After a number of years, when every village or city possessed a Christian church of its own, the need was felt for a common policy. Then an “overseer” (an Episkopos or Bishop) was elected to superintend an entire district and direct its dealings with the Roman government. Soon there were bishops in all the principal towns of the empire, and those in Antioch and Constantinople and Jerusalem and Carthage and Rome and Alexandria and Athens were reputed to be very powerful gentlemen who were almost as important as the civil and military governors of their provinces. In the beginning of course the bishop who presided over that part of the world where Jesus had lived and suffered and died enjoyed the greatest respect. But after Jerusalem had been destroyed and the generation which had expected the end of the world and the triumph of Zion had disappeared from the face of the earth, the poor old bishop in his ruined palace saw himself deprived of his former prestige. And quite naturally his place as leader of the faithful was taken by the “overseer” who lived in the capital of the civilized world and who guarded the sites where Peter and Paul, the great apostles of the west, had suffered their martyrdom—the Bishop of Rome. This bishop, like all others, was known as Father or Papa, the common expression of love and respect bestowed upon members of the clergy. In the course of centuries, the title of Papa however became almost exclusively associated in people’s minds with the particular “Father” who was the head of the metropolitan diocese. When they spoke of the Papa or Pope they meant just one Father, the Bishop of Rome, and not by any chance the Bishop of Constantinople or the Bishop of Carthage. This was an entirely normal development. When we read in our newspaper about “the President” it is not necessary to add “of the United States.” We know that the head of our government is meant and not the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the President of Harvard University or the President of the League of Nations. The first time the name occurred officially in a document was in the year 258. At that time Rome was still the capital of a highly successful empire and the power of the bishops was entirely overshadowed by that of the emperors. But during the next three hundred years, under the constant menace of both foreign and domestic invasions, the successors of Caesar began to look for a new home that would offer them greater safety. This they found in a city in a different part of their domains. It was called Byzantium, after a mythical hero by the name of Byzas who was said to have landed there shortly after the Trojan war. Situated on the straits which separated Europe from Asia and dominating the trade route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, it controlled several important monopolies and was of such great commercial importance that already Sparta and Athens had fought for the possession of this rich fortress.