Plutarch of Byzantium

Saint Plutarch was bishop of Byzantium for sixteen years (89-105), successor of Polycarp I. When he died he was buried in the church of Argyroupolis, as were his predecessors. In the time of his episcopate, in the year 98, the persecution of Christians by the emperor Trajan took place.

In the succession of the bishops of Byzantium he stands between Polycarp I and Sedekion. The Greek historian Manuel Gedeon gives him sixteen years of episcopate and mentions the burial at Argyroupolis. It must be said that the historian Wolfram Brandes regards the list of early bishops of Byzantium up to Metrophanes as a late construction, made to show the apostolic origin of the see of Constantinople. Plutarch is therefore known above all from the tradition of the Patriarchate.