Patriarch Epiphanius of Constantinople

Epiphanius (died June 5, 535) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from February 25, 520 to June 5, 535, succeeding John II Cappadocia.

The Byzantine Empire was now rising to great splendour through the victories of its generals, Belisarius and Narses. Idolatry was universally suppressed, pagan books were burnt and images destroyed, the professors of the old religion imprisoned and flogged. At Constantinople the zeal of Justinian I for a church policy was shown during the patriarchate of Epiphanius by laws (e.g. in 528 and 529) regulating episcopal elections and duties. These enactments, and the passivity of Epiphanius and his clergy, show the absence as yet for exclusively clerical legislation for the spirituality.

The first conspicuous office of Epiphanius was the charge of the catechumens at Constantinople. In 519, the year before his election, he was sent with John II and count Licinius to Macedonia to receive the documents "libellos," or subscriptions of those who wished reunion with the Catholic Church, at the request of the apocrisiarius of Dorotheus, bishop of Thessalonica.

On 25 February 520, he was elected bishop by the Byzantine Emperor Justin I, with the consent of bishops, monks, and people. He is described in the letter of the synod of Constantinople to Pope Hormisdas as "holding the right faith, and maintaining a fatherly care for orphans".

He accepted the conditions of peace between East and West concluded by his predecessor, Patriarch John II with Pope Hormisdas; ratifying them at a council at Constantinople, where he accepted also the decrees of Chalcedon. Dioscorus, agent of Hormisdas at Constantinople, writes of his fair promises, but adds, "What he can fulfil we don't know. He has not yet asked us to communion". Four letters remain of Epiphanius to Hormisdas, telling him of his election, sending him his creed, and declaring that he condemned all those whose name the pope had forbidden to be recited in the diptychs.

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