On the “parallel bishops” of St. Eusebius of Samosata

 

St. Eusebius of Samosata, being returned from his banishment, did likewise establish bishops in many places, whether by the authority he had acquired by his age, his virtue, and his sufferings for the faith; or that these ordinations were imputed to him, which he had procured from such as had power to bestow them. He placed therefore at Barhaea, Acatius, a celebrated man at that time, who had been eminent in the monastic way of life under Asterius, who was disciple of St. Julian Sabas, and continued the same practice of virtue during his episcopacy, which he held fifty-eight years. His doors were always open to everybody, so that he could be spoken with at any hour, even during his meals, and in the night; for he permitted his sleep to be broken, so little did he fear to have witnesses of his most secret actions. St. Eusebius likewise appointed Theodotus, famous in the ascetic life, bishop of Hierapolis, Eusebius of Chalcis, and Isidore of Cyrus, both men of great zeal and singular merit: at Edessa he placed St. Eulogius, who had been banished into Egypt; for St. Barse was dead some time before. Eulogius made Protogenes, companion of his labours and his exiles, a bishop, and settled him at Carrhae to establish religion there. The last place where St. Eusebius of Samosata constituted a bishop was Dolicha, a little city of Syria, infected with Arianism. He was willing therefore to make Maris bishop thereof, a man of merit and great virtue. But as he himself entered into the city, an Arian woman threw a tile at him from the roof of her house, which broke his skull, of which he died soon after. But before his death, he caused them who were present to swear they would not prosecute this woman; such was the end of St. Eusebius of Samosata. The Church places him among the martyrs, and honours his memory on the twenty-first of June. His nephew Antiochus succeeded him, who had followed him into Thrace during his exile, and who had been banished himself into Armenia.

 

Source: Ecclesiastical History of M. L’Abbé Fleury, Claude Fleury, Vol. 2 (London: Printed by T. Wood for James Crokatt, at the Golden Key, near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleet-street, 1728), pp. 500–501.