abstract
| - John IV, also known as John Nesteutes or John the Faster (died September 2, 595), was the 33rd bishop or Patriarch of Constantinople (April 11, 582 - 595). He was the first to assume the title Ecumenical Patriarch. He is regarded as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church which a feast on September 2. Joannes (surnamed The Faster, Jejunator, sometimes also Cappadox) was born at Constantinople of artisan parents, and worked as a sculptor. In 587 or 588, he summoned the bishops of the East in the name of "the Ecumenical Patriarch" to decide the cause of Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch, who was acquitted and returned to his episcopal see. Pope Pelagius II solemnly annulled the acts of this council. In 593, John was severely blamed by Pope Gregory I for having allowed an Isaurian presbyter named Anastasius, who had been accused of heresy, to be beaten with ropes in the church of Constantinople. In 595, the controversy was again rife about the title of Ecumenical Patriarch. Gregory wrote to his legate Sabinianus forbidding him to communicate with John. In the case of a presbyter named Athanasius, accused of being to some extent a Manichean, and condemned as such, Gregory tried to show that the accuser was himself a Pelagian, and that by the carelessness, ignorance, or fault of John IV, the Nestorian council of Ephesus had actually been mistaken for the Orthodox Council of Ephesus.
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