Thomas of Constantinople
Our Father among the Saints Thomas, Patriarch of Constantinople
Patriarch · Bishop · d. 610
Commemorated 21 March — Commemoration of the Patriarch of Constantinople
Thomas (†610) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 607 until his death, holding the see through the troubled last years of the emperor Phocas. A deacon and the sakellarios (treasurer) of the Great Church before his elevation, he was esteemed for gentleness and for his care of the Church's order; the tradition recalls a portent of processional crosses clashing of their own accord, which he took, with the counsel of the holy John the Faster's disciple, as an omen of the divisions and calamities soon to fall upon the empire.
Thomas served in the clergy of Hagia Sophia, rising to be deacon and sakellarios — the officer charged with the treasury and discipline of the patriarchal church. On the death of the Patriarch Cyriacus in 607 he was chosen to the throne of Constantinople. His patriarchate fell in the reign of the usurper Phocas, a period of civil disorder, Persian invasion, and the beginnings of the great war that would nearly destroy the empire.
The synaxarion preserves an account of a marvel that troubled him: at a rogation procession the great processional crosses, carried apart by many bearers, were seen to strike violently against one another without human cause. Disquieted, Thomas sought out the holy Theodore of Sykeon, then living in Galatia, and asked the meaning of the sign. Theodore, unwilling to grieve the patriarch, at last disclosed that it foretold coming discords and afflictions for the Christian people — wars, the ravaging of the provinces, and the shaking of the Church — and he prayed that Thomas might be taken to his rest before he should see these evils. So it came to pass: Thomas reposed in peace in 610, and shortly afterward Phocas fell and the Persian storm broke upon the East.
Feast and commemoration
March 21 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 3), within Great Lent. He is kept in the Byzantine synaxaria among the holy patriarchs of Constantinople.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch Thomas guide our life in peace.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Thomas is depicted as a patriarch in the polystavrion and omophorion, blessing or holding the Gospel. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this repository.