Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople

Life

He governed the holy Church with wisdom and zeal as the supreme archpastor of Constantinople. When Leo the Armenian rose against the icons, he opposed the emperor — first counseling him and then rebuking him openly. For this the impious emperor banished him to the island of Proconnesus. On that island was a monastery which Nicephorus himself had built in honor of Saint Theodore. And there this confessor of the Orthodox faith spent thirteen years, after which he presented himself and went to the Lord in the year 827. After all the iconoclast emperors had perished, and Michael with his mother Theodora ascended the imperial throne, and the Patriarch Methodius was restored to the patriarchal throne, then in the year 846 the relics of Saint Nicephorus were translated from Proconnesus to Constantinople. They were first placed in the Church of Holy Wisdom, from which he had been expelled during his lifetime, and afterward in the Church of the Holy Apostles. The principal feast of this great hierarch falls on June 2, while on March 13 the finding and translation of his incorrupt relics is celebrated. Saint Nicephorus was banished from Constantinople on March 13, and again on March 13 — nineteen years later — his relics were translated to the capital.

From the Hymn of Praise

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