40 Fun Facts About St. John Chrysostom

John of Antioch, the 4th-century archbishop, is remembered by the Greek nickname Chrysostom, which translates as what?

Golden-mouthed is the meaning, a tribute to his eloquence, yet the name is not found in his own lifetime. It is first recorded in 553, almost 150 years after he died.

Which composer was baptized Joannes Chrysostomus because he was born on 27 January, then a feast of John Chrysostom?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart got the saint's name by Catholic custom at his baptism in Salzburg, but never used it in everyday life. He once opened a joking letter with it, confessing to staying up past midnight.

John Chrysostom was banished for good in 404 after complaining about revels around a silver statue of which empress?

Eudoxia had already helped depose him once, then had him recalled almost at once. Her statue went up beside his cathedral two months later, and the rowdy celebrations disturbed the services inside.

Riots over John Chrysostom's exile in 404 burned down the first version of which great church in Constantinople?

Hagia Sophia was his own cathedral, and the fire broke out just after soldiers led him out of the city. The domed building that stands today is the third church on the site.

A short sermon credited to John Chrysostom is read aloud in Orthodox churches at the midnight service of which feast?

Easter matins includes the homily, and by tradition nobody sits while it is read. It welcomes latecomers and early arrivals alike to the celebration, even those who skipped the fast.

Which sculptor made John Chrysostom one of four bronze giants holding up the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini put two Latin and two Greek teachers under the throne at St. Peter's. Chrysostom and Athanasius stand on the inside, bare-headed, while Ambrose and Augustine wear miters.

John Chrysostom grumbled that Christians who could not name the prophets knew all about which popular entertainment?

Horse racing drew his fire along with the theater. Ask churchgoers about the animals or their drivers, he said, and they answered more solemnly than trained orators.

In 1655 Tsar Alexei of Russia paid a Greek monastery to send which relic of John Chrysostom to Moscow?

His skull went to Moscow, and when the monks asked for it back Peter the Great refused and paid them a regular fee instead. The monastery now shows pilgrims a rival head, as do churches in Florence and Pisa.

Which German artist engraved the legendary penance of John Chrysostom around 1496, with the saint crawling on all fours?

Albrecht Dürer drew on a late medieval legend, not the saint's real life: a hermit who sins with a princess, then lives like a beast for years until a baby declares him forgiven.

In 1908 Pope Pius X named John Chrysostom, a former hermit, the patron saint of which group?

Preachers got him as their patron fifteen centuries after his death. About 600 of his sermons survive, and more of his writing has come down to us than of any other Greek church father.

Before entering the church, the young John Chrysostom studied rhetoric in Antioch and trained for which profession?

The law was the natural path for a star pupil of rhetoric, but it did not hold him. As his faith deepened he turned away from the courts, was baptised and took up theology instead.

Which pagan orator taught John Chrysostom rhetoric and reportedly named him on his deathbed as his lost successor?

Libanius is said to have sighed that John would have taken over his school if the Christians had not stolen him. The old teacher was a friend of Julian, the emperor who tried to revive paganism.

John Chrysostom's sermons of Lent 387 steadied Antioch after tax rioters pulled down statues of which Roman emperor?

Theodosius I could have punished the whole city for the insult. While the bishop hurried to court to plead, John spoke to the terrified crowds some twenty times, until an imperial pardon came back.

The synod that deposed John Chrysostom in 403 met at a villa outside Constantinople and is named after which tree?

Oak is the tree: the Synod of the Oak drew up about thirty charges against him, among them that he had called a fellow bishop an idiot and a demon. He refused to appear before a court of his enemies.

Theophilus, the patriarch who presided over the trial that deposed John Chrysostom in 403, was bishop of which city?

Alexandria's patriarch had been summoned to the capital as the accused, to answer monks he had persecuted. He arrived with 29 of his own bishops and plenty of gifts, and put the judge on trial instead.

Four Egyptian monks who fled to John Chrysostom for shelter, helping to trigger his downfall, went by which nickname?

The Tall Brothers earned the name through their height and commanding looks. Taking them in let John's enemies charge him with sharing their taste for the contested theologian Origen.

Archbishop John Chrysostom ended his household's banquets and spent the savings in his first year on building what?

A hospital rose from the money he saved by cutting the bishop's lavish entertaining. The common people loved him for it, while wealthy citizens and many of his own clergy resented the new austerity.

John Chrysostom reportedly sealed his exile by comparing the empress to which biblical woman in a sermon?

Herodias, he is reported to have said, was raging and dancing again and wanted John's head on a platter. The jab cast the archbishop himself as the doomed prophet, and the court took it that way.

John Chrysostom died on a forced march into exile in 407, reportedly saying glory be to God for what?

All things, even the march that killed him: guards had driven the sick bishop through sun, rain and cold nights toward the far edge of the empire. He was buried where he fell.

Antioch, the city in Roman Syria where John Chrysostom was born about 347, lies in which modern country?

