Semi-Autonomous: John Chrysostom (/ˈkrɪsəstəm, krɪˈsɒstəm/; Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος, Latin: Ioannes Chrysostomus; c. 347 – 14 September 407)[5] was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople.

He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority[6] by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, his Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities.

The Eastern Orthodox, together with the Byzantine Catholics, hold him in special regard as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs (alongside Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus).

As he grew older, however, John became more deeply committed to Christianity and went on to study theology under Diodorus of Tarsus, founder of the re-constituted School of Antioch.

[19] John lived in extreme asceticism and became a hermit in about 375; he spent the next two years continually standing, scarcely sleeping, and committing the Bible to memory.

[23]His straightforward understanding of the Scriptures – in contrast to the Alexandrian tendency towards allegorical interpretation – meant that the themes of his talks were practical, explaining the Bible's application to everyday life.

[24] During his time as archbishop, he adamantly refused to host lavish social gatherings, which made him popular with the common people, but unpopular with wealthy citizens and the clergy.

He made another enemy in Aelia Eudoxia, wife of emperor Arcadius, who assumed that John's denunciations of extravagance in feminine dress were aimed at her.

Around 405, John began to lend moral and financial support to Christian monks who were enforcing the emperors' anti-pagan laws, by destroying temples and shrines in Phoenicia and nearby regions.

Other historians, including Wendy Mayer and Geoffrey Dunn, have argued that "the surplus of evidence reveals a struggle between Johannite and anti-Johannite camps in Constantinople soon after John's departure and for a few years after his death".

[34][35][36] In 1872, church historian William Stephens wrote: The Patriarch of the Eastern Rome appeals to the great bishops of the West, as the champions of an ecclesiastical discipline which he confesses himself unable to enforce or to see any prospect of establishing.

The interference of Innocent is courted, a certain primacy is accorded him, but at the same time he is not addressed as a supreme arbitrator; assistance and sympathy are solicited from him as from an elder brother, and two other prelates of Italy are joint recipients with him of the appeal.

He never reached this destination alive, as he died at Comana Pontica (modern-day Gümenek, Tokat, Turkey) on 14 September 407 during the journey.

[42] Proclus, archbishop of Constantinople (434–446), hoping to bring about the reconciliation of the Johannites, preached a homily praising his predecessor in the Church of Hagia Sophia.

"[43] These homilies helped to mobilize public opinion, and the patriarch received permission from the emperor to return Chrysostom's relics to Constantinople, where they were enshrined in the Church of the Holy Apostles on 28 January 438.

[44] In the Eastern Orthodox Church, there are several feast days dedicated to him: In 1908 Pope Pius X named him the patron saint of preachers.

[1] The homilies were written down by stenographers and subsequently circulated, revealing a style that tended to be direct and greatly personal, but formed by the rhetorical conventions of his time and place.

[53] Echoing themes found in the Gospel of Matthew, he calls upon the rich to lay aside materialism in favor of helping the poor, often employing all of his rhetorical skills to shame wealthy people to abandon conspicuous consumption: Do you pay such honor to your excrements as to receive them into a silver chamber-pot when another man made in the image of God is perishing in the cold?

In Greek, the homilies are called Kata Ioudaiōn (Κατὰ Ἰουδαίων), which is translated as Adversus Judaeos in Latin and "Against the Jews" in English.

[61] According to Patristics scholars, opposition to any particular view during the late 4th century was conventionally expressed in a manner, using the rhetorical form known as the psogos, whose literary conventions were to vilify opponents in an uncompromising manner; thus, it has been argued that to call Chrysostom an "anti-Semite" is to employ anachronistic terminology in a way incongruous with historical context and record.

[64] John Chrysostom's most notable discourse in this regard is his fourth homily on Romans 1:26,[65] where he argues as follows: All these affections then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored, than the body in diseases.

Chrysostom argues that the male passive partner has effectively renounced his manhood and become a woman – such an individual deserves to be "driven out and stoned".

[66] According to scholar Michael Carden, Chrysostom was particularly influential in shaping early Christian thought that same-sex desire was an evil, claiming that he altered a traditional interpretation of Sodom as a place of inhospitality to one where the sexual transgressions of the Sodomites became paramount.

[67] However, other scholars – such as Kruger[68] and Nortjé-Meyer[69] – dispute this, arguing that the author of the Epistle of Jude already interpreted the sin of Sodom as homosexuality in the New Testament.

[citation needed][c] John, thinking she was a demon, at first refused to help her, but the princess convinced him that she was a Christian and would be devoured by wild beasts if she were not allowed to enter his cave.

Realising the appalling nature of his crimes, Chrysostom made a vow that he would never rise from the ground until his sins were expiated, and for years he lived like a beast, crawling on all fours and feeding on wild grasses and roots.

Martin Luther mocked this same legend in his Die Lügend von S. Johanne Chrysostomo (1537) to analyse the pitfalls of the Christian Legendary (hagiography).

The skull was kept at the Moscow Kremlin, in the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God, until 1920, when it was confiscated by the Soviets and placed in the Museum of Silver Antiquities.

Two sites in Italy also claim to have the saint's skull: the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Dal Pozzo chapel in Pisa.

The right hand of Saint John is preserved at Philotheou Monastery on Mount Athos,[91] and numerous smaller relics are scattered throughout the world.