Hierarch Metrophanes of Byzantium

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the category has been corrected from "righteous" to "hierarch." "Byzantium" in the name refers simply to the pre-Christian name of the city, later renamed Constantinople by Constantine the Great — not a separate location, but the earlier name of the same city.

Hierarch Metrophanes was the son of Dometius, a noble Roman Christian, described by some sources as the brother, by others as the nephew, of Emperor Probus (r. 276-282). The family fled Rome for Byzantium amid persecution; Dometius was ordained by Bishop Titus of Byzantium and himself later became bishop, succeeded by his son (Metrophanes's brother) Probus, and then by Metrophanes himself in 306 (other sources say 316).

When Constantine the Great relocated the imperial capital to Byzantium, he was drawn to Metrophanes's holiness, made him his spiritual confidant, and, through the bishops gathered at the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (325), secured him the title of Patriarch, making him the first Patriarch of Constantinople. Due to extreme old age and infirmity, Metrophanes could not personally attend the council, sending his vicar Alexander instead (whom, tradition holds, he prophesied would succeed him).

IMPORTANT NOTE: sources disagree on the exact chronology of his episcopate (306 or 316) and even on whether a bishop named Alexander held the see independently around 313/314 before him; the tradition of his extraordinary longevity (117 years) is regarded by scholarship as hagiographic tradition rather than a strictly established historical fact.

He died around 325/326. His feast is kept on June 4/17.