St John Chrysostom: Life, Quotes, Liturgy and Feast Day

St John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) was the priest of Antioch and archbishop of Constantinople whose preaching earned him, after his death, the name Chrysostomos, "Golden Mouth", and whom many hold to be the greatest preacher the Church has ever had. He reformed a luxurious capital, defended the poor, was twice driven into exile by an empress and her allies, and died on the road to his last place of banishment with the words "Glory be to God for all things". The Roman calendar of 1962 keeps his feast on 27 January, a feast of the third class in white vestments; here is his life, what he is known for, his best-known words, the liturgy that bears his name and the prayers of his Mass in Latin and English.

Who was St John Chrysostom?

John was born about 347 at Antioch in Syria, the only son of Secundus, an officer commanding the imperial troops, and of Anthusa, who was left a widow at twenty and gave herself to her son and to her devotions. Her life so struck John's pagan teacher that he exclaimed: "What wonderful women are found among the Christians!" John studied eloquence under Libanius, the most famous orator of the age, who on his deathbed, asked whom he would choose to succeed him, answered: "John, had not the Christians stolen him from us."

As was common then, John was not baptized until he was past twenty, while studying law. He then joined a kind of school for monks under Diodorus of Tarsus and, in 374, went to live among the hermits in the mountains south of Antioch: four years under an old Syrian monk, then two years alone in a cave. The damp ruined his health and he came back to the city in 381, the year St Meletius ordained him deacon. In 386 Bishop Flavian made him a priest and his preacher.

The preacher of Antioch

For twelve years John preached at Antioch, several days a week and often several times a day, to a city he reckoned at a hundred thousand Christians. The care of the poor he held to be the first duty of all, and he never stopped pleading their cause and the duty of almsgiving.

In 387, when a new tax drove the people of Antioch to riot and to smash the statues of the Emperor Theodosius and his family, the city waited in terror for the imperial vengeance while the old Bishop Flavian travelled to Constantinople to beg for mercy. Through that Lent John preached the famous twenty-one homilies On the Statues. Flavian obtained the pardon; and from then on, Butler says, John's preaching became "one of the great forces by which the Eastern empire was swayed".

It was at Antioch that he wrote his best-known book, On the Priesthood, a dialogue in six books on the greatness and the dangers of the priestly office, still read by those preparing for Holy Orders.

Archbishop of Constantinople

When Nectarius, archbishop of Constantinople, died in 397, the Emperor Arcadius chose John to succeed him. Fearing the people of Antioch would not let him go, the emperor had him taken quietly out of the city to the tombs of the martyrs and carried off by an officer in a chariot to the capital, where he was consecrated on 26 February 398.

He cut the expenses of his household and gave the money to the poor and to hospitals; he reformed his clergy, with zeal and with a severity that Butler admits lacked tact; he founded communities of devout women, among whom St Olympias was the most illustrious; and he sent a bishop to the wandering Scythians and another to the Goths.

Toward sinners who repented he was tender: "If you have fallen a second time, or even a thousand times into sin, come to me, and you shall be healed." He urged even the laity to rise at night to pray with the clergy: "Many artisans get up at night to labour, and soldiers keep vigil as sentries; cannot you do as much to praise God?" And he spoke often and tenderly of the love of God shown in the Holy Eucharist, urging the faithful to receive it often.

Exile and death

His plain preaching against the vanity and luxury of the court made him enemies, above all the Empress Eudoxia, and Theophilus, archbishop of Alexandria. In 403 Theophilus gathered thirty-six bishops in a house at Chalcedon called The Oak, which deposed John on charges Butler calls "either false or frivolous", and the emperor banished him. Before he went, John told his people:

"Violent storms encompass me on all sides: yet I am without fear, because I stand upon a rock. Though the sea roar and the waves rise high, they cannot overwhelm the ship of Jesus Christ. I fear not death, which is my gain; nor banishment, for the whole earth is the Lord's; nor the loss of goods, for I came naked into the world, and I can carry nothing out of it."

An earthquake frightened the empress, and John was soon recalled, the Bosphorus blazing with torches to welcome him. But when he protested against the riotous games held at the dedication of a silver statue of Eudoxia beside his cathedral of Holy Wisdom, his enemies returned. In June 404 he was banished again, to Cucusus in the mountains of Armenia, after a seventy days' journey. Pope St Innocent I took his part and, with the Western emperor Honorius, sent bishops to call a council; they were thrown into prison. From exile John wrote letters, many to St Olympias, and the treatise That no one can be hurt except by himself.

In 407 he was ordered further still, to Pityus at the eastern end of the Black Sea, and hurried along through scorching heat and drenching rain by a brutal guard. Near Comana, Butler relates, the martyr St Basiliscus seemed to appear to him by night and said: "Courage, brother! To-morrow we shall be together." The next day, dying, he was brought back to the martyr's chapel, clothed in white, and received Holy Communion. His last words were: "Glory be to God for all things." It was 14 September 407, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

In 438 his body was brought back to Constantinople and laid in the Church of the Apostles on 27 January, the Emperor Theodosius II, son of Arcadius, asking pardon for the sins of his parents. That translation is the day on which the West keeps his feast. The Breviary adds that his body was later brought to Rome and laid in the Vatican basilica; in 2004 a portion of these relics was given back to the Church of Constantinople.

What is St John Chrysostom known for?

His homilies

A great many of his sermons survive: whole series on Genesis, the Psalms, St Matthew, St John, the Acts and all the Epistles of St Paul, whom he loved above all, and many on single feasts and subjects. The Breviary says that all admire their number, their piety and their splendour, and his explanation of Holy Scripture keeps so close to its sense that it seems St Paul himself dictated to him. The Roman Breviary still reads his homilies at Matins on many days of the year, as you will see in the Breviary.

