The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople was traditionally established in 1461, when Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror ordered Armenians and Turks to settle inside the city of Constantinople, newly conquered by the Ottomans, and had Archbishop Hovageem (Joachim), the prelate of Bursa, move to his capital and preside as the spiritual head of the Armenians in his realm. The same tradition maintains that Sultan Mehmed issued an edict that specified all the rights he had granted to Archbishop Hovageem. The edict was unfortunately destroyed during one of the fires that occurred frequently in the Constantinople churches, thus depriving us of a very important document and a source of information.

Whatever the extent and nature of their jurisdiction and their exact title may have been, later Armenian patriarchs of Constantinople traced back their line to Hovageem, considering him the first patriarch. Yet historical evidence indicates that there were Armenian bishops in and around Constantinople presumably tending to the spiritual needs of Armenians in the region prior to the Ottoman occupation.

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