The Apostolic Throne of Constantinople

The see of Constantinople rose to the second rank of Christendom not by an apostolic founder but by an act of empire and council: its precedence was granted because it was New Rome. Only later, when an apostolic pedigree was felt to be wanting, did the tradition of Andrew the First-Called supply one — and supply it with a peculiar elegance, for Andrew was the brother of Peter and the disciple called before him. This is the point at which the Andrew legend ceased to be merely a missionary itinerary and became an ecclesiological title, set beside Rome’s Petrine claim. Both claims can be sourced; neither is here adjudicated.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

A Precedence Founded on Empire, Not on an Apostle

The historical foundation of Constantinople’s rank is unusually well documented, and what the documents record is a conciliar and imperial act, not an apostolic memory. When the Second Ecumenical Council met at Constantinople in 381, its third canon ruled: “The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome” (First Council of Constantinople, canon 3, NPNF II/14). The rationale is stated in the canon itself and is entirely political: the city is honored because it is the new imperial capital, the Nea Rhōmē. No apostolic founder is named or implied; the precedence is a function of the city’s standing in the empire.

Seventy years later the Council of Chalcedon (451) confirmed and extended this arrangement on precisely the same reasoning. Its twenty-eighth canon recalled “that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is,” and granted to the see of Constantinople enlarged jurisdiction “because it was the royal city” (Council of Chalcedon, canon 28, NPNF II/14). Again the ground is the New-Rome principle: equal civic dignity warrants comparable ecclesiastical dignity. Canon 28 was contested. The Roman legates objected at the council, and Pope Leo the Great refused to ratify it, holding that it infringed the order of the ancient apostolic sees fixed at Nicaea (the Western reception of Chalcedon’s canons is itself part of the dispute treated under Ecclesiology). What matters for the present subject is the kind of basis the East’s own councils gave: dignity grounded in the imperial city, expressly and repeatedly, with no appeal to an apostle.

Why an Apostolic Pedigree Was Sought

A precedence resting on the transfer of empire was strong in fact but exposed in argument. Rome’s own claim to primacy was anchored not in its civic standing but in an apostolic foundation — the see of Peter and Paul — and against that claim the New-Rome rationale could be made to look like the mere accident of the emperor’s residence, liable to lapse if the capital moved. It was in this argumentative situation that an apostolic foundation for Constantinople came to be desired, and the tradition that Andrew the First-Called had preached around the Black Sea and founded the see of Byzantium supplied exactly what was wanted (the foundation tradition itself is set out at The Founding of Byzantium).

The fit was almost too neat to be accidental. Andrew gave Constantinople an apostle of the Twelve, putting its foundation on a footing with the apostolic sees. But Andrew was also, pointedly, the brother of Peter (John 1:40) and the one called before Peter — Prōtoklētos, the First-Called, who in the Johannine narrative finds his brother and brings him to Christ (John 1:41–42). A see founded by the elder-in-calling brother of Rome’s own apostle was an answer designed to meet Rome on its own ground: if Rome had Peter, Constantinople had the one who called Peter. The Andrew claim was thus not merely an apostolic credential but a credential calibrated against the Petrine claim specifically.

Dvornik’s Thesis: a Medieval Construction

The classic critical study of how this came about is Francis Dvornik’s The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew (Harvard, 1958), which remains the foundational work. Dvornik traced the Andrew tradition through all its sources and argued that its full apostolic-foundation form — the claim that Andrew founded the see of Byzantium and ordained its first bishop, and that Constantinople therefore possessed an apostolic origin to set beside Rome’s — is a medieval development rather than an early memory. The detailed legend, on his analysis, crystallized in the Byzantine middle ages, becoming prominent especially from the eighth and ninth centuries onward, and was elaborated most vigorously in the periods of sharpest tension with Rome — above all in the age of Photius (see St. Photius the Great), when the contest over the standing of the two sees was at its height (Dvornik 1958). The apostolic title, in other words, grew up precisely where and when the political precedence needed reinforcing.

This is a historical thesis about the development of a tradition, not a verdict that the Church’s veneration is illegitimate. In the method of this collection (METHODOLOGY §3.5), such a tradition is pinned to its earliest attestation and transmitted as tradition; the sources that carry the developed legend, every one of them centuries removed from the apostle, are inventoried at The Sources for the Mission.

Both Claims, Side by Side

The proper way to weigh the two apostolic titles is to set them down together with their sourcing and to let the difference in attestation speak for itself, without ruling on which see is the greater (METHODOLOGY §4).

