Hieromartyr Paul the Confessor

Saint Paul I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was born in Thessalonica and served as a close associate of Patriarch Alexander before being elected to the see of Constantinople after Alexander's death, around 337. His episcopate coincided with the height of the Arian controversy under the pro-Arian emperor Constantius II, and Paul was repeatedly deposed and exiled for upholding the Nicene faith: first replaced by the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia and forced to flee to Rome, then briefly restored, exiled again, restored a second time through the intervention of the western co-emperor Constans, and finally banished a third time after Constans was assassinated in 350. He was sent to Cucusus in Armenia, where, according to tradition, Arian partisans burst in while he was celebrating the Divine Liturgy and strangled him with his own omophorion, martyring him in 350. In 381 Emperor Theodosius I solemnly translated his relics to Constantinople. Though traditionally titled "the Confessor" for his repeated exiles in defense of Orthodoxy, several Orthodox liturgical sources also explicitly call him a hieromartyr, given his violent death at the hands of heretics. His feast is kept November 6/19.