ΔΙΑΔΟΧΗ Church history, visualized
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Constantinople

Archbishop of Constantinople (Ecumenical Patriarch) · c. 38 by tradition (Stachys, ordained by Andrew; imperial see from 330)

By tradition Andrew ordained Stachys at Byzantium; history made the city Constantine's capital and its bishop the ecumenical patriarch, second in honor after Rome (381) — a rise Rome never fully accepted. The tension runs through this whole era: the Acacian schism, the Photian quarrels, and at last 1054, when Michael Cerularius and the Roman legates exchanged excommunications.

Continues today as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, first among the Orthodox churches.

The bishops

112 holders in the record.

Of the 111 links in this chain, 12 rest on a recorded succession; 92 are inferred from the numbering — the register numbers the two holders consecutively and no source says one followed the other; 7 are named by no register at all: nothing joins those two rows. Each holder below says which it is.

Glosses

  • Because it is New Rome Constantinople was not an apostolic see. It had no founder among the Twelve, no martyr's grave, and a bishop who in 325 answered to Heraclea. Canon 3 of the council of 381 gave it the primacy of honour after Rome…
  • Ecumenical in the West only Two councils met at Constantinople over Photius, in 869 and again in 879, and they reached opposite conclusions. Rome counts the first as the eighth ecumenical council; the East counts the second as a council that…
  • The five sees Justinian's law speaks of five patriarchates — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem — in that order, and the arrangement is called the pentarchy. It was never quite the fact it was legislated as…

Events

Texts

Feasts

List of ecumenical patriarchs of Constantinople · the communion today