Nikephoros 27 was metropolitan bishop of Nikaia; some time during the second patriarchate of Photios 1 (possibly in 877 or soon afterwards; see below) he was forced to abdicate and take up the post of orphanotrophos, so that Photios 1 could transfer his protégé Amphilochios 1 from the see of Kyzikos to that of Nikaia: Nicetas, Vita Ignatii 573A (Νικηφόρον μὲν Νικαίας μητροπολίτην ὄντα βιάζεται (sc. Photios) παραιτησάμενον ὀρφανοτρόφον εἶναι).

He is probably identical with the metropolitan bishop of Nikaia, Nikephoros, who owned a seal dateable to the ninth century: Laurent, Corpus V 1, 393 = Likhachev, IZIGI, Appendix, p. 18, no. 6. Obv.: Virgin and Child, between invocative monograms of Θεοτόκε βοήθει. Rev.: Νικη - <φ>ορω μη - [τρο]πολιτη - [Νι]καιας. He flourished in the second half of the century; see Laurent, op. cit., note, pp. 284-285, which reads as follows: "Nikephoros must have been ordained, after 848, by the patriarch Ignatios (cf. REB 19 (1961), p. 201). Doubtless he must have surrendered his see to another at the time of Photios 1's accession to the patriarchal throne in 858, recovered it when Ignatios 1 returned to head the Church in 867 and finally lost it on the death of Ignatios 1 in 877. Photios 1, who dismissed him, gave him compensation by entrusting to him the management of the Great Orphanotropheion of the capital (cf. PG 105, col. 573A). There is no longer any reason to think that his Nicene episcopate was interrupted by that of Ioannes who was archbishop, not of Nikaia, but of Nike (cf. REB XIV, 1956, pp. 169-173). The intruder was rather that Gregorios who attended the synod of 879-880 (cf. Mansi XVIIA, 373B). To Nikephoros was due the creation of the bishopric of Maximianai, which gave to the metropolis of Nikaia its largest extension. See on this EO 34 (1935), p. 468, 469, and REB 19 (1961), pp. 202-206. Finally our prelate, according to Demetrios of Kyzikos (cod. Ambros. gr. 682, f. 369 v.), became a monk before his death."

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