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DURING the consulate of Constantine Caesar and Crispus
Caesar, Silvester governed the Church of Rome; Alexander, that
of Alexandria; and Macarius, that of Jerusalem. Not one, since
Romanus? had been appointed over the Church of Antioch on the
Orontes; for the persecution it appears, had prevented the ceremony
of ordination from taking place. The bishops assembled at Nicaea not
long after were, however, so sensible of the purity of the life and
doctrines of Eustathius, that they adjudged him worthy to fill the
apostolic see; although he was then bishop of the neighboring Boroea,
they translated him to Antioch.
The Christians of the East, as far as Libya on the borders of
Egypt, did not dare to meet openly as a church; for Licinius had
withdrawn his favor from them; but the Christians of the West, the
Greeks, the Macedonians, and the Illyrians, met for worship in
safety through the protection of Constantine, who was then at the head
of the Roman Empire.
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