Rome’s Petrine claim rests on a foundation that is genuinely early. Its scriptural charter is Matthew 16:18, where Christ says to Simon, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (RSV). The association of Peter — and Paul — with Rome is attested within the first and second centuries: 1 Clement, written from Rome about the end of the first century, speaks of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul as recent and exemplary (1 Clement 5); Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Roman church early in the second century, appeals to Peter and Paul as having a special relation to it (Ignatius, Romans 4); and Irenaeus, late in the second century, names Rome as “the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul,” tracing its succession of bishops from them (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3, ANF 1). The early attestation of Peter and Paul at Rome is thus on firm ground, even though the jurisdictional implications later drawn from it — the claim to universal primacy — are themselves disputed between East and West and are not settled by the early texts.

Constantinople’s Andrew claim, by contrast, is late in attestation. The bare assignment of “Scythia” to Andrew appears first in Origen as quoted by Eusebius in the early fourth century (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.1, NPNF II/1), but the developed claim that Andrew founded the see of Byzantium and ordained its first bishop, Stachys, surfaces only in Byzantine sources of the eighth century and later and is judged by scholarship a medieval construction (Dvornik 1958). Between the two claims there is, on the documentary evidence, a difference of half a millennium and more in the age of the foundation tradition.

There is a closing irony that both sides knew and could turn to advantage. Andrew was indeed called first — Prōtoklētos — and Constantinople could press the priority of the calling. But it was to Peter, not to Andrew, that Christ said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19, RSV), and Rome could press the priority of the commission. First-called against the keys: the same brother-pair furnished arguments for both thrones, and each tradition made the comparison that favored it.

[Disputed: the apostolic foundation of Constantinople by Andrew is attested only in late Byzantine sources (8th c. and later) and is judged by scholarship (Dvornik 1958) a medieval development serving the see’s dignity. Constantinople’s canonical precedence in fact rests on the “New Rome” rationale of the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople 381, canon 3) and the Council of Chalcedon (451, canon 28), NPNF II/14 — a conciliar-imperial, not an apostolic, ground; and canon 28 was contested by Rome and the West. Rome’s Petrine foundation, by contrast, has early attestation (1 Clement; Ignatius, Romans; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3), though the jurisdictional implications drawn from it are themselves disputed between East and West. This entry sources both claims and adjudicates neither.]

The Legacy: the First-Throne and the Thronefeasts

Whatever its origin, the apostolic title became a permanent part of Constantinople’s self-understanding. The Ecumenical Patriarchate venerates Andrew the First-Called as its founder, and the see is styled the “Apostolic Throne” and the “First-Throne” of the Orthodox Church — a designation in which the Andrew tradition and the conciliar precedence have long since merged into a single dignity. The First-Called’s feast on November 30 is kept at the Phanar as the patronal feast of the patriarchate.

The most visible modern fruit of the two apostolic claims is irenic rather than polemical: the exchange of delegations on the two thronefeasts. Each year a delegation of the Church of Rome travels to Constantinople for the feast of Andrew on November 30, and a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate travels to Rome for the feast of Peter and Paul on June 29. The two apostolic titles that grew up partly in rivalry now serve as the occasion for a mutual gesture between the sees of the brother-apostles — Peter at Rome on June 29, Andrew at Constantinople on November 30. The later life of the apostolic-throne idea, including these exchanges, is traced at Reception and Legacy.

References

Dvornik, Francis. The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958. (The foundational critical study: the developed Andrew foundation-claim as a medieval construction serving the contest with Rome, prominent from the 8th–9th c. and the age of Photius.)
The Seven Ecumenical Councils, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 14 (NPNF II/14). (First Council of Constantinople, 381, canon 3 — Constantinople’s “prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome, because it is New Rome”; Council of Chalcedon, 451, canon 28 — confirmation and extension on the New-Rome rationale, contested by Rome.)
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies, 3.3, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (ANF 1). (Rome as the church founded by the apostles Peter and Paul, with its succession of bishops.)
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Matthew 16:18–19 (the rock and the keys); John 1:40–42 (Andrew the First-Called brings Peter to Christ).
The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (1 Clement), 5, in The Apostolic Fathers. (Late-1st-century Roman witness to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul; cf. Ignatius of Antioch, To the Romans 4.)
Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History, 3.1, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 1 (NPNF II/1). (Origen’s bare assignment of “Scythia” to Andrew — the earliest attestation underlying the later Byzantine foundation claim.)