of Serbia from 1339; other sources place his election to the archiepiscopal see of Peć somewhat earlier, between late 1337 and the beginning of 1338. As archbishop he was remembered as a zealous organizer of the Serbian Church and, in the words of the synaxarion, a great upholder of its laws.
In 1346 the Serbian Church was raised to the rank of a patriarchate, and Ioannicius became its first patriarch. By tradition his elevation, observed on Palm Sunday of that year, was undertaken so that he might crown Stefan Uroš IV Dušan as emperor at Easter 1346; the sources relate that the elevation was carried out with the assent of the Patriarch of Trnovo, the Archbishop of Ohrid, and the monastic community of Mount Athos.
Ioannicius reposed on September 3 and was buried in the Monastery of Peć, the seat of the Serbian primate, where his relics are preserved. The anchor tradition and several sources give the year of his death as 1354, while the Prologue of Ohrid records it as 1349.
