St. John Chrysostom on the Throne of Constantinople (398-404)

When St. John was finishing his pastoral work in Antioch, an important change took place in the political state of the world. In the year 396, the emperor Theodosius died, who took with him to the grave the last reflections of the greatness of the Roman Empire. He was left with two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, and in order not to arouse hostility between them, but chiefly not to consider either of them capable of taking upon himself the whole burden of governing a vast empire, which was obviously inclined to decline, divided the empire among them, leaving to Honorius the west, and to Arcadius the eastern half of it. Both of them were still young men, and not generously endowed by nature enough to carry out the difficult service entrusted to them with dignity and success. It is not surprising, therefore, that the real rulers of the state were not they, but the entourage around them, among whom the first place was occupied by the famous commander Stilicho in the west, and the no less famous courtier eunuch Eutropius in the east. The latter, having emerged from the state of slavery, thanks to various accidents and especially to his natural intelligence, was able to earn the favor of the late Emperor Theodosius, who before his death entrusted him with important commissions, and after his death, of course, became the main guardian of the young Arcadius and the real ruler of the state. This eunuch was the instrument through which God's Providence brought St. John to the cathedra of Constantinople. When, after the death of Archbishop Nektarios, the question of his successor arose, it was not easy to resolve it. The position was very important, and therefore not a few claims were made to it. Arkady did not know what to do and whom to prefer. Then Eutropius rescued him from the difficulty. As a man not alien to religiosity, he was interested in church affairs, and during his stay in Antioch he did not fail to listen to the famous Antiochian preacher. John made a strong impression on him by his sermons, and now Eutropius suggested to the emperor how good it would be for the church of the capital city of his empire to have such a famous pastor at the head of it. Arcadius agreed, and immediately the governor of the east, Asterius, was given a secret commission to take and bring John to the capital. The order was unexpected both for John and for the people of Antioch, and it was not easy to carry it out. The Antiochians would never have consented to voluntarily part with their beloved shepherd, and any violence would have led to rebellion. For this reason an order was given to take John by cunning, which was done by Asterius, who, having summoned John outside the city, as if for the joint veneration of the relics of the holy martyrs, gave orders to take him into a chariot, which rushed to Constantinople. The humble pastor, having learned of the real purpose of his summons to the countryside, was of course grieved, casting a farewell glance at his native Antioch, where he had labored so much for the good of his beloved people; but obedient to God's Providence he was completely reconciled to this circumstance and calmly approached the reigning city. The emperor graciously greeted the famous pastor and, in order to give more solemnity and splendor to his consecration, summoned for this purpose many bishops, who, headed by Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria, ordained John on February 26, 398 to the dignity of archbishop of Constantinople.

Now John was no longer a simple pastor-preacher of a provincial city. He was the archbishop of the capital, the patriarch of the reigning city, and sat on the throne of the second Rome. His position was very high, but at the same time difficult. The Church of Constantinople, founded according to the tradition of St. Ap. Andrew, survived many vicissitudes, and from the time of the elevation of Byzantium to the rank of the capital of the Eastern Empire, it acquired a great significance of primary importance in the East. In fact, it was the center of the ecclesiastical, religious and spiritual life of the entire East. But in consequence of this very situation, it was most strongly overwhelmed by various trends. In the capital they found shelter and support for all kinds of false teachings, which were quickly instilled among the frivolous, devoted to the pleasures of the population, and whose adherents knew how to find access even to the imperial court. As a consequence of this, there were times when false teaching, especially Arianism, brazenly celebrated its victory in the capital, threatening to completely oust Orthodoxy. Such was the case not long ago, under Gregory the Theologian, who, having arrived in Constantinople, saw with sorrow that all the most important fourteen churches of the capital were in the hands of the Arians, and Orthodoxy huddled in only one house church, which, under his beneficent pastorship, became the source of the restoration or resurrection of Orthodoxy. But although Orthodoxy was restored, the influence of false teaching was so great that even this great archbishop-theologian found it difficult to shepherd such a dissolute flock both spiritually and morally, and therefore soon after his elevation to the rank of archbishop he renounced this high rank. His successor was Nectarios - from among the secular court dignitaries. This hierarch was distinguished by piety, but he was too weak for the metropolitan cathedra, and although his reign was even and calm, yet everyone clearly felt that another pastor was needed on the throne of the capital, who would have enough courage not only to beg, but also to forbid, and in general to show the firmness of the church authority when circumstances demanded it. Nectarios did not have such courage, and therefore after him the capital's church remained in a rather disordered state. The people, wholly devoted to pleasures and passions, did not respect their pastors, and the latter, not excluding the bishops, also led a completely worldly life. All this deeply struck and grieved John. If he saw in Antioch so many shortcomings and vices, with which he waged an irreconcilable struggle, then there they were the shortcomings of the unreasonable flock, which needed the admonition of the pastors; and here the pastors themselves demanded no less admonition and punishment. And St. John could immediately understand what a difficult and responsible place Providence had placed him in. Even in his youth he was aware of all the loftiness and burden of episcopal service, and for this reason he evaded it, hiding from his friend Basil. Now, against his will, finding himself in the pulpit of the first church, he could be even more convinced of this. But now he no longer shied away from the burden of his ministry. On the contrary, having been placed in such a high and difficult place, he, as a true pastor of the Church, decided to show himself worthy of his calling, and courageously entered upon the exercise of his laborious ministry.

