Homily

St. John was born in Antioch in the year 349. His father was a military officer who died shortly after his birth, and it's not clear whether his mother was Christian or pagan. He was well educated according to the standards of his day. When he was 18 or 19, he met the bishop of Antioch, Meletuis who made a deep impression on John, and he began to devote himself to a Christian style of theology and ascetical life. Three years later, he was baptized and ordained as a lector, and a short time after that, he joined a monastic group. For two years, he practiced long hours of standing in prayer, eating poorly and memorizing the Bible, but in the end, because of his very poor health, he had to abandon the life of a monk, and he returned to the city. In the years following, he was ordained as deacon, and then priest, serving in Antioch for 12 years, which was the time period when his preaching really began to be noticed by the people.

Because Constantinople was the capital of the empire, there were always men who desired to be the city's bishop, and those who plotted and planned their way toward the episcopal seat, but St. John was not one of them. His preaching, his teaching and his charitable works had made him stand out among the clergy, and he was called by the emperor himself to be ordained as bishop of Constantinople in 398, when he was 49 years old. There were many problems in the eparchy, with loose living among the clergy, scandalous behavior by priests and deacons, monks who refused to stay in their monasteries. The bishop of Constantinople was given a huge salary by the emperor, and some of the past bishops had used the money to live as though they were royalty, throwing frequent banquets for the rich and the famous. Chrysostom stopped all of it, and with the money he saved, he built a hospital for the poor.

He found it impossible to accept the extravagant and expensive clothing and jewelry that he would see on many of the noble and wealthy women who would come to church, and he did not hold back from preaching against such public displays of wealth while there were many desperate poor in the city, telling the rich that the only jewelry that could make them beautiful was made from the gems of Christian virtue.

So, naturally, he was not always loved by the members of the imperial court. When Eudoxia, the empress, unjustly took over the vineyard of a poor widow, Chrysostom went to the palace to plead for the widow. Eudoxia became offended and began to turn against her bishop. More than that, Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria seemed to always be hanging around the city trying to gain influence wherever he could. Although the people themselves loved John because of his holiness and his care for the poor, and for his sermons (which sometimes went on for 2 hours, and there were days when he would finish and the people would cry out for more), despite all these, because he was honest, virtuous, and took his role as bishop very seriously without worrying about who might get offended, he was not loved by all who were in power. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, began to use the resentments of some nobles and other bishops, and, with the emperor's permission, he called a synod, where Chrysostom was accused of a number of false crimes and then arrested, and sentenced to be exiled. The people began to demand his release, Eudoxia the empress became afraid of divine punishment, and called Chrysostom back to the city.

Just a few months later, Eudoxia had a silver statue of herself placed in the square outside of the cathedral, and the public celebrations that came with this event went on for several days and became so loud that it disturbed the services in the cathedral. St. John complained about this to the city prefect, who told Eudoxia that he complained against her statue. That did it. Eudoxia called Theophilus and his buddy bishops to come and get rid of St. John again. This time, his enemies, instead of using a church trial, just kept up a campaign against him with the emperor to try and get the bishop thrown out. Two attempts were made to assassinate him. On the vigil of Easter in 404, as the catechumens stood ready to be baptized, the imperial soldiers burst into the church and arrested St. John, who was sent into exile again. He was taken to eastern Armenia under arrest. He said, "How can I ever be in exile when the whole earth belongs to the Lord whom I serve?” [In only six years as bishop, he managed...]

He kept up with letters to his friends and supporters, but no amount of pressure or pleading would change the emperor's mind, even when the pope broke off communion with Constantinople and Alexandria.

It seemed that St. John's enemies had hoped, because of his poor health, that he would have died from the hardships of life on the cold frontier lands, but when that didn't happen after three years, he was moved to an even harsher climate, forced to march in terrible weather while he was sick. His body could take no more and he died on September 14th, 407 A.D. and buried at Comana, Georgia. Thirty-one years later, his relics were brought back to Constantinople and placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles. His last words were, "Glory be to God for all things.”

It's impossible to sum up, adequately, the faith and strength of love this man had for Christ, and for his people, especially the poor and the suffering. "Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person's gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again.

"Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people's hearts first – and then they will joyfully share their wealth.”

(Quoted from St John Chrysostom on the poor from On Living Simply XLIII)