Isapostole

Equal-to-apostles or equal-to-the-apostles is a special title given to some saints in Eastern Orthodoxy and in Byzantine Catholicism. The title is bestowed as a recognition of these saints' outstanding service in the spreading and assertion of Christianity, comparable to that of the original apostles. Below is a partial list of saints who are called equal-to-the-apostles: Mary Magdalene (1st century) Photine, the Samaritan woman at the well (1st century) Thekla (1st century) Saint Apphia (1st century) Abercius of Hieropolis (2nd century) Helena of Constantinople (c. 250 – c. 330) Constantine the Great (c. 272 – 337) Nino (c. 296 – c. 338 or 340), baptizer of the Georgians Mirian III of Iberia (died 361), first Christian Georgian monarch Nana of Iberia (4th century) Patrick of Ireland (5th century) Photios I of Constantinople (820-891) Cyril (827 – 869) Rastislav of Moravia (870) Methodius (815 – 885) Saint Angelar (died after 885 AD) Saint Gorazd (9th century) Boris I of Bulgaria (died 907) Saint Naum (died 910) Clement of Ohrid (died 916) Saint Sava (1169 or 1174 – 1236) Olga of Kiev (c. 890 – 969) Vladimir the Great (c. 958 – 1015) Saint Olaf of Norway (c. 995 – 1030), baptiser of Norway Stephen I of Hungary (969 – 1038) Cosmas of Aetolia (1714 – 1779) Innocent of Alaska (1797 – 1879) Nicholas of Japan (1836 – 1912) As George Ostrogorsky relates, the insistence of pre-Christian Roman emperors on being worshipped as gods had always been a fundamental stumbling block for early Christians (see Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire). Nevertheless, even with the advent of Christian emperors, of which Constantine the Great was the first, the sovereign's power maintained a distinctly divine flavour. Indeed, to use Ostrogorsky's more strongly worded phrasing, "the Roman-Hellenistic cult of the sovereign lived on in the Christian Byzantine empire in all its ancient glory." The Greek term for "Equal-to-the-Apostles", isapóstolos, was used in the late Roman/Byzantine empire to contribute to this divine imperial image.