John Chrysostom on the
Christian’s Responsibilities to the Poor
Introduction
I am a Romanian evangelical in Romania. I am passionate to see Romanians
coming to a living knowledge of the Lord Jesus that they theoretically know
well. I am also a Social Worker by formation and I was involved personally and
with my family in serving the poor and the orphans of Romania. We adopted and
we are fostering kids and we serve different other categories of poor. I would
love to see Romanian Christians stepping up to the challenge of the poverty in
Romania as a testimony of how worthy is Jesus of devotion in one’s life.
86% of the population of Romania consider itself Orthodox Christian.
Romania is first place in Europe in a top of cheating to obtain funds from EU[1]. Romania
was many years number one in the world at the numbers of abortions and is
estimated to have had 25 million unborn children killed in the last 22 years[2] at
a population that dropped 4 million in the same period from 23 million to 19
million. Even with this rate of abortions Romania is the country with the most
Orphans in Europe[3]. Romania is second place
in EU in terms of absolute poverty (with 9 million people living on the
threshold of poverty out of 19 million)[4]
and first place in terms of the poverty of the employed population[5].
In a sea of poverty what can Christians do? In a country that is
overall traditional and linked to its religious past as of anchor of security
and identity, what can be said to the traditional religious or nominal Eastern
Christian?
What is Christianity saying about the role that Christ’s Gospel should
play in alleviating the pain of poverty in Romania and in the Eastern European
Orthodox Countries? Are there lessons to be learned from the people that have lived
in the same context and have left a legacy of hope and action?
John Chrysostom is considered by Romanians to be the Greatest Preacher
in the History of the Church. John’s works are widely translated and published
in Romania.
This study is intended to research the possibility of addressing
Romanian Culture and Romanian Christians with Chrysostom’s Kingdom message of
care, love and social action toward the poor.
Chrysostom is “the monumental church Father who called himself the
‘ambassador of the poor’”[6]. Practically,
I hope that the respect that people have for Chrysostom in this part of the
world will make them aware to his thought that Christian life is a life of
reflecting Jesus concerns and priorities for one’s life. Christianity is a
relationship with a living and loving Person, more than a matter of social and
national belonging.
And Chrysostom reflected in a masterful way the message of Jesus that one
of the main responsibility of any person who calls herself a follower of Jesus
is to abandon herself in serving Jesus with the face of the poor neighbor.
John Chrysostom – his life
and message
Background, conversion and
life prior to priesthood
Today, Chrysostom’s impact is characterized as”the greatest orator of
late Greek antiquity[7]” and
“the most eminent preacher in the History of the Church[8]”. From several sources[9],
the life of John Chrysostom looks like this:
To become the Golden Mouth as his name signifies, John had experienced
a early conversion to Christianity form the pagan religion of his Syro-Greek family
and then an early life of training and growth under famous teachers. Born in a
family of noble descent and considerable means, after the Eastern Tradition[10]
he became the first Christian in his family, experiencing the conversion of his
father and mother. His father, a military leader died soon after his conversion
and he was reared by his mother Anthusa.
In his early youth, he was trained in philosophy and rhetoric by
Libanus, the most famous rhetorician of that time. The Eastern Tradition sends
him studying at Athens where he wins a debate against the pagan thinker Anthimius
whom after that he delivers from demons. His Christian training was done under
Bishop Meletius of Antioch and then in the School named Asceterius, under the
Diodore of Tarsus he was introduced to the literal exegesis characteristic to
the Antiochian Tradition.
At the age of 21, Zinon, the Patriarch of Jerusalem visiting Antioch ordains
John as lector and then he spends approximately three years in that position. He
spends also four years in a cenobitic community, there an old hermit, Isihy has
vision in which the apostles Peter and John appear to Chrysostom to give him a
paper (expression) and keys (authority) to lead and teach God’s flock.
He eventually goes deeper in his life of pursuit of the “pleasures of
the Lord” and becomes a hermit and lives two years alone in a cave. There he
becomes so ill that he is forced to seek again the community. (cf. Palladius,Dialogue on the Life of St John
Chrysostom, 5)
Palladius, his
biographer, sees this illness as a God’s appointment that will install
Chrysostom on the trajectory of his true vocation.
He returned to the City in around 378 – 379 and he was ordained deacon
in 381. After de the Eastern Tradition even in this period he goes back and
forth between a life as a monk and a life o service and preaching.
Priesthood at Antioch
Flavius, the Bishop of Antioch gets his orders from an angel to get
Chrysostom ordained as priest. This happened around 386. Until 397 his passion accumulated in his intimacy with the
Lord and His Word burst in some of the most ardent homilies preached. He
preached homilies against Arians, then commemorating Antiochian martyrs. In 387
was the year of the 22 homilies against the “Revolt of the Statues”. The people
have destroyed the Statues of the Emperor Theodosius because of an increase of
levied taxes. He therefore called to repentance and conversion. This
intervention had a good effect over the population who now feared reprisals
from the Emperor and also diminished the Emperor’s wrath and gained a good
reputation for him at the Emperor’s Court.
The Antiochian
years were years of prolific pastoral work. It is here, where he preached most
of his homilies against the worldliness and materialism that he saw in the Antiochian
Congregation. Here he spoke at large about his view of the “embodied Christ”
from Matthew 25 in our poor and disadvantaged neighbor. We are to serve Christ
in the disadvantaged neighbor. Rudolf Brändle suggests that this is the
“central thought of in Chrysostom’s theology.[11]”
His pastoral
concerns were covering a lot of practical living starting with the family life
and the rearing of children and spread to the ascetic life and to the moral
virtues needed in the civil life, in the market place and in the local
politics.
