Saint John Chrysostom (349–407)

A Greek and Christian City

John was born around 349 in Antioch on the Orontes, the Empire’s third city after Rome and Alexandria. This Greek metropolis of Syria was where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26). He spent nearly fifty years in this cosmopolitan, prosperous, and learned city, divided among fading paganism, an active Jewish community, and a Christianity fractured by Arianism, until his elevation to Constantinople in 398^[18].

Anthusa, the Admirable Widow

His father Secundus, a senior officer in the Syrian army, died soon after his birth. His mother Anthusa, widowed at twenty, refused to remarry and devoted her life to her son’s education. Chrysostom retained an absolute reverence for her and recalled her in On the Priesthood when explaining his initial refusal of episcopal office^[19]. Tradition relates that the elderly pagan rhetorician Libanius, on learning of Anthusa’s fidelity, exclaimed: “What women there are among the Christians!”^[20]

The priesthood is the greatest proof of love toward Christ — such is the thesis of Book II: a chapter heading, not a verbatim quotation. — Saint John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, Book II^[21]

A Pupil of Libanius

John attended Antioch’s finest schools. He studied philosophy under Andragatius and rhetoric under Libanius, “the most famous orator of that period”^[22]. The master, when asked whom he wished to succeed him, is said to have answered: “John—if the Christians had not taken him from us.” Far from turning him away from the Gospel, this classical training gave the preacher the instrument for speech of matchless clarity and force. Chrysostom is the consummate example of Christian humanism, able, like Saint Basil, to gather the honey of ancient culture without taking its poison.

From Baptism to the Desert

Around 367, John met Bishop Meletius of Antioch, whose character impressed him so deeply that he gradually abandoned secular studies. He received baptism around 370 and was immediately instituted as a reader^[23]. Drawn to monastic life, he joined an ascetic community in the nearby mountains under Carterius and Diodore of Tarsus, master of the Antiochene school of exegesis.

Six Years of Asceticism: Community, Then Hermitage

After four years of common life under the direction of an experienced Syrian monk, going further still, he withdrew alone for two years in a cave, barely sleeping, standing for long periods, and memorizing the Scriptures. Excessive austerity permanently damaged his stomach and kidneys. These infirmities, contracted in youth, tormented him throughout his life and hastened his death in exile^[24]. He returned to Antioch not in defeat, but because broken health made solitude impossible—a providence that restored to the Church the greatest of her orators.

Deacon, Then Priest

Ordained deacon in 381 by Meletius and priest in 386 by Bishop Flavian, John entered the most fruitful period of his life. For twelve years (386–398), he preached almost daily in Antioch’s great church before crowds who interrupted him with applause—which he rebuked, for he wanted conversions rather than acclaim^[25].

The Homilies on the Statues (387)

During Lent in 387, a tax revolt engulfed Antioch: the mob tore down and dragged through the mud the statues of Emperor Theodosius and the imperial family. This crime of lèse-majesté could have brought about the city’s destruction. While the elderly Bishop Flavian hurried to Constantinople to plead for imperial clemency, the young priest John entered the pulpit each day. His twenty-one Homilies on the Statues consoled the people, called them to repentance, and held the city in suspense until the emperor granted pardon^[26]. It was the first great triumph of his preaching: a city saved by a sermon.

On the Priesthood

His most famous treatise, the Dialogue on the Priesthood (c. 386–387), also dates from these years. Its six books take the form of a conversation with a youthful friend named Basil — not to be confused with Saint Basil the Great^[27]. John explains the “holy ruse” by which he allowed his friend to be ordained bishop while he himself escaped, judging himself unworthy of an office whose dizzying greatness he describes. The treatise became the classic handbook on the priest’s dignity and duties, read and meditated upon for sixteen centuries^[28].

“The priesthood is exercised on earth, but it ranks among heavenly ordinances; and very naturally so, for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete himself, instituted this ministry.” — Saint John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, Book III^[29]

An Unwanted Elevation

After Archbishop Nectarius died, the minister Eutropius suggested to Emperor Arcadius that the celebrated preacher of Antioch be summoned to Constantinople. To prevent a popular riot—Antioch would never willingly surrender its John—he was taken secretly from the city. On February 26, 398, Theophilus of Alexandria consecrated him bishop of the capital, although Theophilus had sought the see for his own candidate and would bear him a deadly grudge^[30].

The Reformer

As pastor of the court and Empire, John remained the monk of Antioch. He reformed the clergy, abolished banquets at the episcopal residence, sent wandering monks back to their monasteries, brought widows and deaconesses under discipline, and sold the archbishopric’s luxurious furnishings to build hospitals and feed the poor^[31]. His preaching unsparingly attacked the splendor of the rich, greed, and the vanity of court women. The people loved him; the powerful hated him.