His first act was to show himself to his new flock as a pastor-teacher. This was expected of him most of all by the people, who knew of his brilliant eloquence and anticipated the great pleasure of listening to the famous preacher. And indeed, the first talks of St. John in Constantinople gathered an innumerable multitude of people, and the archpastor could rejoice at such zeal of his flock to hear the word of God. With divinely inspired power, golden words of edification and interpretation of the word of God poured from his lips, the listeners fell into indescribable rapture, and the vaults of the church resounded with noisy, often frantic applause and all kinds of signs of approval. Such signs of approval he had condemned even in Antioch, seeing in them a manifestation of human vanity; he could not sympathize with them even now. But his grief became all the greater as he became convinced that these noisy approvals were here even less a sign of the penetration of words of edification into the souls of his listeners than among the people of Antioch, and on the contrary they were only a proof of the extreme vanity of his new flock, which did not distinguish between the church and the theater. The listeners evidently liked the brilliance of the preacher's eloquence, not the power of the edification of his words. For this reason he resolved to come out even more energetically than in Antioch against such licentiousness, and in his conversations he repeatedly begged his hearers to abandon this habit and listen to the edification in quiet silence and contrition of heart. "Listen to me calmly," he said repeatedly, "I beg you to do so, and if you will, let us make it a rule today that no one in the audience should allow himself to interrupt the preacher. Do as I ask you, and you will find here a source of good and a school of wisdom. When even the pagan philosophers reasoned before their disciples, the latter listened to them without interrupting them with applause. The apostles also preached, and nowhere do we read that they were interrupted by noisy applause. Jesus Christ was talking to the people on the mountain, and when He spoke, there were no cries. There is nothing more appropriate for the church than silence and modesty. Noise and cries are appropriate for the theater, baths, public squares, and social ceremonies. The exposition of our dogmas requires calmness, concentration, this quiet harbor for protection from storms. Think about it, I beg you, I beg you... Establish such a rule, and you will do everything only for the glory of God"[21]. But the bad habit was so strong in the population of the capital that it was difficult to overcome it, and St. John, not confining himself to teaching, decided to show before this dissolute flock an example of severity on himself. The more dissolute the flock, the stricter the pastor must be, and St. John, zealous for the salvation of the souls entrusted to his care, gave himself over to pastoral activity to the point of complete self-denial and forgetfulness of himself. The very position of the Archbishop of Constantinople demanded of him a wide public, rich hospitality and constant participation in feasts at the invitation of the nobility. Such a life, of course, took up a lot of time that could have been spent on pastoral service, and therefore St. John found it necessary to immediately put himself in a different position and, refusing all invitations, led the life of a hermit, who did not attach any importance to his own needs, took the most scanty food and moreover always in private, and began to use all the savings left from his income for works of mercy and charity. The doors of his house were always open, not for those idle ambitious people who only comforted their vanity by inviting the archbishop to their feasts or encroaching on his hospitality, but for those who were toiling and burdened who really needed both spiritual and physical help. Being a friend and guardian of the poor in Antioch, St. John remained so on the throne of Constantinople. The capital, resplendent with the rich splendor of its chambers and palaces, in reality contained even more glaring misery than Antioch, and the archpastor wanted to help these distressed members