A protracted struggle with the supporters of…

A protracted struggle with the supporters of Euthymios had followed the restoration of Nicholas to the patriarchate about the time of the accession of Leo VI's brother Alexander to the throne in May 912; the struggle will not end until the new Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos promulgates the Tomos of Union in 920.

In the meantime Alexander had died in 913 after provoking a war with Bulgaria, and the underage Constantine VII had succeeded to the throne.

Simeon I of Bulgaria, intending to reduce the Empire by force—his goal, as always, the throne—seizes Albania, Macedonia, and the imperial stronghold of Adrianople in 914, then proceeds to take most of the Balkan peninsula.