Saint Nicephorus the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople (829)
Nicephorus was a nobleman of Constantinople. His father, Theodore, a high-ranking official of the imperial court, was wealthy and pious. Nicephorus served at the court for several years in the same profession as his father. Seeing all the vanity of the world, he withdrew to the shores of the Bosphorus and founded a monastery. The monastery was quickly filled with monks and he governed it; but he was not willing to receive the monastic ton- sure, under the pretext that he was not worthy, even though in all things he served as a model to all. Before that, he had participated in the Seventh Ecumenical Council [Nicaea, 787] as a layman, at the wishes of the emperor and the patriarch, and the Council had benefit- ted greatly from his superior knowledge of Sacred Scripture. When Patriarch Tarasius died, Nicephorus was elected patriarch against his will. Im- mediately following his election in the year 806, he received the monastic tonsure and, in succession, all the ecclesiastical ranks. He was enthroned as patriarch in the Church of Hagia Sophia. This took place during the reign of Emperor Nicephorus, who immediately after that went to war against the Bulgarians and was slain. His son Stauracius reigned only two months and died. After him there ruled the good Emperor Michael, surnamed Rangabe, but he reigned for only two years, until he was over- thrown by Leo the Armenian and exiled. When Leo was to be crowned, the patriarch sent him a book of the Orthodox Confession of Faith to sign (according to the custom of all Byzantine emperors, which was considered an oath that they would uphold and defend the true Faith). The emperor did not sign it but rather postponed signing it until after the coronation. When the patriarch crowned him, Leo refused to sign the book, and he quickly proved himself to be a heretic, an iconoclast. The patriarch attempted to advise him and restore him to the true Faith, but in vain. The emperor forcibly banished Nicephorus to the island of Proconnesus, where he remained for thirteen years, enduring every kind of misery and privation, and he en- tered into eternity in the year 827. He governed the Church of Christ as patriarch for nine years.
