He was martyred on May 23, 967 in Antioch. His name was Issa, he was originally from Baghdad, where he studied rhetoric and mastered calligraphy. He came to Aleppo during the days of Sayf al-Dawla, with whom he had a good relationship, then he worked in the city of Hama. When a dispute occurred between the Greeks in the Persian city of Shash and the Greeks in Baghdad, because the Greeks of Baghdad demanded that the Catholicos reside in Baghdad because it was the capital, he defended the rights of his countrymen. The Catholicos is responsible for several dioceses, his position is between that of the Metropolitan and the Patriarch, and the title was given to vast provinces such as Georgia, Bulgaria, and Abkhazia.
In Antioch, the people of Antioch admired his personality and his zeal for the church. When Patriarch Agapius died, they found no better candidate for the patriarchate. He was ordained under the name Christopher. Antioch was under Sayf al-Dawla at that time.
One of his most important virtues was that he lived a life of extreme asceticism and practiced prayer constantly. He was wise in his care, as he solved the problem of the Catholicos by making two instead of one in order to better care for the people. He was tough, refusing the interference of the powerful in the affairs of his administration of the priests. He loved the poor and oppressed, personally watching over their service and securing their needs. He collected money to pay the tax on behalf of the poor children of the church in order to protect them. Saint Christopher was interested in educating the children and chose the outstanding among them to pursue ecclesiastical studies.
When a rebellion broke out against Sayf al-Dawla and the Byzantines from the north, who occupied Cilicia and Tarsus, and the people fled to Antioch from hunger, the Patriarch preferred to leave Antioch to the Monastery of Saint Simon the Stylite. When the rebellion ended with the victory of Sayf al-Dawla, the Patriarch returned and asked for pardon for many Muslim dignitaries, but the prince refused his request. After the death of Sayf al-Dawla, three of them conspired against the Patriarch and sought to kill him. One of the Muslims in authority informed him of the plot, but the Patriarch refused to flee and visited one of the conspirators against him. There, he was killed and his head was cut off. Two years after his martyrdom, the Byzantines returned and took possession of the city of Antioch and honored the relics of the saint. His biography was written in the first half of the eleventh century by one of his disciples.
The saint has not had a feast day yet, but after the publication of the book “The Forgotten Saints in the Antiochian Heritage” by Father Toma Bitar, and the arrangement of prayers for his feast day, the Church will celebrate (and has begun to celebrate) him on May 23, the day of his martyrdom.
