Vita Sancti Marciani Oeconomi

Abstract Marcian (? – ca 474) was appointed oeconomos of the properties of the Great Church by the Patriarch Gennadius (458–471) possibly after serving as the last Novatian bishop of Constantinople. He employed his considerable personal wealth in founding and restoring churches in the capital, most significantly one named Anastasia, incorporating the “small oratory” in which Gregory of Nazianzen had ministered to the faithful remnant of Nicenes during the winter of 379–380: a church with significant Gothic connections. A critical edition of the complete text of the vita (previously only available in the Metaphrastic version, PG 114, 429–456) is here presented and translated. The vita was composed by one Sergius almost certainly some considerable time after the death of Marcian for, although it provides some useful information on the nature of the surviving buildings attributed to him, the little it has to say about the man himself largely consists of conventional miracula rather than of biographical detail – of which there is surprisingly little. Even certain data known from other sources are passed over in silence. On the other hand, the healing properties of the Anastasia church are affirmed with a passage taken almost verbatim from Sozomen. While the vita is in no sense a biography of the saint, it does contain a wealth of information on a fifth-century Constantinople.