“Would you honor the body of Christ? Do not despise him when he is naked. Do not honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside, where he suffers from cold and nakedness.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily 50^[32]

Eudoxia and Theophilus: The Plot

Two enemies joined forces. Empress Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius, believed herself targeted by the bishop’s sermons against luxury and female greed. The jealous and skillful Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria saw an opportunity to destroy a rival. The pretext arose from the case of Egypt’s “Tall Brothers,” monks who had taken refuge in Constantinople and whom John received charitably. Theophilus reversed the charge and had a synod summoned to judge—not himself, but Chrysostom^[33].

The Synod of the Oak (403)

In 403, Theophilus gathered a synod of hostile bishops near Chalcedon in a villa called epi dryn (“at the Oak”). Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of an assembly presided over by his accuser, John did not appear and was deposed in absentia on trivial charges. He was taken into exile but recalled almost immediately: an earthquake shook the palace that very night, and the terrified Eudoxia begged the emperor to bring him back. The people welcomed him home in triumph^[34].

The Final Rupture and Second Exile (404)

The reconciliation was brief. A few months later, noisy festivities marking the dedication of a silver statue of Eudoxia, erected near Hagia Sophia, disrupted the liturgy. John protested from the pulpit; a remark, perhaps distorted, was reported to the empress as an insult. The court broke with him. In June 404, an imperial decree permanently banished him; escorted by guards, he left Constantinople for exile. The very evening of his departure, a vast fire devastated the cathedral and the senate house—a disaster for which his followers, the “Johannites,” were unjustly blamed^[35].

Cucusus and the Letters

John was taken to Cucusus, a remote town on the Armenian frontier, and then, to escape Isaurian raids, to the fortress of Arabissus. Despite illness, cold, and loneliness, he continued to govern by letter. About 238 of his letters survive, including seventeen to the deaconess Olympias, his faithful friend; they are models of fortitude and spiritual tenderness^[36]. Pope Innocent I and the western emperor Honorius pleaded unsuccessfully for his rehabilitation.

“Nothing is truly terrible except sin alone: neither poverty, nor sickness, nor insult, nor slander, nor exile. For one who lives in virtue, none of these things can do harm.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Letter to Olympias (on the theme that no one can harm the person who does not harm himself)^[37]

Comana: “Glory to God for All Things”

In the summer of 407, the court ordered his transfer to Pityus, at the far edge of the Caucasus—a virtual death sentence for an exhausted man. Driven on foot through sun and rain by a brutal escort, he collapsed at Comana Pontica. Clothed in white and given Communion one final time, he died on September 14, 407, speaking the words that sum up his life: “Glory to God for all things”^[38].

The Return of the Relics (438)

History vindicated him. Thirty years later, on January 27, 438, under Emperor Theodosius II, son of Eudoxia, John’s relics solemnly returned to Constantinople. Greeted by an immense crowd, they were placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Prostrate before the coffin, the emperor implored God to forgive his parents’ offenses. The Eastern Church had vindicated her Doctor^[39].

The “Golden Mouth” Preacher

No Father left more homilies. Chrysostom commented verse by verse on entire books of Scripture: 67 homilies on Genesis, 59 on the Psalms, 90 on Saint Matthew, 88 on Saint John, 55 on Acts, and series on all the epistles of Saint Paul, his favorite author, whom he interpreted with a lover’s fervor^[40]. Alongside these commentaries stand occasional sermons, ascetical treatises, baptismal catecheses, and nearly 240 letters.

Antiochene Exegesis

A pupil of Diodore of Tarsus, John belonged to the Antiochene school of exegesis, which favored the literal and historical sense of the sacred text over the excessive allegorizing of the Alexandrian school. Yet he never excluded the spiritual sense when “the inspired author himself suggests it”^[41]. His reading is concrete, moral, and aflame with practical application: he never separates the explanation of a verse from the call to holiness.

The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom

His name is attached to the Divine Liturgy most frequently celebrated in the Byzantine rite, the ordinary Eucharistic liturgy of the vast majority of Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Scholars acknowledge that John probably did not compose the entire transmitted text from scratch, but revised and fixed an earlier Antiochene anaphora; the core of its great prayers has been attributed to him since antiquity^[42].

The Paschal Homily

Every year on Easter morning, Byzantine-rite Churches stand to hear the brief and blazing Catechetical Homily attributed to Chrysostom. It invites rich and poor, fervent fasters and lukewarm laborers of the eleventh hour, to enter together into the joy of the Risen Christ, and it ends with Christ’s triumph over Hades^[43].

“Let the one who came at the eleventh hour not fear because of the delay... Let no one mourn his poverty, for the common Kingdom has appeared. Let no one lament his sins, for forgiveness has risen from the tomb.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Paschal Homily^[44]

“O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Paschal Homily^[45]

The Real Presence and the Altar

Chrysostom is among the most explicit patristic witnesses to the Real Presence: his expressions for the change effected by the priest’s words are equivalent to the doctrine of transubstantiation^[46]. His description of the liturgy became famous: before the altar, it is no longer earth but heaven that opens.

