In the year A.D. 456, news came that Abba
Dioscorus had been translated into the ‘Company of the
Just’. Throughout the Apostolic See of St. Mark, all
hearts were sad, aching at the lonesomeness of the
departed Pope at the hour of his death.
The Prefect of Alexandria was out of the city when
the sad news came. Seizing the opportunity, clergy and
people held a meeting, and unanimously elected
Timotheos, one of the Secretaries of Abba Dioscorus, to
be the twenty-sixth successor to St. Mark, thus
maintaining the Apostolic succession in spite of the odds
against them.^1
When the Prefect returned and received word of
what had happened, he was beside himself with rage. In
his tyranny and with the support of his Emperor he could
not concede to the Egyptians their right to elect their own
Patriarch. In this case, he pretended that they should have
at least, waited for his return, and under this pretence he
refused to acknowledge their new Pope. He insisted on
