St. Nectarius of Constantinople

Nectarius was born around the year 330 in Tarsus in Cilicia, of a Christian family of senatorial rank. He served in the imperial civil administration and rose to be praetor of Constantinople. He was at the Council of 381 as a catechumen, unbaptized but having lived in the Christian register all his life, intending to receive baptism in his own time.

When St. Gregory the Theologian withdrew from the throne of Constantinople rather than be a cause of division between the Eastern and Egyptian factions at the Council, the bishops asked the Emperor Theodosius to nominate a successor. Theodosius gave them a list of candidates including Nectarius, whose name he placed last. The bishops, examining the list, found themselves drawn to the senator, and elected him.

On the same day he was catechised, baptized, chrismated, ordained deacon, ordained presbyter, and consecrated to the throne of Constantinople in a sequence of services that began at dawn and was completed before the evening, the Emperor and the Council standing as witnesses. He presided over the rest of the Council, the Council subscribed the Creed and the canons under his presidency, and the Synodical Letter to the West the following year went out in his name.

He held the throne for sixteen years, a quiet and able pastor of a city that had been theologically tumultuous for sixty years. He kept St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian (in retirement at Cappadocia), and the other Cappadocian elders as his theological counsellors. He ordained the young John Chrysostom as deacon and presbyter in Antioch on Meletius's recommendation, the foundation of Chrysostom's later succession to the throne of Constantinople.