of his flock. The archbishop's cathedra possessed very considerable funds, and St. John, having increased them even more by his extremely modest life, began to turn them to charitable institutions. Before him, there were only four God-pleasing institutions for the entire population of the capital, which, moreover, were poorly maintained and out of order. St. John, impelled by his pastoral care, having put in order and improved the former institutions, began to establish new ones, and around the Church of God, as the fruits of Christian love for mankind, all kinds of God-pleasing institutions began to quickly arise, where all the sick and infirm, all the outcasts, doomed by human hardness of heart to misery and destruction, could find shelter and refuge. And all the activity of St. John was directed mainly to the maintenance of these God-pleasing institutions. In his conversations, he constantly appealed to his listeners with an appeal for donations for charity, and from his golden-tongued lips came divinely inspired speeches, in which alms were praised as the greatest virtue, as one that more than any other opens access to heaven and its heavenly joys. His words did not remain fruitless. Charity was greatly revived in Constantinople, and there were not a few such rich people, especially widows, who, donating all their wealth to works of charity, themselves entered God-pleasing institutions, and served the sick and infirm brethren. Such success greatly rejoiced the great pastor, and he even dreamed of that glorious time when all misery would cease in his flock and all would live in that happy fraternal communion in which the first Christians lived in Jerusalem.

But charity was only one aspect of the pastoral activity of St. John Chrysostom. Even more than bodily needs, spiritual and moral needs demanded of the archpastor care, without the satisfaction of which charity itself could not bring proper benefit. Both Antioch and still more Constantinople were a city in which the population was extremely mixed. Although Christians prevailed in numbers, paganism still made itself felt in everyday life, manifesting itself in all kinds of superstitions. Side by side with the Gentiles lived the Jews, who continued to wage an underground struggle, if not openly, against the Church, and finally, there were constant disturbances in the Church itself, caused by various heresies and schisms. All this mixture of tribes and beliefs made the pastor's activity extremely difficult, and to this were added other, purely social ulcers. The imperial court was far from being the embodiment of the virtues which, according to tradition, were accustomed to expect from it in the provinces. Instead of being a model of both family and social virtues, he was rather the source of all moral corruption, which had an infectious effect on the entire surrounding society. The insane luxury of the court forced the surrounding dignitaries to imitate it, who therefore indulged in the most shameless predation, which weighed heavily on the people. John, wholly devoted to the care of the poor, was deeply indignant at such foolishness and loudly cried out against it in his conversations. "Such insane luxury," he said, "is unseemly for Christians. Why, tell me, do you wear silk garments, ride gold-britted horses and decorated hinnies? The hinny is decorated at the bottom; gold also lies on its covering; dumb hinnies wear jewelry with a golden bridle; dumb hinnies are adorned, but the poor, tormented by hunger, stand at your doors, and Christ is tormented by hunger! Oh, utter madness! What justification, what forgiveness will you receive, Christ stands before your doors in the form of a poor man, and you do not move?" [23] At last, both rich and poor were all infected with a passion for theaters and public entertainments, and it came to such a point that in the event of any extraordinary performances, the churches were empty, and the theaters were overflowing with madly jubilant crowds. The saint bitterly mourned such an infatuation, severely rebuked the foolish, and found great consolation for himself in the fact that his conversations often made a tremendous impression, so that the people repented before him of their insane passions.

