Castinus of Byzantium

Saint Castinus of Byzantium is held, according to tradition, to have been bishop of Byzantium between 230 and 237, in the time of the emperors Alexander Severus and Maximinus Thrax; in some catalogues he appears as Constantine or Kastinos. He is remembered on 25 January.

He is said to have been a senator from Rome, very rich and at first a pagan. According to his life, one day he fell gravely ill and went to a suburb of Byzantium, where he had heard that Bishop Cyrillianus worked “wonders of healing.” Cyrillianus healed him and brought him to Christianity. Castinus sent to Rome the order to distribute all his property to the poor, and himself stayed to live with the bishop. Cyrillianus baptized him, taught him the faith and ordained him bishop of Argyroupolis, making him his successor and bidding him move the episcopal seat from Argyroupolis to Byzantium. Until then the seat and cathedral of the local Church had been north of the Golden Horn: first at Argyroupolis, then at Elaia, and finally near the sea, in the area of today's Galata. Castinus built the first church in Byzantium, south of the Golden Horn, dedicated, according to tradition, to Saint Euphemia, and counted among the oldest in the city. The historian Nikephoros Kallistos calls him Constantine. Some hold that there were no bishops at Byzantium in the third century, and the historian Wolfram Brandes sees the list of bishops up to Metrophanes as a late construction, made to show the apostolic origin of the see of Constantinople.