Among the most famous are his preaching on marriage, in his homilies on St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, which made him a favourite authority on Christian family life (see our page on Catholic marriage), and the short Easter sermon called the Paschal homily, which the Byzantine rite reads under his name in the night office of Easter.

The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

The ordinary Eucharistic liturgy of the Byzantine rite is called the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. It is celebrated on most days of the year by the Byzantine Catholics, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite and others, who are in full communion with Rome (see our page on the Eastern Catholic Churches), and by the Orthodox. Tradition attributes its anaphora to him; historians think rather that he adapted and gave his name to an older text, and the rite as celebrated today grew over the following centuries. It is a venerable rite of the Church, distinct from the Roman Mass of the 1962 Missal.

Against the Jews

Among his homilies is a series of eight sermons Against the Jews, preached at Antioch to Christians drawn to the synagogue and its feasts. Butler, writing for Catholics, did not hide the difficulty: his language "was at times, especially in his later years, excessively violent and provocative", and Butler confessed "a painful feeling" that this invective, even under real provocation, "must have been partly responsible" for bloody clashes at Antioch. The holiness of a saint does not make every page he wrote a model.

Quotes of St John Chrysostom

• "Glory be to God for all things." — his last words.
• "Violent storms encompass me on all sides: yet I am without fear, because I stand upon a rock." — before his first exile.
• "If you have fallen a second time, or even a thousand times into sin, come to me, and you shall be healed."
• "Many artisans get up at night to labour, and soldiers keep vigil as sentries; cannot you do as much to praise God?"
• That no one can be hurt except by himself — the title, and the whole teaching, of the treatise he wrote in exile.

What is St John Chrysostom the patron saint of?

St Pius X declared him the heavenly patron of preachers, as the Roman Breviary records in his lessons. The Byzantine Church honours him as the third of the Three Holy Hierarchs, with St Basil and St Gregory Nazianzen; the Latin Church counts him, with St Athanasius, among the four great Greek Doctors. His Latin namesake for eloquence is St Peter Chrysologus, "Golden Word", bishop of Ravenna.

The prayers of the feast of St John Chrysostom (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is In medio Ecclesiae, from the Common of Doctors, with the Epistle of St Paul to Timothy ("Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season", II Timothy iv. 1-8) and the Gospel of the salt of the earth (St Matthew v. 13-19). The Collect is proper to him:

Collect, 27 January

Ecclesiam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, gratia coelestis amplificet: quam beati Joannis Chrysostomi Confessoris tui atque Pontificis illustrare voluisti gloriosis meritis et doctrinis. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

May heavenly grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, enlarge Thy Church, which Thou hast been pleased to make illustrious by the glorious merits and teaching of blessed John Chrysostom, Thy Confessor and Bishop. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Sancti Joannis Chrysostomi Pontificis tui atque Doctoris nobis, Domine, pia non desit oratio: quae et munera nostra conciliet; et tuam nobis indulgentiam semper obtineat. Per Dominum nostrum.

Let not the loving prayer of Saint John Chrysostom, Thy Bishop and Doctor, fail us, O Lord: may it make our gifts acceptable, and ever obtain for us Thy pardon. Through our Lord.

Postcommunion

Ut nobis, Domine, tua sacrificia dent salutem: beatus Joannes Chrysostomus Pontifex tuus et Doctor egregius, quaesumus, precator accedat. Per Dominum nostrum.

That Thy sacrifices may bring us salvation, O Lord, may blessed John Chrysostom, Thy Bishop and illustrious Doctor, we beseech Thee, draw near as our intercessor. Through our Lord.

The Collect, which asks that the Church grow by the grace that made him illustrious, is a fitting prayer to St John Chrysostom on any day, and especially for preachers and for those who hear them.

When is the feast day of St John Chrysostom?

In the Roman calendar of 1962 his feast is 27 January, the anniversary of the translation of his body to Constantinople in 438: a feast of the third class, in white vestments, with the Gloria. The calendar of 1969 moved him to 13 September, the eve of the day of his death. The Byzantine Churches keep him chiefly on 13 November. You will find his feast in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962 and among the Doctors in our guide to the Catholic saints.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is St John Chrysostom a Catholic saint?

Yes. He is a saint and a Doctor of the universal Church, in the Roman calendar since long before 1962, and the Roman Missal and Breviary honour him on 27 January. The Orthodox venerate him too, as a Father of the undivided Church.

Was St John Chrysostom married?

No. He lived as a monk and hermit before his ordination, and as a celibate priest and bishop; but he preached much and well on marriage.

How do you pronounce Chrysostom, and what does it mean?

In English it is usually said KRISS-us-tum (some say kri-SOSS-tum). It comes from the Greek chrysostomos, "golden-mouthed", a name given him after his death for his eloquence.

When did St John Chrysostom live and die?

He was born at Antioch about 347 and died in exile, near Comana, on 14 September 407, at about sixty.

How did St John Chrysostom die?

Of exhaustion and illness, driven on through heat and rain by the soldiers who were taking him to a more remote place of exile. He died after receiving Holy Communion, saying "Glory be to God for all things".

When was St John Chrysostom canonized?

Never by a formal process, which did not then exist. He was venerated as a saint soon after his death, and his body was brought back in honour to Constantinople thirty-one years later.

When was the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom written?

Its core is traditionally attributed to him, at the end of the fourth century; most historians hold that he revised an older anaphora rather than composing it, and the full rite took its present form over the centuries after him.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the Mass of St John Chrysostom, the Breviary with his homilies at Matins, and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 27 January (St John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, Doctor of the Church). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 27 January, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 27 January, and Common of Doctors. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, II Timothy iv. 1-8; St Matthew v. 13-19.