Saint Nikiforos the Confessor Patriarch of Constantinople
Date of celebration: 02/06
Agios Nikiforos was born in Constantinople in 758 AD. His parents Theodoros and Eudokia belonged to an aristocratic and official social class, but they were pious and virtuous people who nurtured their son with the threads of the Holy Scriptures. In fact, his father’s commitment to the right faith caused him to be persecuted and exiled by the iconoclast and ungodly emperor Constantine V, Cypronymos to Nicaea, where he died. Gifted with special intellectual abilities, he acquired a great theological and spiritual education. But he quickly retired to an estate on the Bosphorus, where he devoted himself to exercise and the study of the Holy Scriptures. But the emperor obliged him to take over the management of the great almshouse of Constantinople. When Tarasios, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Emperor Nikephoros I, fell asleep, he nominated Nikephoros as his worthy successor. and indeed on Easter Sunday of 806 he ascended the Patriarchal Throne. Throne which was equivalent to Calvary. He fought hard for the honor and worship of the holy Icons. But when in 813 AD ascended the throne of Vasilevusa, the impious Leo V, the Armenian, a great and silent persecution broke out against the iconoclasts. Nikiforos’ haughty attitude and insistence on protecting Orthodoxy caused the wrath of the emperor, who removed him from the patriarchal throne. He suffered many sufferings and finally, suffering enough, he surrendered his spirit to the righteous payer God on June 2, 822 AD. He fought hard for the honor and worship of the holy Icons. But when in 813 AD ascended the throne of Vasilevusa, the impious Leo V, the Armenian, a great and silent persecution broke out against the iconoclasts. Nikiforos’ haughty attitude and insistence on protecting Orthodoxy caused the wrath of the emperor, who removed him from the patriarchal throne. He suffered many sufferings and finally, suffering enough, he surrendered his spirit to the righteous payer God on June 2, 822 AD. He fought hard for the honor and worship of the holy Icons. But when in 813 AD ascended the throne of Vasilevusa, the impious Leo V, the Armenian, a great and silent persecution broke out against the iconoclasts. Nikiforos’ haughty attitude and insistence on protecting Orthodoxy caused the wrath of the emperor, who removed him from the patriarchal throne. He suffered many sufferings and finally, suffering enough, he surrendered his spirit to the righteous payer God on June 2, 822 AD. who removed him from the patriarchal throne. He suffered many sufferings and finally, suffering enough, he surrendered his spirit to the righteous payer God on June 2, 822 AD. who removed him from the patriarchal throne. He suffered many sufferings and finally, suffering enough, he surrendered his spirit to the righteous payer God on June 2, 822 AD.