“When you see the Lord sacrificed and lying upon the altar, and the priest bending over the victim and praying, and all the faithful empurpled by that precious blood, do you still think that you are among men and standing upon the earth? Are you not rather transported to heaven?” — Saint John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, Book III^[47]

The Other Altar: The Poor

Yet the same mind that contemplates Christ on the altar recognizes him in the beggar. For Chrysostom, Eucharist and charity are inseparable (the title of “John the Almsgiver” belongs properly to another saint: John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria from 606 to 616): one cannot adore Christ’s Body under the appearance of bread while despising him in the poor person shivering at the church door^[48]. This is one of the high points of patristic social teaching: goods are not absolutely ours; refusing to share them is theft.

“Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours alone, but theirs also.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Lazarus^[49]

“It is also theft not to give alms from one’s possessions.” — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Lazarus^[50]

This radically bold Gospel language is not a call to revolt but to conversion of heart. Chrysostom does not deny the right to property; he recalls that every gift comes from God and that wealth is legitimate only when shared. The Church’s social doctrine, through Rerum novarum and the Catechism, has continued this insight into the universal destination of goods.

The Defense of Truth

As a pastor, Chrysostom was also a guardian of the faith. He opposed the still-vigorous Arianism. In 386–387, in eight Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, he attacked with extreme verbal violence the Christians of Antioch who attended Jewish feasts and synagogues^[51]. The objection is serious: read out of context, these pages helped feed the antisemitism of later centuries. The answer lies in the target and the genre: these sermons aim to keep Christians within the Church, not to teach hatred of the Jews as a people, and they belong to the psogos, the conventional rhetorical invective of antiquity — which takes nothing away from their harshness, which the Church today, since Nostra aetate, rejects in every anti-Jewish use. Chrysostom also affirmed the authority of Tradition and the unity of the Church, “one through the unity of her doctrine” and the “one spouse of Christ spread throughout the whole earth”^[52]. Invoked at the Council of Ephesus (431) by both Saint Cyril and the Antiochenes, and cited by the Second Council of Nicaea (787) in defense of images, he carried authority throughout the episcopate.

The Three Holy Hierarchs

To end the disputes among supporters of the three greatest Greek Doctors, the East instituted at Constantinople around 1084 the common feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs—Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom—celebrated on January 30. They are three complementary geniuses: Basil the organizer, Gregory the contemplative, and John the preacher and pastor^[53].

Four Greek Doctors, Patron Saint of Preachers

The West numbers him among the four great Doctors of the Greek Church, together with Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus. In 1908, Pope Saint Pius X declared him the heavenly patron of sacred preachers—the crowning recognition of the man universally regarded as the greatest Christian orator of all time^[54].

Liturgical Feasts

In the Roman calendar, his feast—long observed on January 27, the anniversary of the translation of his relics—was moved in 1969 to September 13, the eve of the anniversary of his death (September 14 being the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross). The Byzantine rite honors him on November 13, January 27 (translation), and January 30 with the Three Hierarchs^[55].

Sixteen centuries later, Chrysostom remains urgently relevant. First, he teaches that the Christian word must never betray itself in order to please. Antiquity’s greatest orator did not flatter the court; he preferred exile and death to silence. In an age that expects the Church to soften her message, Chrysostom reminds us that loving souls means telling them the truth.

He also reminds us that liturgy and charity are one. The theologian of the Real Presence is also the defender of the poor: for him, adoring Christ at the altar and serving him in the beggar are the same act of love. His cry—“the goods we possess are not ours alone, but theirs also”—underlies the whole of Catholic social teaching.

Finally, he shows that unjust suffering can become praise. Betrayed, slandered, deposed, banished, and driven to death along the roads of Pontus, he left only one final saying, and it was an act of thanksgiving. Here lies the secret of his holiness: not the absence of trial, but the ability to refer everything to God.

“Glory to God for all things.” — This final saying, whispered at Comana by a dying man betrayed by the powers of the earth, sums up an entire life: that of a man who received the genius of speech and returned it, to the very end, to the One who had given it.

• Saint Basil the Great — one of the Three Holy Hierarchs with him (and not the friend in On the Priesthood: that Basil is another Basil, a youthful friend of John of uncertain identity — perhaps the future bishop of Raphanea in Syria).
• Saint Gregory of Nazianzus — “the Theologian,” the third of the East’s Holy Hierarchs.
• Saint Athanasius of Alexandria — with Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory, one of the four great Greek Doctors.
• Saint Gregory of Nyssa — the contemporary Cappadocian theologian and brother of Basil.
• Saint Jerome — the great contemporary Latin Doctor and translator of the Vulgate.
• The Eucharist and the Real Presence — the doctrine to which Chrysostom is one of the foremost patristic witnesses.
• The First Council of Constantinople (381) — the council held in the city of which John later became archbishop.
• The First Council of Nicaea (325) — the faith Chrysostom defended against persistent Arianism.
• Saint John Damascene — the other great John of the East, who defended images in the following centuries.
• The Doctors of the Church in History — the category of the four great Greek Doctors to which Chrysostom belongs.