WEBVTT 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:04.419 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 00:00:04.419 --> 00:00:08.039 of the Holy Spirit, amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ. 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:13.699 Today we celebrate the feast day of one of the 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:17.760 most prominent saints of the early church, particularly 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:22.640 dear to Eastern Christians, Eastern Orthodox 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:28.739 Christians, St. John Chrysostom. St. John was 00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:36.740 born about the year 349 in Antioch. Antioch was 00:00:36.740 --> 00:00:40.640 one of the major cities in the Roman world at 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:44.619 that time. Actually, you had Rome, Alexandria 00:00:44.619 --> 00:00:49.420 in Egypt, and then Antioch. If you picture the 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:54.840 Mediterranean Sea, Antioch is on the coast of 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:59.060 the far northeast part. of the Mediterranean 00:00:59.060 --> 00:01:04.480 Sea. Very prominent city. Cosmopolitan. Probably, 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:07.620 they guesstimate, half a million people lived 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:11.060 there, which was quite significant in ancient 00:01:11.060 --> 00:01:14.700 times. People from all different nationalities. 00:01:15.459 --> 00:01:20.159 Different religions, too. The most prevalent 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.420 one, of course, was paganism, but that was at 00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:28.120 the time of John Chrysostom on... in the decline 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:32.359 because the Christian church was growing but 00:01:32.359 --> 00:01:36.400 you also had in addition to pagans there is a 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:40.680 very large colony of Jews and then also the growing 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:45.280 Christian church and you had the Orthodox and 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.000 then you had a group of Christians that were 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:53.079 still hanging on to Arianism even though Arianism 00:01:53.079 --> 00:01:57.609 had been defeated at the First and Second Ecumenical 00:01:57.609 --> 00:02:02.549 Council. And then you had a few, the disputes 00:02:02.549 --> 00:02:07.790 about who Jesus Christ is were just in their 00:02:07.790 --> 00:02:12.389 first phases. So it was in the quiet between 00:02:12.389 --> 00:02:17.509 two storms. The storm over the Trinity. How can 00:02:17.509 --> 00:02:20.469 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, 00:02:20.530 --> 00:02:23.550 be one God? Then, of course, we have as a result 00:02:23.550 --> 00:02:27.569 of that the Nicene Creed. Then there's sort of 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:31.430 a quiet and a lull, and the next thing that erupts 00:02:31.430 --> 00:02:38.090 is, okay, who is Jesus Christ? Is he God or man 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:43.090 or somehow both? Those were the two theological 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:47.030 issues which confronted the early church, and 00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:49.599 you know about them. because they're referred 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:56.639 to frequently by Orthodox preachers. But St. 00:02:56.819 --> 00:03:03.780 John, his legacy for us, he grew up, he studied 00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:06.840 rhetoric, which was the art of public speaking, 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:11.460 in addition to philosophy and the classical Greek 00:03:11.460 --> 00:03:15.930 literature. So he had a very excellent... liberal 00:03:15.930 --> 00:03:20.590 arts education, so to speak. In fact, his teacher, 00:03:20.689 --> 00:03:23.509 one of the most prominent of the pagan teachers, 00:03:23.789 --> 00:03:28.229 his name was Labanius, and Labanius on his deathbed 00:03:28.229 --> 00:03:33.909 said, oh, that John, he would have taken my place 00:03:33.909 --> 00:03:39.650 if the Christians hadn't stolen from us. And 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:43.939 so John... And he became Christian, of course, 00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:47.539 and so he was very much indebted to this excellent 00:03:47.539 --> 00:03:50.919 education he received. And then as a Christian, 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.460 he went on to study under one of the prominent 00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:57.699 Christian theologians in Antioch at that time, 00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:00.800 whose name was Diodor. He came from the city 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:04.060 of Tarsus, which is the same city that St. Paul 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:09.219 came from. And his fellow student was another 00:04:09.219 --> 00:04:15.639 prominent preacher turned out to be Theodore, 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:19.779 Theodore Bishop of Mopsuestia. And both of them 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:25.339 are significant as commentators on the scriptures. 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:33.079 They gave us a wealth of information. Theodore 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:39.220 got into disfavor in later church history because 00:04:39.220 --> 00:04:42.610 he was the teacher of Nestorius. the bad guy 00:04:42.610 --> 00:04:45.769 who was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 00:04:45.769 --> 00:04:49.829 431. So he got a bad rap from church history. 