If the great hierarch was grieved by the sins and moral shortcomings of the people, then all the more did he grieve at the sight of moral decadence among those who claimed the dignity of the chosen members of the Church. If even some bishops, as has been said above, led a life befitting the secular rather than the clergy, then this was all the more noticeable among the lower clergy. It was given over to the world and to all its charms, and sometimes in such forms that could not but disturb the moral sense. Especially strong indignation aroused by the widespread at that time custom of cohabitation of clergy with virgins. This custom stemmed from a good purpose. Among the clergy of that time, the conviction began to spread that a celibate life was more suitable for pastors, giving them more freedom from worldly cares for pastoral work, and indeed many of the priests and other members of the clergy lived celibate, mainly in the monastic rank. In the form of worship, many took into their homes for the upbringing of poor orphans, who later also took the vow of virginity. Since there were still very few properly organized convents, these pupils, even when they came of age, continued to live with their tutors, and this custom gradually led to the fact that, in addition to educational purposes, virgins and virgins cohabited under the same roof, like brothers and sisters. In a strictly moral mood, such cohabitation could not seem particularly reprehensible, although it had already been the subject of discussion at councils and was forbidden as indecent; but it is easy to imagine into what an ugly phenomenon this custom could degenerate in the capital with its temptations and moral decay. And indeed, such cohabitation was an extremely obscene phenomenon, throwing a very unflattering light on all the clergy. It was necessary to eradicate it in order to raise the very dignity and influence of pastoral care, and the saint began to mercilessly persecute this unlawful cohabitation and wrote two large books against it, in which he depicted with extraordinary vividness both the custom itself and the obscenities into which he plunged cohabitants[24]. Evil had already taken deep root and it was difficult to eradicate it at once; But the saint spared no effort and he managed to cleanse his Church to a large extent of this abominable phenomenon. In order to give an example of true monastic life in the world, he was at the same time concerned about the elevation and improvement of convents. Monasteries had existed before him, but they were not so much a place of prayer and salvation as simply a refuge for those who were bored with the vanity of worldly life and sought a pleasant rest there, without breaking ties with the world. St. John subjected the monasteries to a radical transformation. He personally questioned all the nuns who lived there, and when he became convinced that some of them were there not for the salvation of their souls, but, following the example of their secular friends, continued to think more "about baths, incense and dress than about fasting and prayer," he advised them to return to the world, since monasteries should be exclusively a place of prayer. fasting and repentance. This strictness led to the fact that the monasteries were indeed cleansed of their unworthy members and filled with faces who sincerely longed to find peace for their souls from the surrounding worldly vanity and to devote themselves entirely to the service of God and neighbor. The joy of St. John was all the greater when truly holy, chosen souls began to enter the monasteries purified and transformed by him. At the voice of the saint, even noble and rich widows began to flock to them, who devoted their lives and all their fortune to the service of the feeble brethren.

The service was very difficult, and all the more honor to those pious women who, disregarding all difficulties, took upon themselves the service and valiantly carried it to the end of their lives. Many of the deaconesses were famous for their self-denial, and of them were especially famous in the time of Chrysostom: Nicareta, a very noble maiden from Nicomedia, who had devoted herself to the service of God from her very youth, Silvinas, the noble branch of the Moorish kings, Pentadia, the widow of the famous but unfortunate general Timasius, and especially the noble Olympias, who, having been widowed early, devoted her whole life and all her enormous fortune (to which the emperor Theodosius had unsuccessfully claimed) to the service Church. These pious deaconess wives constituted the main support of the great hierarch in his pastoral care for the spiritual and material well-being of his flock.

