Tsar Ivan Smilets

Ivan IV Smilets (John Komnenos Doukas Angelos Branas Palaiologos Smilets) was a Bulgarian tsar who ruled from 1298 until the autumn of 1299/1300. He was the son of Tsar Smilets and Tsarina Smiltsena and had two sisters: Marina, married to Aldimir, despot of Kran, and Theodora, married to Stefan Uroš III Dečanski, king of Serbia.

Because he was a minor, Ivan IV ruled together with his mother and the despot of Kran, Aldimir, who was married to his sister Marina.

During this period, Bulgaria encouraged peaceful relations with the neighbouring Kingdom of Serbia. Smiltsena offered Stefan Milutin marriage to one of her daughters and the rule of a large, united Bulgarian-Serbian state, but he refused.

In the autumn of 1299, Chaka and Todor Svetoslav managed to reach Tarnovo with a small army. Todor Svetoslav bribed the boyars in order to enter the capital, while Smiltsena and her son Ivan IV Smilets fled first to Kran and then to Constantinople.

After his expulsion from Bulgaria, Ivan IV Smilets became a monk under the name Joasaph in one of the monasteries on Mount Athos. No marriage of Ivan IV Smilets is known, and no offspring are reported.