St. Nicephorus I of Constantinople (c. 758-828) | EAST

(Updated July 15, 2025)

This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Nicephorus I of Constantinople.

Next to each quote are the Topic Quote Archives in which they are included.

This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.

Treatises

St. Nicephorus, Apol. pro Sacris Imaginibus

• The Papacy and the Invincibility of the Church | §25

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(§25)¹

This Synod [Council of Nicaea II] possesses the highest authority…In fact it was held in the most legitimate and regular fashion conceivable because according to the divine rules established from the beginning it was directed and presided over by that glorious portion of the Western Church, I mean by the Church of Ancient Rome. Without them [the Romans], no dogma discussed in the Church, even sanctioned in a preliminary fashion by the canons and ecclesiastical usages, can be considered to be approved, or abrogated; for they are the ones, in fact, who possess the principate of the priesthood, and who owe this distinction to the two leaders of the Apostles [Peter and Paul].

Footnotes

1. PG 100.597A; as quoted by Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, 96; amended translation by Msgr. Paul McPartland, A Service of Love: Papal Primacy, the Eucharist, & Church Unity (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 68. ↩︎