Struggling with the moral disorders of his church, St. John at the same time had to stand guard over Orthodoxy from the attacks of schism and heresy. In his time, the conscience of the people was not a little troubled by the Novatians, who transferred their teaching from the west to the east and found refuge in Constantinople. They insolently claimed that they only retained true doctrine and pure life, and considered themselves to be the only true church, as not tolerating unclean members. This impudent self-glorification deeply indignant the saint, and he refuted them with fiery indignation. "What pride," he said, "what madness! Do you, being people, make yourself appear sinless? Rather, it can be argued that the sea can be without waves; but just as the waves do not cease to move on the sea, so sins do not cease to act in us"[25]. John was even more concerned about another evil - Arianism. Although at that time it no longer had such force as in the time of Gregory the Theologian, when all the churches of the capital were in the hands of the Arians, nevertheless on the outskirts of the capital the Arians were still strong and did not miss an opportunity to declare their existence. They caused especially much confusion with their solemn religious processions, accompanied by the loud singing of blasphemous Arian hymns. Out of curiosity or ignorance, many Orthodox Christians also took part in these processions, thus becoming participants in Arian impiety. This could not but concern the great hierarch, and he, in order to distract the Orthodox from participating in the Arian gatherings, found it necessary to organize similar processions with sacred hymns for the Orthodox people. Even Empress Eudoxia took part in these Orthodox processions, who supplied the people with candles at her own expense. Unfortunately, these processions led to disorder. Meeting each other, the Orthodox and Arian processions could not but arouse mutual irritation, the Arians boldly threw stones at the Orthodox, so that in the ensuing confusion many people were wounded and even killed on both sides, and one of the courtiers of the empress, the eunuch Vryson, had his head pierced with a stone. This sad circumstance forced the government to ban such processions through the streets. But the saint, who attached high religious and moral significance to spiritual singing, as one of the best means for introducing Christianity into the life of Christians, began to organize divine services for this purpose more often, and he especially liked all-night vigils, similar to the Christian gatherings of the first centuries. "The night," he says, "is not made to spend it all in sleep and peace: artisans, merchants, and merchants serve as proof of this. The Church of God rises at midnight. Get up and contemplate the chorus of stars, this deep silence, this boundless silence. Bow down before the providence of your Lord. During the night, the soul is purer, lighter, it rises higher with less effort; the very darkness and this majestic silence dispose her to contemplation... What was the purpose of the Savior when He spent His nights on the mountain, if not to give us an example to follow? At night the fragrance of the plant is poured out, and your soul is more perceptive of the heavenly dew. What is burned by the sun during the day is refreshed and revived at night"[26]. Such edifications were a complete success, and the people became accustomed to the night liturgical vigils and came to love them. True, the population of the capital was pampered and could not endure particularly long services, and the most blessed saint did not fail to show paternal condescension to his feeble flock and composed a special Liturgy, which from that time became the best property of the entire Orthodox world and is still celebrated in the Orthodox Church, bearing the name of its great compiler[27].

Having arranged the external and internal life of the Church of Constantinople, Saint John then directed his efforts to the spread of the truth of the faith in Christ even among those who still sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. Although paganism was essentially broken and with the death of Julian the Apostate lost its last support, yet the spark of life still glowed in it and at times even flared up with a sinister flame. The followers of Julian, and the disciples of various pagan sophists in the family of Livania, were unwilling to part with their dream of the restoration of paganism, and to what extent this dream persisted is shown by the remarkable phenomenon that there was a widespread belief among the pagans, by virtue of which the old gods were soon to come to life and triumph over Christ. Pagan oracles spread among the people a supposedly ancient prophecy that all the successes of Christianity, as those resulting from the sorcerers of St. Peter, the chief seducer of the world, would have to end with the fourth century, and the year 400 would be marked by the shameful fall of Christianity and the complete triumph of paganism. The dark masses, inclined to everything mysterious, were not without excitement waiting for the end of the century. Fortunately, the sons of Theodosius were animated by religious zeal, and especially in the west, Honorius, by his energetic measures for the suppression and eradication of paganism, largely dispelled the absurd dreams of his adherents. In the East, paganism enjoyed greater freedom, and in Syria even the voluptuous and abominable festivals of Mayum, so named after a certain pagan temple near Gaza, continued to be celebrated without hindrance. These festivals, the legacy of the ancient vile cults of Baal and Astarte, have been banned more than once. They were forbidden by Constantine the Great, but Julian restored them again; Theodosius again imposed a prohibition, but his weak son Arcadius, fearing the murmuring of the Syrians, again permitted them, and these seductive celebrations again began to be performed with hideous frankness. St. John Chrysostom rebelled against them while still a presbyter in Antioch; but now, as archbishop of the capital, he did not hesitate to strike a decisive blow at this infamy, and under his undoubted influence the Mayum festivities were forbidden. This incident gave the archbishop a reason to pay attention to Phoenicia in general, which continued to be one of the main strongholds of paganism. It was sad to see that almost at the very foot of the famous thrones of Antioch and Alexandria, and moreover within the boundaries of the Promised Land, paganism, which had already been eradicated in other places, huddled chiefly. And the saint equipped a special mission for the eradication of paganism there and did not cease to be deeply interested in this matter until his very death.

