CONSTANTINOPLE. – The ancient Byzantium (Byzantion), founded in 658 BC by a colony of Megarians under their leader Byzas; almost entirely destroyed by Septimius Severus in AD 196, but soon rebuilt. It took the name of C. toward the end of 324, when Constantine chose it as the capital of the Empire and gave it the name together with the title of “New Rome,” adorning it with splendid buildings and rich artistic treasures.
The present name, Istanbul, derives from eşçi tüy 960 av “toward the city,” while the Slavic peoples call it Tsarigrad “city of the emperor.” Situated on the border between Europe and Asia, C. sits on seven hills and extends from west to east in the form of a triangular peninsula, closed toward the land by the Theodosian walls and washed on the north by the waters of the Golden Horn, which is the great commercial port of the city, spanned by two bridges that connect it to the districts of Galata and Pera.
The most fortunate period in the history of C. is that which begins with the death of Justinian (565) and ends with the death of Basil II (1025) the Bulgar-Slayer, which sees Bulgaria defeated and Russia disposed to enter the orbit of Byzantine influence. Then, with the dynasties of the Comneni and the Angeli, begins the irreparable decline (C. is captured in 1204 by the troops of the Fourth Crusade), a decline that ends under the dynasty of the Palaeologi with the fall of the city in 1453 under the scimitar of Muhammad II.
The Ottoman Turks, successors to the emperors, at first enjoyed a period of prosperity that reached its peak with Suleiman II (d. 1566), followed then by a military and political decline that closed in 1922 with the abolition of the sultanate and again in 1924 with that of the caliphate, of which Muhammad V was then invested. The establishment of the Turkish Republic by Kemal Pasha (Atatürk, d. 1938) removed from C. the rank of capital, which was transferred to Ankara in 1923.
SUMMARY:
I. The patriarchate of C
II. Councils of C
III. Hagiography of C
IV. Monasticism and principal civil and Christian monuments of C.I. THE PATRIARCHATE OF C.
I. CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
The Christian origins of Byzantium are obscure. Toward the end of the 2nd century, under Pope Victor (189–99), Theodotus the “reconciler,” an anti-Trinitarian native of Byzantium, was expelled from Rome, a circumstance that suggests the presence of Christians in Byzantium at that time. Given the position of this city at a very busy crossroads between Europe and Asia, it is reasonable to conjecture that Christianity appeared there early, no doubt at the beginning of the 2nd century or toward the end of the 1st. The earliest community of the faithful must have been directed by a priest dependent on Heraclea in Thrace. No mention is made of bishops before the beginning of the 3rd century (c. 215), and even the tradition, which goes back only to the 10th century, presents only three titular heads for the entire 3rd century.Only with Metrophanes I (306–307 – June 4, 314) does the uninterrupted series of prelates begin. These were originally, and until 381, suffragans of the see of Heraclea. But a legend, not earlier than the beginning of the 6th century, makes the bishopric of Byzantium a foundation of the apostle St. Andrew, who is said to have given it its first titular, St. Stachys, appointed by St. Paul (Rom 16:9). This legend arose from the desire to make the New Rome an apostolic foundation no less than the ancient one. To Peter, the “Chief of the Apostles,” there had to be opposed Andrew, the “Protocletos,” that is, the “first called.”
The legend met with rapid success, not only in Byzantine tradition from the 7th century but also soon in the West itself, and Baronius included it in the Roman Martyrology on October 31, forgetting the words of Leo the Great to Emperor Marcian: “Quod