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Bosphorius, Bishop of Colonia

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

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Bosphorius , bp. of Colonia in Cappadocia Secunda, a confidential friend and correspondent of Gregory Nazianzen and Basil the Great. His episcopate was prolonged through at least 48 years (Pallad. c. 20, p. 203), and must have commenced in 360. From the letters of Gregory we learn that he and Bosphorius had lived together in youth, laboured together, and grown old together (Greg. Ep. 141, 227). He had great influence over the gentler nature of Gregory, who speaks of him with the highest respect, both for the purity of his faith and the sanctity of his life, as well as for his successful exertions in bringing back wanderers to the truth, acknowledging the benefit he had derived, both as hearer and teacher, from him ( Ep. 164, 225). He persuaded Gregory to remain at Nazianzus after his father's death, and to accept the unwelcome charge of the see of Constantinople. Gregory bitterly complained of his unscrupulous importunity, but yielded ( Ep. 14, 15). In 383 Bosphorius was accused of unsoundness in the faith—a charge which greatly distressed Gregory, who wrote urgently in his behalf to Theodore of Tyana, Nectarius, and Eutropius ( Ep. 225, 227, 164). Basil addressed to him a letter denying the charge of having excommunicated his bp. Dianius ( Ep. li.). He attended the second oecumenical council at Constantinople in 381 (Labbe, ii. 956). Palladius speaks with gratitude of the sympathy shewn by him towards the bishops banished in 406 for adherence to Chrysostom's cause (Pallad. c. 20, p. 203).

[E.V.]