NICEFORO I, PATRIARCA DI COSTANTINOPOLI, SANTO

NICEPHORUS I, patriarch of CONSTANTINOPLE, saint. — Born ca. 758 in Constantinople to a noble family, he was appointed secretary of the imperial chancellery and, even while still a layman, founded a monastery on the shores of the Asiatic Bosphorus, where he withdrew for a time to devote himself to study. He became director of the great hospital of Constantinople under Emperor Constantine VI (780–97). In April 806, after the death of Patriarch St. Tarasius, he was elected patriarch, though still a layman; but zealous monks, among whom were St. Plato and his nephew St. Theodore, were displeased by this election on account of the infraction of ecclesiastical discipline. They were therefore imprisoned for twenty-four days and later condemned in a synod (809) for refusing to acknowledge the ecclesiastical rehabilitation of the priest Joseph, who under Tarasius had blessed the adulterous marriage of Emperor Constantine VI.
Peace between Nicephorus and the monks was restored when, after the death of Emperor Nicephorus I (802–11), the patriarch renewed under Michael I (811–13) the sentence of Tarasius against the priest Joseph and vigorously defended the veneration of sacred images against the new iconoclastic emperor Leo V (813–20), showing himself ready to undergo exile for the sake of the faith. He died in exile on 2 June 820, having refused to yield to a compromise proposed by the new emperor Michael II (820–29). Nicephorus left historical, apologetical, and canonical writings; his letter to Pope Leo III is also preserved (PG 100, 169–200). The Byzantine and Roman Churches venerated him as a saint.