THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE OF SAINTS STEPHEN AND MARK The Holy Fathers of the Apostolic See are Pope Saint Leo X (Roman Catholic) and Saint Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh (Russian Orthodox). The Holy Fathers are the two principle representatives of the historic Apostolic, spiritual, infrastructural, ethnic, and cultural legacy that the Apostolic See of Rome-Ruthenia (Imperial Roman Church) inherited and perpetuates. Both are key figures in the Apostolic Succession of the modern Imperial Roman Church. They are not the founders of the Church, for the Church was founded in 33 AD by Christ. The modern restoration of the Imperial Roman Church was in 2008. Saint Leo X, Bishop of Rome, was the first Florentine Archfather, by which the Papa-Knyaz and Catholicos of Rome-Ruthenia is temporal successor to St. Peter the Apostle and Anglican Patriarch of Rome. The Gallo-Russo-Byzantine Catholicate is a descendant and successor of the patriarchate founded by Saint Aftimios Ofiesh. Together they also represent the Roman-Russian ecclesiastical, ethnic, and cultural nature of the Apostolic See and the Pontifical Imperial State of Rome-Ruthenia. POPE SAINT LEO X Pope Leo X, Lord of Florence, reigned as Bishop of Rome and Sovereign of the Pontifical States from 1513 to 1521. Born Giovanni de'Medici, was a member of the Medici family that ruled Florence and Etruria. Cardinal de' Medici was elected to the papacy following Pope Saint Julius II. He oversaw the closing sessions of the Fifth Council of the Lateran and led a war that successfully secure his nephew's rule as Duke of Urbino. He was also a great patron of the arts, following the tradition of his family. Perhaps most famously, he issued the Bull Exsurge Domine that excommunicated Martin Luther, effectively launching the Counter-Reformation. As such, he is the first Baroque Roman Pope. SAINT ARCHBISHOP AFTIMIOS OFIESH Saint Aftimios Abdullah Ofiesh was born in Lebanon and was originally a cleric in the Eastern Orthodox Church of Antioch. He came to the United States in 1905 and eventually served as Bishop of Brooklyn, New York, in the Russian Orthodox Church from 1917 to 1933, immediately succeeding Saint Rafael of Brooklyn. In the midst of the canonical disputes following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, he was commissioned to establish the American Orthodox Catholic Church under the auspices of Eastern Orthodoxy. He serves as the head of that church until his death in 1966.  In 1933, Saint Aftimios married Mariam, a parishioner of St. Mary's Syrian Orthodox Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He was buried in Wilkes-Barre, and his widow wrote a biography of his life and career in 1999. Saint Aftimios became the Apostolic progenitor of several Orthodox and Old Catholic jurisdictions, including the Imperial Roman Church, around the world.

The Stato Pontificio Romano constitutes an ecclesiastical sovereignty by right of Rome as heir to the Roman Empire with an independent government in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (as the Anglican Rite Roman Catholic Church). Additionally, the church descends from the See of Utrecht, which was granted autonomy in 1145 by Pope Eugene III and confirmed in 1520 by Pope St. Leo X in the Bull Debitum Pastoralis. As the sole successor of Pope St. Leo X and temporal successor of St. Peter the Apostle, the Catholicate and Patriarchate are fully Catholic and holds the same canonical authority as the Roman Communion (Vatican). The Catholicate and Patriarchate are the ecclesiastical successor to temporal Rome, the temporal patrimony of the Roman Empire claimed historically by right of the papacy. The succession passed to the Catholicate after Benedict XVI by right of Rome and Florence, with the Papa-Catholicos of Rome-Ruthenia with papal authority as temporal successor of St. Peter, and the Pope-Bishop of Rome as spiritual successor of St. Peter and de facto sovereign of the Vatican City-State. Although administratively independent, the Apostolic See embraces as brethren other Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican bodies, such as the current Roman Communion (commonly referred to as the Roman Catholic Church), the Anglican Ordinariate, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the Anglican Communion. The Imperial Roman Church is defined as the Gallo-Russo-Byzantine Catholicate, the Anglican Patriarchate of Rome, and the churches of all Bishops recognised by the Catholicate. The governments of the modern republics of Italy, German, France, Switzerland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the United States, and of the modern kingdoms of Great Britain and Spain, as well as the European Union and all other civil states, are not affiliated with the Stato Pontificio government in exile.