I guess that after that talk about the family life, kidnaping, stealing, being greedy for the Kingdom of Heaven, it would be quite appropriate to talk a little about St. John’s life so we can understand better who he was. 

I also want to make it clear, that this will be brief view on his life (even thou it will feel like a long reading), and is not a personal research made from the original documents in greek and latin, but from more recent papers that were composed in a more accessible way to comprehend.  

Saint John was born in Antiochia, but the exact year of his birth is a little uncertain. It is estimated that is sometime between 344 – 353 AD. 

His dad’s name was Secundus, and he was a high official of the Roman Empire – Magister Militia Orientis. Unfortunately he died shortly after St. John was born. 

His mother, Anthusa, was still very young when Secundus died, but despite that she declined the opportunity to remarry and live a secure life, and in exchange she sacrifice herself in order to facilitate a good education to her son.

St. John was a very calm and easy to raise kid. He received a good classical education just like the big greek and latin authors of the antiquity. His professor of rhetoric was the sophist Libanius, and in short time St. John became his best student. 

When Libanius was asked who would he like to have as a successor, he answered that he wished it was John, only if the christians didn’t steal him from him. 

St. John also studied the law, which proves to be of good use later in his life. 

St. John had as a mentor the Armenian bishop Meletie, from whom will receive his baptism in 367-370. Shortly after St. John was appointed as a lector due to his intellectual qualities and his spiritual honesty. 

During that time he discovered the asceticism and started immediately to practice it. In the beginning he only practiced it at home, in the company of his mother Anthusa. 

When his mother died St John will go in the mountains of Antiochia where he will experience more of the asceticism. Here, the first four years he spent under the guidance of an old spiritually advanced hermit. After the first four years he went for another two years to live in a cave alone. 

The harsh conditions, the cold and the poor food will affect his health in a irreparable way, but at the same time the spiritual gains and growth helped him ignore all these challenges. Here he managed to get very close to God, and this for sure marked him for the rest of his life. 

When he returned to Antiochia in 380 he will accepts the path that he has to walk on, the priesthood. Therefore In 381 the bishop Meletie  will ordain him as a deacon and in 386 he will receive the priesthood from the bishop Flavius. 

During the diaconate he wrote many papers about asceticism and virginity. 

When he was ordain as a priest his focused changed on preaching and telling his homilies in the church. During Lent he was preaching almost every day,  while during the rest of the year he would share his homilies each Sunday. 

From 386 until 397 he had a very productive mission as an orator. His activity was mainly focused in the church of Antiochia. This is the time that he gained his name as Chrysostom ( Golden – Mouth), because of how much he impressed his listeners with his homilies. 

I found it interesting and I want to mention an event that happened, called the “Statues Incident”. On this incident, St. John put a lot of effort to encourage and open the eyes of the antiochians to understand the mistakes that they have committed. 

The statues incident is referring to the angry reaction of the antiochians at the abuse that was taking place regarding the tax collection. Because of this they started to act vengeful and take down all the statues. Back in those times, the consequence for such a crime was going to be quite terrible for the antiochians. The emperor, Theodosius, wasn’t planning on letting this event pass unpunished. 

After the incident St John was trying to make the people understand the mistakes that they made, and as it happens this was happening during the Lent. St John took the opportunity to comment on the unfortunate events by implementing his message in all his homilies during the Lent. It ended up having 21 homilies that were speaking about this problems of the statues, which later was called “The homilies about statues”. His message was very strong and did amazing miracles in reforming and guiding the souls of the people. His last homily about the statues also coincided with the good news that the bishop Flavian brought the the Antiochian people. His mission to ask for mercy from the emperor was successful. There’s also a rumour that the letter of apology for the emperor Theodosius was actually composed by St. John. When the emperor heard the message of the letter he was so moved that he end up crying.

After this St John’s homilies changed a little in the tone they were composed. He started to be a little more warm and more free in sharing his thoughts. 

He was easily combining dogmatical subjects with moral ones. The approach was familiar and was reaching easy in the hearts of the people. His message now was less focused on combating the heresies of the time, but more on books of the Bible. He started to write more and more commentaries and homilies about the chapters in the Holy Scripture. These were now what he was addressing to his followers. 

