Nicholas Chrysoberges
Our Father among the Saints Nicholas II Chrysoberges, Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch · Bishop · d. c. 992
Commemorated 16 December
Nicholas Chrysoberges was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in the last decades of the tenth century, under the emperor Basil II. His patriarchate is remembered for events of lasting consequence: he is held to have received the hymn "It is Truly Meet" (Axion Estin), revealed — the Athonite tradition says — by the Archangel Gabriel; in his time the newly baptised Rus' were given their first metropolitan, Michael, sent to Kiev; and he ordained and encouraged the young Symeon, afterward the New Theologian, as abbot of the monastery of St Mamas in the capital. He reposed in peace and is commemorated on December 16.
Nicholas, of the family of the Chrysobergai, held the throne of Constantinople as patriarch in the reign of Basil II the "Bulgar-slayer." The dates given for his patriarchate vary in the sources — most commonly c. 980–992, though others give 979–991 or 984–996 — and the year of his repose is likewise uncertain, falling in the early or middle 990s; the tradition remembers that he governed the Church peaceably for some twelve years and died in peace.
Three things above all attach to his memory. First, the tradition of the hymn Axion Estin: in a cell on Mount Athos, it is told, a monk was visited by a radiant stranger — understood to be the Archangel Gabriel — who taught him to sing before the icon of the Mother of God the words "It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos…" as a prelude to the older hymn "More honourable than the cherubim," and inscribed them with his finger upon a stone; the slate was brought to Constantinople in the days of Patriarch Nicholas, and the hymn passed thence into the use of the whole Church. Second, the evangelising of the Rus': after the baptism of Prince Vladimir and his people (988), it was under Nicholas that the Church of Constantinople sent Michael as first metropolitan to Kiev (c. 989), the beginning of the hierarchy of the Russian land. Third, his part in the life of Symeon the New Theologian: it was Nicholas who received the young Symeon into the priesthood and set him over the monastery of St Mamas in the City, where Symeon would become one of the greatest of the Church's mystical teachers.
Nicholas reposed in peace and was numbered among the saints; his memory is kept on December 16.
Feast and commemoration
Nicholas Chrysoberges is commemorated on December 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 29), among the day's hierarchs. The commemoration is kept especially in the Greek tradition (he is honoured by the Latin Church on the same day). He has no proper service; his memory is kept by the synaxarion notice and the common of a holy hierarch.
Iconography
No devotional icon proper to Nicholas Chrysoberges has been found stored in licence-clean form. He would be depicted as a patriarch — in sakkos and omophorion, blessing, with the Gospel — and he appears as a subordinate figure in narrative images of the tenth-century Church: a Russian chronicle miniature of his ordination as patriarch (979) and another of him serving in Hagia Sophia before Basil II and the envoys of the Rus', and the lead seal of his patriarchate bearing the Theotokos Hodegetria. None of these is a saint's icon, and the entry is listed among the wanted icons until a suitable image is found.