542. Candlemas celebrated for the first time in Constantinople on 2nd Feb., and ordered to be observed throughout the empire by Justinian. The patriarch Menas translates the relics of SS. Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to the recently completed basilica of the Apostles in Constantinople.
Before 565. Justinian I. builds a church of St Anne in the second region of Constantinople.
582-602. The three Festivals of Our Lady’s Nativity, Annunciation, and Purification said to have been introduced by the Emperor Maurice.
Sixth cent. The Sundays in Advent to the number of five appear in the Gelasianum.
592-600. Composition of the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum.
Before 604. Pope Gregory the Great increases the solemnity of the Litania Major in Rome.
609 or 610. The Emperor Phocas grants the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV., who adapts it as a church, and dedicates it to our Lady and all the Holy Martyrs, on 13th May. Since then it has been called Maria ad Martyres.
629. King Siroes of Persia restores to the Emperor Heraclius the part of the Holy Cross which had been taken from Jerusalem.
650 (circ.). Evidence for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross for Spain in the Lectionary of Silos.