Sts. Alexander, John and Paul the New

Alexander was bishop of Constantinople from 314 and represented the see at the First Ecumenical Council. In 336 the Emperor Constantine, persuaded that Arius had signed an acceptable confession, ordered that he be received back into communion in the church of the capital, and Alexander was to do it. He shut himself in and prayed that either he or Arius should be taken first. Arius died that day, on the way to the church. Alexander reposed in 340.

John the Fourth, called the Faster, was patriarch from 582 to 595. He was famous for an austerity that was extreme even by the standard of the time, for giving away everything the see had, and for the penitential canons that circulate under his name. He was the first bishop of Constantinople to use the title Ecumenical Patriarch, which drew a sharp objection from St. Gregory the Great at Rome and became, centuries later, one of the standing points of dispute between the sees.

Paul the Fourth, called the New, was made patriarch in 780 under the iconoclast regime and had to sign the customary undertaking against the icons in order to take office. It broke him. In 784 he left the patriarchate without warning, entered a monastery, and told the Empress Irene and the council that came to ask why, that the Church was in error and that a council must be called to restore the icons. He died a monk soon after. The council he demanded met at Nicaea in 787.

The Church keeps the three of them together on the thirtieth of August.