Turkey holds the site today, as the city of Antakya. John was so popular there that when he was promoted he had to be slipped out of town in secret, for fear his departure would cause unrest.

Orthodox Christians honor John Chrysostom as one of Three Holy Hierarchs with Gregory of Nazianzus and which bishop?

Basil the Great completes the trio. In 11th-century Constantinople admirers of each argued over who ranked highest until, tradition says, the three appeared in a vision to declare themselves equal.

Bones of John Chrysostom that the Vatican handed back in 2004 now rest in the Church of St. George in which city?

Istanbul is the modern name of the city he served as archbishop, so the relics came home eight centuries after they were carried off to Rome in 1204.

Most of John Chrysostom's relics were looted from Constantinople in 1204 and taken to Rome by the army of which crusade?

The Fourth Crusade turned on Christian Constantinople and stripped its churches of treasures and relics. John's body had rested there since 438, when it was brought back from the town where he died.

The right hand of John Chrysostom is kept at Philotheou Monastery, which stands in which part of Greece?

Mount Athos keeps the hand in a house founded at the end of the 10th century, on a peninsula run by its monks. Smaller relics of the saint are scattered around the world.

Which Russian composer set the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for unaccompanied choir in 1910, after an American tour?

Rachmaninoff wrote it in a burst at his summer estate and called the work a rare pleasure. Church authorities objected to its modern spirit and would not approve it for services, so it fell into obscurity.

The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the most often celebrated Eucharist service of which Christian rite?

Byzantine churches, Orthodox and Greek Catholic alike, use it through most of the year, while a longer liturgy is kept for just ten days. Experts still debate how much of the text John himself shaped.

John Chrysostom left sermons on every New Testament letter credited to which apostle, plus seven more in his praise?

Paul was his favorite subject, and the commentary on Romans is counted among his three finest, with those on the Psalms and on Matthew's Gospel.

Churchgoers in Constantinople often broke into John Chrysostom's sermons with which reaction more usual at a theater?

Applause was the custom for star speakers of the day, and the people of the capital gave it freely to a new bishop who scolded the rich for their extravagance.

In 1568 Pope Pius V gave John Chrysostom which formal Catholic title, also held by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas?

Doctor of the Church is a title kept for saints of eminent learning and holiness. The four great Latin teachers got the title in 1298, while John and three fellow Greeks waited another 270 years.

In which James Joyce novel does Stephen Dedalus think the single word Chrysostomos while watching Buck Mulligan?

Ulysses has the name flash through Stephen's mind as the glib Mulligan whistles and shows off his dental work. Joyce leaves readers to work out why the saint's nickname suits a smooth talker.

Which reformer mocked the medieval legend of John Chrysostom's penance in a 1537 pamphlet on unreliable saints' lives?

Martin Luther used the tale, in which the saint sins with a princess and then lives like a wild animal, to show how far popular lives of the saints had drifted from fact.

Which church father gave John Chrysostom an entry in his book On Illustrious Men as early as 392?

Jerome gave him an entry while he was still a local cleric in Syria, a sign that his writings were already read far beyond his home city six years before his promotion to the capital.

Eight early sermons by John Chrysostom scolded Christians in Antioch for joining the festivals of which religion?

Judaism attracted many of his own flock to its feasts, and he attacked it in the abusive rhetorical style of his day. Centuries later antisemites, Nazi propagandists among them, reprinted those sermons.

John Chrysostom's most famous book, a treatise in six parts from his years in Antioch, is about which calling?

Priesthood, he argued, is so weighty an office that he had been right to flee when the church tried to ordain him as a young man. The book opens with his defence of that escape.

Seventeen surviving letters written by John Chrysostom in exile are addressed to which wealthy widow and deaconess?

Olympias gave so freely to the needy and to exiled monks that John told her she had done almost too much. Her loyalty to him cost her dearly: she was banished from the capital herself in 404.

Which woman, widowed at twenty, refused to remarry and raised the future John Chrysostom alone in Antioch?

Anthusa was his mother, left alone when his father, a high-ranking officer, died soon after the birth. She made sure her son went to the best schools the city had.

John Chrysostom died in 407 on the way to Pityus, an outpost at the Roman Empire's edge in which modern country?

Georgia was about as far as a Roman prisoner could be sent, and that was the idea. His letters from a nearer place of exile still swayed the capital, so his enemies ordered him moved out of reach.

Arvo Pärt's choral work Litany sets twenty-four short prayers attributed to John Chrysostom, one for each what?

Hour of the day is the pattern, so the cycle runs right around the clock. The composer scored the prayers for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra.

John Chrysostom followed the school of Antioch, which was known for reading Scripture in which way?

Literally was the Antioch habit, so his sermons stayed practical, applying each passage to everyday life. That plain approach helped win him the support of ordinary churchgoers.

Orthodox churches moved John Chrysostom's feast from 14 September, the day he died, to November to avoid which feast?

Exaltation of the Cross falls on the very day he died, and as it grew in importance his own feast was shifted to 13 November, which may be the date the news of his death reached the capital.