Patriarchate at
Constantinople
Being appointed against his will around 397 - 398, he accepted out of
submission to become the Patriarch of Constantinople. He thus entered in the
ugly world of politics and in the uglier one of church politics. His prophetic
stance on comfortable living and his ascetic life style that he kept even in
this superfluous circumstances brought him at odds with a lot of the nobles and
clerics in the Capital and also with Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria
who desired to bring this see under his influence.
He instituted a reform of the clergy, stopping the abuses of the
traveler preachers and of the paid for positions for the priesthood and also he
applied church discipline and deposed clergy for immoral conduct.
He was requiring an moderate life style from the clergy and he
encouraged the service to the poor.
He intervened in the injustice cases that were reported to him,
bringing him at odds with some of the
In doing all these, he overstepped the social well to do positions and
the patronage relationships of those corrected. By some commentators he was
either tactless or fearless in addressing those matters.
In 402 or 403 the so called “Synod of the Oak” assembled all his
enemies leaded by the Empress Aelia Eudoxia and Patriarch Teophilus of
Alexandria. Although John refused to
attend the Synod, his adversaries brought false charges of heretical clinging
to the Origen’s false teachings and of supporting disobedient monks. Judging
him without a hearing, they deposed him. An earthquake and a revolt of the
people of Constantinople made the Emperor Arcadius reverse the decision of the
Council.
This peace didn’t last for long as another Synod was orchestrated against him especially by
Eudoxia and with the support of three bishops from Theophilus they deposed John
again and sent him in exile in Armenia and then to Pitiunt on the shore of the
Black Sea. On the way he died. In about 30 years his disciple Saint Proclus
became Patriarch of Constantinople and won the approval to bring his relics
back to Constantinople and finally, John was canonized.
In the final episode of fight against the abuse of Theophilus of
Alexandria, John appealed to the Pope Innocent of Rome and to Venerius, Bishop of Milan, and to
Chromatius, Bishop of Aquileia. These letters gave him acceptance in the West
as a saint and although it might not have been John’s intent, but the appeal is considered an ascendant that might have been in his mind with the regard
of the Pope of Rome over the other sees.
Chrysostom’s life - message
Chrysostom is on of
the most prolific of the Fathers with: 17 treatises, more than 700 authentic
homilies, commentaries on Matthew and on Paul (Letters to the Romans,
Corinthians, Ephesians and Hebrews) and 241 letters are extant. “He was not a
speculative theologian.[12]”,
he is known as an ethical[13]
and prophetic voice, among the Cappadocian Fathers. He did not create so much a
theological language as did the other two Holy Hierarchs (Basil and Nazianzus),
but he called back the people to the “rectitude of life” (in the Letter from Exile where he meditates at
the message of his life) that needs to accompany the “exact knowledge of the
true doctrine”.
His messages generally and specifically regarding the responsibilities
of the Christians toward the poor were anticipated by a life of personal self
discipline and simplicity. His classifications of the virtues, give the highest
place to the ones that give themselves not to the hermitic - ascetic life, or
to the celibates, but to the ones that give themselves and all they have to the
poor[14].
He anticipates the blueprint he is prescribing for his congregation and for his
public at large by the fact that he gives his considerable fortune that he
inherited from his parents (after the death of his mom) to the poor and he
chooses instead a life of modesty, simplicity and generosity, first as a
cenobite monk and then as a hermit and then he maintains his ascetic
disciplines throughout his entire life of service as church man and leader of
the Church.
[1] http://stiri.acasa.ro/social-125/romania-ocupa-locul-1-in-topul-tarilor-ue-care-deturneaza-fonduri-europene-169464.html
(Accessed on September 4, 2012)
[2] http://provita.ro/detalii-despre-avort.php?id=11
(Accessed September 4, 2012)
[3] Numărul copiilor
abandonați în România s-a dublat, Revista Eva, at: http://www.eva.ro/sanatate/stiri/numarul-copiilor-abandonati-din-romania-s-a-dublat-articol-24597.html
(accesed September 4, 2012)
[6] Eftalia Macris Walsh, “Wealthy and Impoverished Widows
in the Writings of John Chrysostom”, in Wealth
and Poverty in Early Church and Society, ed. Susan R. Holman, (Grand Rapids, MI, Baker
Academic and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 2008) 186
[8] Bria Ion, Dicționar
de Teologie Ortodoxă, 1994, Editura Institutului Biblic de Misiune al
Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 286-287
[10] Viețile Sfinților, vezi
de unde de pe net
[11] Rudolf Brändle, “This
Sweetest Passage” in , Wealth and
Poverty in Early Church and Society, ed. Susan R. Holman, (Grand Rapids, MI, Baker
Academic and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 2008) 136
[12] Pope Benedict XVI, "His Is an Exquisitely Pastoral
Theology"(Vatican City, September 19, 2007),
http://www.zenit.org/article-20539?l=english (Accessed July 18, 2012)
[13] Bria Ion, Dicționar
de Teologie Ortodoxă, 1994, Editura Institutului Biblic de Misiune al
Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 286-287
[14] Homily to Titus 6 (PG. 62:698, NPNF, 13.542, alt.) in
Eftalia Macris Walsh, (2008), 181
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