Golden-mouthed John preached from Antioch to Constantinople
John Chrysostom (about 347–407)—the name means golden-mouthed—was archbishop of Constantinople and a Church Father famed for preaching. Eastern Christians rank him among the Three Holy Hierarchs with Basil and Gregory; Catholics list him among the great Doctors.
John grew up in Antioch, now Antakya in Turkey, raised by his mother Anthusa after his father, a senior army officer, died when he was a baby. Her connections got him into the school of the famous rhetorician Libanius, and he became a lawyer. The historian Sozomen reports Libanius saying on his deathbed that John would have succeeded him had the Christians not stolen him away. Instead John studied theology under Diodorus of Tarsus and, around 375, became a hermit who spent two years standing, barely sleeping and memorising the Bible, wrecking his stomach and kidneys for good.
Back in Antioch he was ordained deacon in 381 and for twelve years, from 386 to 397, drew crowds at the city's Golden Church. He read scripture plainly rather than allegorically, as the Alexandrian school did, so his sermons dealt with daily life and urged generosity to the poor. In Lent 387, after rioters mutilated statues of Emperor Theodosius I and his family, he preached more than twenty homilies while the bishop Flavian pleaded with the emperor.
In 397 the court eunuch Eutropius nominated him archbishop of Constantinople without telling him, and he had to slip out of Antioch secretly to avoid unrest. He refused to throw lavish parties, sent freeloading preachers home, founded hospitals and irritated the rich and the clergy. Theophilus of Alexandria, who resented him for sheltering four monks called the Tall Brothers, became an enemy, and when a silver statue of Empress Eudoxia went up beside his cathedral John compared her to Herodias demanding John the Baptist's head.
Exiled to Cucusus in Cappadocia, he appealed to Pope Innocent I, whose envoys never reached the capital. Ordered on to Pityus on the Black Sea, he died on the way at Comana Pontica. His relics returned to Constantinople in 438, and Pope Pius X made him patron of preachers in 1908.
Source: John Chrysostom
