In traditional icons of Saint Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople from 806 to 815 A.D., he holds a Gospel book, since a primary task of a Bishop is to teach his flock the teachings of Christ. However, in his Chronography, to which is appended a list of the canonical writings accepted as Holy Scripture, followed by a list of disputed, or antilegomena, texts and then apocryphal texts, there is one book that is not listed as a canonical book of the New Testament that is normally listed today, but is rather placed among the antilegomena - namely, the Book of Revelation. He does not say why he places the Book of Revelation among the antilegomena, but it is significant that a Patriarch of Constantinople and a Saint of the Church from the ninth century rejected the Book of Revelation as canonical Scripture, and placed it among other disputed books such as the Revelation of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Who Was St. Nikephoros of Constantinople?
Saint Nikephoros was born in Constantinople about the year 758, of pious parents; his father Theodore endured exile and tribulation for the holy icons during the reign of Constantine Copronymos (741-775). Nikephoros served in the imperial palace as a secretary. Later, he took up the monastic life, and struggled in asceticism not far from the imperial city; he also founded monasteries on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus, among them one dedicated to the Great Martyr Theodore.
After the repose of the holy Patriarch Tarasios, he was ordained Patriarch, on April 12, 806, and in this high office led the Orthodox resistance to the Iconoclasts' war on piety, which was stirred up by Leo the Armenian. Because Nikephoros championed the veneration of the icons, Leo drove Nikephoros from his throne on March 13, 815, exiling him from one place to another, and lastly to the Monastery of Saint Theodore which Nicephorus himself had founded. It was here that, after glorifying God for nine years as Patriarch, and then for thirteen years as an exile, tormented and afflicted, he gave up his blameless soul in 828 at about the age of seventy. He is annually celebrated by the Church on June 2nd.
