CONCERNING ST. PAUL, BISHOP OF CORINTH IN GREECE.
AROUND THE YEAR 880.
CommentaryPaul, Bishop of Corinth in Greece (Saint)
[1] On this same day among the Greeks, commemoration is made of St. Paul, Bishop of Corinth, brother of Peter, most holy Bishop of Argos and worker of miracles, Episkopos Argous kai semeiophoros. So the printed and manuscript Menaea, from the eulogy of his brother his homeland Constantinople is indicated Menologia, or Synaxaria -- the Parisian one of the College of Clermont and the one from Dijon belonging to Pierre-Francois Chifflet. We would know nothing more of him unless the eulogy of Paul's brother, to be presented on the third day of May, and the two we have cited, and many other manuscripts, contained a lengthy account. From this we learn that he was born at Constantinople of parents who loved God and who, together with their entire family, embraced the monastic life; and that first Paul and Dionysius were tonsured, and then, drawn by their example, Peter and Plato. When Nicholas the Italian, then holding the supreme pontificate, wished to elevate some of them to the episcopal honor, and Peter set his mind firmly against it, Paul at length allowed himself to be persuaded to be appointed Bishop of the Church at Corinth. There he first afforded his brother Peter, who feared being dragged by force to accept such an honor, the opportunity of secure retreat for a long time; but afterwards, overcome by the importunate prayers of the Argives, he consecrated him as their Bishop.
[2] ordination under Pope Nicholas That Corinth was the metropolis of all Achaea is too well known to need indication here. The institution therefore of its Metropolitan, as of the other Metropolitans throughout Greece and Illyricum, pertained to the Roman Patriarch; accordingly let no one suspect that some Constantinopolitan named Nicholas should be sought, in order to find the time to which Paul's ordination should be referred (although in the tenth century he would find two there -- one surnamed Mysticus near the beginning of that century, the other called Chrysoberges near its end) -- but let him unhesitatingly believe that a Roman Pontiff is designated by these words, so that the surname "Italian" is an indication not so much of homeland as of patriarchate. Nor does any other seem to be meant than Nicholas I, who, beginning to sit in the year 858, governed the universal Church as Supreme Pontiff until the 13th of November of the year 867; for he who was the second of that name was elected nearly two full centuries after him, in the year 1059, and his times fell into the iniquity of a mature and confirmed schism, not the second with the Patriarch of Constantinople arrogating to himself the title of "Universal" and leading away from unity with the Roman Church not only the Provinces subject to him, but also the East and the West -- that is, the Bishops of Asia Minor and Greece subject to the Constantinopolitan Empire -- on the pretext of the heresy concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, first stirred up by Photius and then repeatedly revived, so that the itch for effecting a separation might be covered with the title of religion. By which it came about that through these dissensions, with the hatred of the Latins also increasing among the Greeks, the Church in those parts went entirely headlong -- a Church that acknowledged the Roman Pontiff not only as the head of the Catholic Church, but also as its own Patriarch by a special title of subjection. but the first
[3] But under the pontificate of that first Nicholas, although through the sacrilegious institution of Photius, who was intruded into the place of Ignatius, who had been deposed contrary to ecclesiastical law, the piety of the Eastern Church began to be undermined, yet integrity was still preserved, both among most of the Bishops and especially among the Monks and those who, having professed a more austere virtue from the monastic order, had been assumed to the governance of Churches. In whose name Stylianus, Bishop of Neocaesarea in the province of Euphratesia, wrote to Pope Stephen in these words: "But Photius dragged to himself the Priests of the Lord, our fellow-ministers who resisted, after afflicting them with many blows. I, however, and my fellow Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and together with me all the Superiors of the monasteries of the East and the West, and the cultivators of the monastic and contemplative life, whose number was almost innumerable, by the help of God remained whole and untouched, and completely separated ourselves from his fellowship, defiled by communion with him neither before nor after." From this therefore so strong an army of champions of truth, Nicholas took care that Pastors should be chosen for vacant Churches, and the length of his episcopate and on that occasion it happened that Paul was ordained and Peter was sought out. How long after this Paul lived, we do not venture to guess: that his episcopate was of extended duration is suggested by what is said -- that Peter, having dwelt with his brother long afterwards, held a quiet life until he too, even unwillingly, was elevated to the episcopate. Therefore we shall seem to do nothing amiss if we say that Paul flourished around the year of Christ 880, and perhaps lived beyond 890.