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Greek Name Days

5th century

Saint Flavian of Constantinople

Patriarch of Constantinople who died of injuries inflicted at the 'Robber Council' of Ephesus in 449.

16 February

Biography

Flavian was a priest and treasurer of the church of Hagia Sophia before he succeeded Saint Proclus on the patriarchal throne of Constantinople in 447. The following year he condemned, at a local synod, the teaching of the archimandrite Eutyches, who held that Christ's divine nature had absorbed his human one.

Eutyches had powerful backers, however, and secured the so-called 'Robber Council' at Ephesus in 449, where a mob led by monks brutally beat Flavian, who died of his injuries a few days later. The Fourth Ecumenical Council vindicated him in 451.

Sources and further reading