John

CONCERNING SAINT JOHN, BISHOP OF IRENOPOLIS IN CILICIA.

After the year 325.

John, Bishop of Irenopolis in Cilicia (S.)

I. B.

[1] Irenopolis is a city of Cilicia Secunda, mentioned by Ptolemy in Book 5, chapter 8. The Menaea record that Saint John is customarily venerated here on February 4, in these words: "On the same day, the memory of our holy Father John, who rests at Irenopolis, who was one of the holy Fathers at Nicaea." In the catalogues of the Nicene Fathers published by Alphonsus Pisanus, Severinus Binius, Demochares, and others, out of the number of three hundred and eighteen, more than ninety are missing. Among those whose names survive, only one John is enumerated, and he a Bishop of the province of Persia, not of Irenopolis.

[2] This See was then held by Narcissus, whom Theodoret, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book 1, chapter 7, enumerates among the partisans of Arius: "And Narcissus, Bishop of Neronias; Neronias is a city of Cilicia Secunda, which we now call Irenopolis." From this one may correct the error in the Acts of the Council of Nicaea, Book 2, in Pisanus, where two Bishops of the province of Cilicia are listed as though different persons: Narcissus of Neronias and Narcissus of Irenopolis. And earlier, after the second edition of the Canons: Narcissus of Neronias and Narcissus of Hierapolis. It is one and the same Narcissus, Bishop of Neronias or Irenopolis, who earlier attended the Council of Ancyra with seventeen other Bishops, and at Nicaea subscribed to the condemnation of Arius along with the rest, but afterward shamefully apostatized and was separated from the communion of the Church by the Council of Sardica in the year of Christ 347 — Narcissus of Neronopolis.

[3] Whether there was another Irenopolis at that time, over which this holy Bishop John presided, we have not been able to ascertain. George Cedrenus mentions another, restored by the Empress Irene and therefore called Irenopolis, situated in Macedonia, formerly called Beroea. But that nomenclature has nothing to do with the times of the Nicene Council, which preceded it by four hundred years and more. Perhaps John died at Irenopolis in Cilicia while returning to his own See, whether he was Bishop of the province of Persia or of some other See; or he was brought there after death — for he is not said to have been Bishop of Irenopolis. The praises with which Gregory the Priest, whom we cited on January 13 in the Life of Saint Leontius, Bishop of Caesarea, number 10, universally extols the Nicene Fathers ought to be shared with this holy Bishop also, insofar as is proper, since we lack his own particular Acts.