Ioannes 6 was bishop of Gotthia in the reigns of Constantine V (Konstantinos 7) and Leo IV (Leo 4); Ioannes 6 came from the trading port of Parthenitai in territory ruled by the Goths, opposite the lands of the Tauroskythai; son of Leo 2 and Photeine 1; his grandfather (Anonymus 9) originated from a place called Bonostos, in Pontus Polemoniacus; from infancy he was dedicated by his mother to divine service and he grew up following an ascetic life: Vita Ioannis Gotthiae, p. 190. 1, Synax. Eccl. Const. 772. After the then bishop of Gotthia (Anonymus 10) attended the iconoclast council held under Constantine V (Konstantinos 7) in 754, and was translated to Herakleia, Ioannes 6 was chosen by the people of Gotthia as their next bishop; he immediately left for Jerusalem where he stayed for three years before returning home; during his stay he visited the Holy Places; after his return he was sent to Iberia to be consecrated as bishop; he is said to have preserved thereafter the teachings of the Catholic Church and the true faith (probably referring to his opposition to the iconoclasts); via his deacon Longinos 1 he wrote to the patriarch of Jerusalem asking him to hold a synod on the matter and to send to him a statement of faith; he was sent a collection of statements from the Old and New Testaments and the Fathers about holy icons and honoured relics and about the the intercession of the saints: Vita Ioannis Gotthiae, pp. 190-191, cf. Synax. Eccl. Const. 772-774 (sent to Iberia to receive consecration). He was presumably therefore chosen as bishop in 754/755, remained in Jerusalem from c. 755 to c. 758, and was consecrated in c. 758. His letter to Jerusalem was before 780 (see below) and the patriarch may have been either Theodoros 12 or Elias 12. His orthodoxy and his consecration in Georgia, at Mtskheta, are mentioned in a Georgian source, The Life of St George the Hagiorite (eleventh century) (see BHG 2161), quoted in A. A. Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), p. 90 ("At that hard time (i.e. the iconoclast period) there was almost no Orthodox temple in the Greek regions for the ordination of St John, the bishop of Gotthia; therefore he was ordained in our patriarchal church of the Vivifying and Myrrh-pouring Pillar of Mzkhet, and then he was sent to the see of Gotthia, to which testify both our synaxarion and yours") (the Life emphasises Georgia as a continuing stronghold of Orthodoxy). Vasiliev cites a Georgian synaxarion (op. cit., p. 90, n. 2) as saying: "John went to the Kartvely Katholikos" (ed. M. G. Djanashvili, Accounts of Iberian Annals and Historians on Chersonesus, Gotthia, Osetia, Khazaria, Drapetia and Russia, in Collection of Materials for the Description of the Regions and Tribes of the Caucasus, vol. 26 (Tiflis, 1899), 11). After Eirene 1 and Constantine VI (Konstantinos 8) came to power (in 780) Ioannes 6 sent a copy of this document to the patriarch Paulos 4 of Constantinople; with the empress's permission he visited Constantinople where he spoke out freely about the use of holy images in church before returning home: Vita Ioannis Gotthiae, p. 191, Synax. Eccl. Const. 772-774. The date of this was between 780 and 784 (when Paulos 4 was patriarch). Subsequently he was a leader of resistance to the Khazars when they attacked Gotthia; he helped recapture the stronghold of Doros from them, but was then betrayed to them and taken prisoner; he escaped from captivity and made his way to Amastris, where he lived for four years until the news of the death of the khagan of the Khazars came; he was on the point of returning home when he died; his body was escorted to the ship with great honour (see Georgios 2) and conveyed back to Parthenitai where it was interred in his own monastery of the Holy Apostles: Vita Ioannis Gotthiae, pp. 191-192, Synax. Eccl. Const. 772-774 (said to have been buried in The Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople). Among his disciples were the deacon Longinos 1 and the monk Basilios 1: Vita Ioannis Gotthiae, p. 193. The attack by the Khazars on the Goths of the Crimea is dated 786 or 787 in Dunlop, Jewish Khazars, p. 183 (see also Vasiliev, Goths in the Crimea, pp. 90ff.) His death was therefore not earlier than 790.

See Vasiliev, op. cit., pp. 89ff. At the Second Council of Nikaia (the Seventh Ecumenical Council) in 787 the see of Gotthia was represented by a monk, Kyrillos 2; the name of the bishop is given three times, once as Ioannes and twice as Niketas (see Niketas 33): Mansi XIII 137 (Κύριλλος μοναχὸς καὶ ἐκ προσώπου Ἰωάννου ἐπισκόπου Γότθων; the Latin version, at XIII 138, calls Kyrillos 2 "ex persona Ioannis episcopi Gothiae"). The day of his entry in the Synaxarium is 26 June: Synax. Eccl. Const. 772-774.

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