Apostles

THE APOSTLES : M.M.NINAN
The Apostle Stachys was one of the Seventy Apostles of the Lord. In 38 AD Apostle Andrew
appointed him first bishop of the city of Byzantium, which three centuries later would be renamed
into Constantinople. According to the synaxarion, he built a church in which many Christians were
gathering. There he taught and shepherded his flock. He lived 16 years in the apostolic preaching,
and rested peacefully in the Lord.
In AD 330 that the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great moved his residence to Byzantium,
renaming it Nova Roma. From that time, the importance of the church there grew, along with the
influence of its bishop. Prior to the moving of the imperial capital, the bishop of Byzantium had
been under the authority of the metropolitan of Heraclea, but beginning in the 4th century, he grew
to become independent in his own right and even to exercise authority throughout what is now
modern-day Greece, Asia Minor, Pontus, and Thrace. With the development of the hierarchical
structure of the Church, the bishop of Constantinople came to be styled as exarch (a position
superior to metropolitan). Constantinople was recognized as the fourth patriarchate at the First
Council of Constantinople in 381, after Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. The patriarch was usually
appointed by Antioch.