In 398, St John is being elected bishop of Constantinople. This didn’t necessarily came as good news to St John, and that’s because of few different reasons. 

First of all he didn’t like the idea of how much more pressure and responsibility this position will come with. The other reason that made him upset is that he knew that Eutropius, a very influential person in those times had a saying in his nomination as a bishop of Constantinople. Another hardship about this news, was that he had to leave behind all his faithful followers from Antiochia, which were very attached to him. 

Despite all this he was called to be bishop of Constantinople just as it was planed, and his blessing as Episcopus Constantinopolitanus happened on 26 February 398.

Immediately after he received this position, St John started to shift things around and cancel any rules or laws that would be used in an abusive way. Another quick change that he implemented was the suppression of any form of luxury inside the episcopate, and denied the clerics to raise any more money that would be for their own benefit. 

He also implemented a rule that the deaconesses will be separated from the clerics and will have different residences. This was a preemptive decision in order to avoid any cohabitation. 

St John also reorganized the ecclesiastical goods, he made the charities, helping the poor, the hospitals and shelters for the elders a priority. Another rule, that got some really negative feedback in his near future, was on the behaviour and morality of the widows. 

Regarding the catechetical work he continued writing homilies on St Paul’s epistles, he also wrote commentaries for the Psalms, and for the Acts of the Apostles. The quality of his writings and homilies suffered a little if it is to compare them with the ones he wrote in Antiochia, but fire and passion in the message didn’t diminish. 

His missionary work in Constantinople was quite successful, making it possible for a successful conversion to Christianity of the Goths. He also sent very well prepared missionaries in Persia, Phenicia and in Scythia.

During his years as a bishop in Constantinople he had a very productive activity, but this didn’t happen without creating some enemies, especially those who were affected by his homilies and his clerical rules. 

In 403 the first plot against St John starts and a secret and illegal council is formed with the purpose to take him down from the position of bishop. All those who participated in this illegal council were supported by the empress Eudoxia, who was felling unhappy with the homilies that were addressing the behaviour of widows. 

St John, accepted the decision that was taken at this council and left his position as bishop, but very shortly after that the empress had to call him back because of all the revolts that the people started due to his leave, and also a huge earthquake that shook very powerfully the entire land. After he was brought back to his position as a bishop, the crowds were happy again. 

Unfortunately, only two months later the problems start again. This time the plot was even worse. The ones who wanted St John removed wrote a false homily using his name. This homily was attacking the empress directly by comparing her with Herodias from the times of St John the Baptist. This made the empress angry and wanted to get rid of St John Chrysostom as soon as possible. She worked together with the plotters and they used the fact that upon St John’s return on as a bishop there wasn’t an actual council that would revoke the previous one (even though it was non canonical). This way they managed to make his return and reinstallation as a bishop non canonical.

They decided then to remove him under this claim from the position as a bishop. This time St John refuses to step down because he doesn’t want to leave back anymore his faithful followers. Because of this he will be arrested and sent in exile on June 20th 404. 

This exile wasn’t very easy for St John. We find details about the harsh conditions from the correspondences with his friends from Antiochia. He mentioned in his letters how the sufferings are like sanctifying virtues. 

Meanwhile his followers and supporters in Constantinople were doing everything they could in order to bring back their bishop. These movements even got so far that they set fire to the cathedral St Sophia. Because of all these events, and because the people started to travel and visit St John more and more in his exile, the enemies of the Saint decided to move him even further away in his exile. 

On the road to Pityus, the new exile location, St John will die being too tired and sick from all the hardships. St John died while he was saying these words: “Glory to God in all the things”. 

In 438 the body of St John was brought back in Constantinople. 

St John was a short man, quiet, a pleasant face, a wrinkled forehead, vivid eyes and a deep look. He was happy, warm and kind with the people he knew, but reserved and a bit cold with strangers. He had an impressive intelligence, that was combined with his originality in creating an incomparable theological dialog. This made him be one of the most valuable preachers in the history. His greatest work was indeed the guidance of the souls. 

An important mentioning point is that St. John was also the one who compose the Holy Liturgy that we celebrate the most during the entire year.