But the gaze of the saint spread even further and wider. With his deeply penetrating mind, he understood that although paganism continued to hold out in the wilds of Phoenicia, its days were numbered, as were the days of the ancient people who inhabited it. This population was becoming obsolete, and on the borders of the then known civilized world, masses of new barbarian peoples were already moving, to whom a further role in history belonged. Therefore, it was necessary to pay attention to these young peoples and bring them under the yoke of Christ. These peoples were barbarian, they did not yet know the benefits of a settled life, and their dwellings were mobile wagons, with which they either stopped in camps, or moved again in whole hordes, threatening the border regions and cities. Among this chaotic mass of barbarians roamed those forces from which a new world was to be formed, to replace the old Greco-Roman world. Others looked with horror at these savage hordes, seeing in them the terrible scourge of humanity; but St. John Chrysostom saw in them children of nature, who had to be made sons of God. His attention was especially drawn by the Scythians, those stern sons of the north, who lived mainly along the banks of the Danube and further to the northeast, within the boundaries of present-day Russia. These were semi-savage nomads, whom Chrysostom therefore calls "Amaxovians," i.e., living in wagons, and they really stood at the lowest level of social life, were barbarians of barbarians. But fierce in appearance and barbarian in life and customs, they were kind in heart, and when the gospel of Christ reached them, it touched their virgin hearts and they revealed a desire to accept Christianity. Learning of this, St. John quickly equipped a mission to them, especially since it was to be feared that Arianism, which had spread widely among the Gothic tribes, might touch the heart of this simple-minded people, untouched by artificiality. To his great joy, the mission was a blessed success, and thus, as Patriarch Photius testifies, St. John Chrysostom was the first to erect altars to the true God among these barbarians, who had formerly drunk human blood. The people, whose stern warriors almost never got off their horses, now began to bow down before the cross of the crucified Christ. If the assumption of historians that the Scythians were one of the ancestors of the Russian people is correct, then what happiness is it to believe that the first seeds of the faith of Christ the Russian people owed precisely to the great hierarch, their beloved Chrysostom, whose divinely inspired works forever became for them an inexhaustible source of spiritual edification and enlightenment. - The saint also paid pastoral attention to other non-Russians, for example. ready; many of them lived in Constantinople itself, which, like Rome, often had recourse to the military assistance of these semi-barbarians. Most of them were still pagans, and others were Arians, and Saint John was concerned about the salvation of both. Since the Goths did not know Greek, he found an opportunity to remove this obstacle to preaching. From among the Goths themselves, choosing more worthy persons, he ordained them to the dignity of priests and deacons, and setting aside for them a special church in the name of the Apostle Paul of the Gentiles, he commanded them to perform divine services for their fellow countrymen in their native language. The saint was so concerned about the conversion of this people to the path of truth, that he often himself was present at their divine services and even personally gave them instructions with the help of skillful translators.

All these archpastoral labors of Saint John produced a highly beneficial effect. The capital began to come into good order in the church, religious and moral respects. The evil of disorder, however, penetrated so deeply that edification alone was not enough; the punishing blows of God's truth were necessary in order to bring the people devoted to the world and its charms to their senses. Such blows have indeed befallen Constantinople more than once. Especially terrible was the calamity caused by an earthquake that occurred in the first years of the saint's reign. In general, cities suffered a lot from earthquakes in the fourth century, and the chronicles of modern writers are full of news about them. But this earthquake was especially terrible, such as had never happened in Constantinople before. The soil stirred like the sea and the houses cracked and disintegrated, burying the unfortunate tenants under their ruins. In addition to this, the Bosphorus caused a flood, and the malefactors set fire to hide the traces of their robbery and predation. Everyone was seized with horror. The imperial family fled, and unimaginable disorder reigned. In the midst of this general confusion and horror, one archpastor of the Church remained unshaken, with his authority replacing the disappeared and confused authorities. He restored order in the troubled capital, encouraged those who were stricken with terror, and when the population gradually returned to the city and calmed down, he resumed his conversations, in which he depicted in fiery colors both the calamity itself and the impiety by which it had been inflicted. In order to encourage the people even more, St. John performed a solemn transfer of the relics of the holy martyrs to a church specially built for them on the opposite bank of the Bosphorus, nine miles from the capital. The transfer was made at night, and this solemn procession of a multitude of people with lighted candles, competing in their brightness with the heavenly bodies, and these enthusiastic hymns, heard in the silence of the night, produced a profoundly stunning and at the same time touching spectacle. The procession was attended by the Empress Eudoxia herself, to whom Chrysostom, in his enthusiastic sermon, paid a full tribute of honor, praising her religious zeal and piety. Subsequent events have shown that this piety was by no means deep and did not flow from the inner needs of a truly religious heart; but now St. John sincerely rejoiced at this outward manifestation of the queen's piety, whose example could have a beneficial effect on all the women of the capital.

