enemies, particularly the Empress Eudoxia. After deposing six bishops at
the Synod of Ephesus in 401 AD for simony, all St. John’s enemies
determined to unite to destroy him. St. John also determined to put on trial
his staunch enemy, Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, for his expulsion of
forty desert monks from Egypt. Theophilus countered by convoking what
became known as the Synod of the Oak, where thirty-six bishops, all
enemies of St. John, condemned him on twenty-nine charges and illegally
declared him deposed as Bishop of Constantinople.
Under attack, St. John refused to give battle and scrupled to stand up for his
rights. Arcadius ordered St. John exiled to Bithynia, but the fear of a
popular uprising and an earthquake that rocked Constantinople that same
day caused the Emperor to revoke his order. St. John returned in triumph to
the wild cheers of the people.
The peace was only to last two months. Again, St. John was accused of
preaching against the Empress. The Emperor ordered St. John to retire but
he refused. The Emperor then ordered the closure of his church which was
secured by armed intervention on the Easter Vigil of 404 AD and after the
shedding of blood.
On June 9, 404 AD, St. John was exiled to Cucusus in Lesser Armenia.
There he remained for three years. But his great success among the local
people again aroused the hatred of his enemies who secured from the
Emperor a more distant banishment to Pityus on the eastern shore of the
Black Sea. It was on route to his new place of exile, being forced to travel
on foot through desert and severe weather, that St. John died on September
14, 407 AD.
St. John was above all a moralist and his preaching practical and popular.
He wrote and preached as a father who instructs, corrects and encourages
his children without reserve. No other Greek Father besides Origen has left
so extensive a collection of writings as St. John Chrysostom.
Extracts
On the Incomprehensible Nature of God (386-387 AD):
3, 6
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