Forced to March, John Chrysostom Dies

On This Day September 14 470AD

By Khen Lim




John Chrysostom railing at Aelia Eudoxia in a 19th century painting by Jean-Paul Laurens
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

It was inevitable. Like Origen, this truly outstanding Early Church Father whose fatal flaw was his critical denunciations of extravagance, paganism, immorality and ignorance of the poor would find himself at opposite ends of the royal rulers. 

In speaking boldly against the sins of Constantinople in which he was the Archbishop, John the Patriarch had by 405AD been consigned to exile in Cocysus in Abkhazia in the Anti-Taurus Mountains. His fiery sermons had inflamed and shamed the elite and amongst them was Aelia Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Arcadius, who with the help of Theophilus, pulled strings to get him banished.

Already in poor health with damaged stomach and kidneys, John had suffered up the mountains through the winter. Pope Innocent I had sent a delegation to Constantinople to protest his banishment but to no avail. John had no wood in the fire, no blankets on his bed to keep him warm. Yet he found enough strength to continue writing strong letters to the people who were under his care. A lawyer by profession, John’s letters, sermons and homilies were and still are masterpieces of Christian literature and even in his absence, churches were still seeking and receiving directions from him.

This aggravated his enemies who felt that his power and influence was still too great for their comfort and his presence was too intimidating. They cared not that he was too old and frail to do anything and so they resorted to bribe the guards to move him further to the Euxine (Black) Sea by offering a reward that would be commensurate with how quickly they could transfer him. Considering the foreboding move, it was clear to the guards that John would be walking to his death but all the same, none of them showed mercy. And so, relentlessly, they hurried his tottering legs forward.

Every movement was torture to John who was in all sorts of pain. And five miles out of Comana Pontica Pontus (now in Turkey), he spent his final night in a church dedicated to another martyr, Bishop Basliscus. On the night before his death, September 13, the Bishop appeared in his dream saying, “Tomorrow, we shall be together.”

There in church, John asked the guards and was given a white robe which he put on in replacement of his old clothes. Surrounded by monks and nuns, he raised his arms, saying, “Glory be to God for all things. Amen” (δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν. Amin.) Those were his last words. He died on this day, September 14, 407.

The title “Chrysostom” (golden mouth, Χρυσόστομος) was given to him in honour following his death. His remains were returned to Constantinople only after Proclus’ homily in the Church of Hagia Sophia praising John had moved the Emperor. Other than the harshness of eight anti-Semitic homilies he gave, John is today remembered as one of the greatest Christian orators of all history and a saint honoured in many churches.

Kelly, J. N. D. Golden Mouth; the story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1995.

"Chrysostom, St. John." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.