He ruled wisely and zealously with the Holy Church as the greatest archpastor of Constantinople. When Leo the Armenian stood up against the icons, he opposed the emperor and first advised him, but then exposed him. Because of this, the wicked king banished him to the island of Prokonis. There was a monastery on that island which Nicephorus himself had built in honor of St. Theodore. There this confessor of the Orthodox faith spent thirteen years, and then fell asleep in the Lord in 827. After all the iconoclast emperors died and Michael sat on the imperial throne with his mother Theodora, and the patriarch Methodius was returned to the patriarchate, then (846) the relics of St. Nicephorus were transferred from Prokonis to Constantinople and first laid in the church of St. persecuted during his life, and then in the church of the holy apostles. The main celebration of this hierarch is on June 2, and on March 13 the discovery and transfer of his incorrupt relics is celebrated. Saint Nicephorus was exiled from Constantinople on March 13, and nineteen years later on the same date his holy relics were brought to the capital.