NECTARIUS, Patriarch of CONSTANTINOPLE. — Born at Tarsus in Cilicia in the first half of the 4th century, died 27 Sept. 397 at Constantinople, where he was the eleventh bishop and the first patriarch (381–97).
He was a praetor at Constantinople when, during the Second Ecumenical Council (381), he was called to govern that Church after the death of Meletius and the resignation of Gregory Nazianzen. He was still a catechumen; yet his election was acceptable to Theodosius, the bishops of the Council and the people. Immediately after his election and under his presidency, the Council approved the famous canon III regarding the primacy of honour of Constantinople after Rome. Nectarius remained always faithful to the Catholic faith, but he did not prove himself a man of great authority. In 388, during a riot, the Arians attempted to set fire to the episcopal palace. Socrates (*Hist. eccl.*, V, 19) and Sozomen (*Hist. eccl.*, VII, 16) relate that Nectarius, towards the end of his episcopate, would have abolished public penance and the office of penitentiary, on account of a grave scandal that had occurred at Constantinople. In 394 he convened in his see a general council of the bishops of the East. A discourse of his on the feast of the martyr Theodore is preserved (PG 39, 1821–40). The Byzantine Church venerates him as a saint (27 Sept. and 11 Oct.): he was succeeded in the episcopal see by St John Chrysostom.