To submit news, send e-mail to the contact team. To submit your own photos, photopost newliturgicalmovement. Today is the feast of St John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople [1] from until , when he was unlawfully deposed from his see. There is a popular notion that with the coming of Constantine and the end of persecution, the Church somehow sold its soul in part or whole to the Roman Empire. The falsity of this was demonstrated long ago by GK Chesterton, who was a convert from Anglicanism, and knew a state-owned church when he saw one.
St Eusebius of Vercelli, one of the great Western opponents of Arianism, is even honored as martyr, although he did not die a violent death, because he was hounded into exile by an Arian Emperor. The same might well have been applied to John, who unlike Eusebius, died in his exile, both from the rigors of the journey and the terrible ill-treatment meted out to him; the date of his death was September 14, The Empress Eudoxia was the wife of the famously useless Emperor Arcadius, a man wholly under the control of his ministers and court sycophants.
He was swiftly recalled, partly because of the popular uprising in his favor, partly because a small earthquake in the city was seen as a sign of divine displeasure, especially by the highly superstitious Empress. St John had often preached against public license of this very sort, even when a simple priest in Antioch, and did not hesitate to do so on this occasion well.
Public domain image from Wikipedia. A particularly ugly episode followed in which soldiers were sent to drive the people out of the churches on Holy Saturday, resulting in no little bloodshed in the sacred places themselves. Pope Pius IX, who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Kingdom of Italy by setting foot on land which it illegally occupied.
More broadly, it refers to the general situation of the Church in that period. See a higher resolution version here. The Empress looks down with an expressionless face at the Saint, confident in her eventual triumph over him, but at the same time, she is almost lost in the trappings of her position, less distinct than St John in his white robes.