As a zealot for the glory of the Church of God, St. John Zpatoust considered it his duty to strictly guard those rights and privileges that belonged to it. Only with such rights could the Holy Church successfully carry out its enlightening and salvific work in the world. Meanwhile, the civil government had already repeatedly claimed the violation or restriction of these rights and advantages, and moreover, most often for reasons not so much state as personal. One of the most important advantages of the church from the earliest times was considered to be its right of asylum. This right, which originated from the Church of the Old Testament, was extremely important in those times when, under the rule of arbitrariness and brute force, people could often find refuge from human violence only at the throne of God, in the church. And St. John, as an unswerving defender of the weak and oppressed, attached great importance to the right of asylum. Meanwhile, this right was increasingly subject to restrictions, and the main culprit for this was the omnipotent eunuch Eutropius at that time. Intoxicated by the omnipotence he had achieved, the haughty eunuch already boldly dreamed of seizing the very throne in time and mercilessly exterminating all those whom he could consider his opponents and enemies. Since many sought salvation from his fury in the church, Eutropius decided to put an end to this institution. In vain did St. John Chrysostom rise up against this encroachment on the sacred right of the Church to shelter the defenseless from the malicious fury of people; the eunuch, considering Saint John to be his protégé, who owed him his very elevation to the throne of the Church of Constantinople, insisted on his own, and the right of asylum was actually abolished. Soon, however, an event occurred that showed how fragile human greatness is and how necessary it is for people to have a protector in the person of the Church. Eutropius, by his intrigues and audacious escapades, incurred the disfavor of the emperor, and his position was shaken. And when he, forgetting himself to the extreme, insulted even the Empress Eudoxia, who, with tears in her eyes and with her weeping babies in her arms, came to the emperor, asking him for protection from the insults of the impudent courtier, his fate was sealed: he was deprived of all his posts and threatened with the death penalty. Hitherto an all-powerful courtier, Eutropius now turned out to be the most pitiful and helpless man. On the contrary, everyone rejoiced at the fall of the haughty eunuch, and the news of his fall quickly spread throughout the city. Taking advantage of his helplessness, many were ready to avenge all the injustices and violence he had inflicted even before legal justice was done, and he was in a desperate situation. Then, suppressing his pride, Eutropius turned to his only defense, the Holy Church, and in spite of the abolition of the right of refuge at his own insistence, he sought salvation at the throne of God, and he was not mistaken. There he was met by the great saint, who had so recently been grieved by this very Eutropius, and gave him refuge, from which no power could take him. The Empress, burning with vengeance, gave orders to immediately arrest the eunuch who had insulted her and subject him to the punishment he deserved; but when the messengers came to the church with the aim of fulfilling this command, in spite of their demand, as well as the cries of the enraged crowd, who also demanded the head of the hated Eutropius, Saint John fearlessly and with the consciousness of his own authority refused to fulfill this demand. "You will kill Eutropius," he said in response to the cries and demands of the soldiers and the crowd, "not before you have killed me." Then he himself went to the emperor and there interceded for pardon to the ill-fated proud man, whose fate was a striking proof of the precariousness of human greatness and the formidability of God's justice. All this took place at night, and in the morning St. John Chrysostom, having saved the unfortunate courtier from the death that threatened him, delivered before a multitude of people the famous sermon "on Eutropius the Eunuch"[29], in which all human vanity was depicted in fiery colors. Eutropius was exiled, and although he was subsequently executed, at the very moment of his fall he was saved from the punishment of the law and the fury of the people precisely by the all-forgiving generosity of Chrysostom.