mission · 40 · Scythia
Eusebius, quoting Origen, says that when the apostles and disciples of the Saviour were scattered over the world, Parthia fell to Thomas, Asia to John, and Scythia to Andrew (HE 3.1). That is early and sober and is as far as the documentary record goes. The Greek tradition carries him much further — along the Black Sea coast through Sinope to Byzantium, where he is said to have ordained Stachys its first bishop. That claim is the ground on which Constantinople answered Rome's appeal to Peter, and it belongs to a later century than Eusebius; it is kept here as tradition, and marked.
To take the lot that fell to him when the apostles divided the world.
Scythia and the Black Sea; and, by a tradition the Byzantine church built its dignity on, Byzantium.