00:04:50.029 --> 00:04:52.730 But Theodore himself was not really heretical. 00:04:53.129 --> 00:04:55.970 He might have said a few things which by later 00:04:55.970 --> 00:04:58.889 standards were less accurate than they should 00:04:58.889 --> 00:05:03.829 be. But John and Theodore studied under Theodore 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:12.529 two prominent exegetes. Exegetes meaning explainers 00:05:12.529 --> 00:05:17.110 of the scriptures. They gave homilies on the 00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:21.170 scriptures. To see how much of a legacy we have 00:05:21.170 --> 00:05:26.430 from St. John Chrysostom, he and St. Augustine 00:05:26.430 --> 00:05:30.029 are the ones, the most prolific writers, the 00:05:30.029 --> 00:05:35.209 wealth of information we have on fathers' thinking 00:05:35.209 --> 00:05:38.110 and teaching and commentaries on the scripture. 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:43.660 come from John Chrysostom in the East and Augustine, 00:05:43.660 --> 00:05:49.500 who lived about a generation after John Chrysostom 00:05:49.500 --> 00:05:53.100 in the West, in North Africa. And just to show 00:05:53.100 --> 00:05:56.819 you how much we have, this is a collection of 00:05:56.819 --> 00:05:59.600 writings in the early church. You have them in 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:05.339 your parish library. But seven of these are the 00:06:05.339 --> 00:06:09.250 writings of St. John Chrysostom. Small print, 00:06:09.589 --> 00:06:16.350 two columns, so it is magnificent collection 00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:20.310 of commentaries on scripture, the Old Testament 00:06:20.310 --> 00:06:24.430 and the New Testament. How did they come down 00:06:24.430 --> 00:06:27.290 to us? That might be curious because you read 00:06:27.290 --> 00:06:31.009 these and you wonder, wow, it would probably 00:06:31.009 --> 00:06:35.370 take an hour to preach this sermon. Maybe they 00:06:35.370 --> 00:06:40.079 were that long. But most of us think that John, 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:43.000 when he was preaching, it's typical of what happened. 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.420 John, and of course he was such a good preacher. 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:50.060 He knew the language. He explained it beautifully, 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:54.040 understandably, but remarkable in his use of 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:56.800 the Greek language. That's how he earned the 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:01.839 nickname John the Golden Mouth, Chrysostom. That's 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:05.980 what Chrysostom means, the golden mouth. What 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:09.339 would happen is that you had in the congregation 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:14.600 people that were called tachygraphers. Well, 00:07:14.899 --> 00:07:18.180 tachygraphers is a Greek word for quickly. So 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:21.360 they were stenographers. They wrote down quickly. 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:24.839 And then presumably what they would do would 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:29.420 bring these notes to John Chrysostom Monday or 00:07:29.420 --> 00:07:33.100 Tuesday, who knows, and then give them, this 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:36.620 is what you said. And John would, of course, 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:41.839 take this and perhaps modify it, expand it. But 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:46.180 the question is, I don't know how much he really 00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:50.759 needed to modify because people were amazed that 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:54.600 he could speak so long. Quote the New Testament 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:58.120 and the Old Testament by heart. They say he probably 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:01.660 had the whole Bible memorized because between 00:08:01.660 --> 00:08:06.110 his baptism... He went off for about five or 00:08:06.110 --> 00:08:10.550 six years and lived as a hermit in the desert. 00:08:10.949 --> 00:08:16.870 Came back to Antioch, and he was ordained a deacon 00:08:16.870 --> 00:08:21.990 and then soon a priest. And much of these sermons 00:08:21.990 --> 00:08:26.230 that we have were preached by him when he was 00:08:26.230 --> 00:08:33.100 in Antioch, commentaries on the scriptures. he 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:37.840 would, again, rework these and show us this legacy 00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:41.500 that has come down to us. Again, most of them 00:08:41.500 --> 00:08:46.480 were on commentaries on scripture, but also he 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:50.860 wrote on numerous different topics. One that 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:55.220 was very prominent, and before a priest is ordained, 00:08:55.220 --> 00:08:59.740 he's supposed to either read or reread. John 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:03.580 Chrysostom's treatise on the priesthood, which 00:09:03.580 --> 00:09:07.820 is a pastoral theology handbook, how to be a 00:09:07.820 --> 00:09:12.139 good priest, how to be a good bishop. He also 00:09:12.139 --> 00:09:16.860 had a very famous, his catechetical lectures, 00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:21.059 because he was put in charge of the instruction 00:09:21.059 --> 00:09:26.320 of catechumens in Antioch. And we have there 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:30.019 again a wealth of information about catechetical 00:09:30.019 --> 00:09:35.080 lectures from John Chrysostom, earlier from Cyril 00:09:35.080 --> 00:09:41.740 of Jerusalem, and Theodore Mopsuestia also wrote 00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:46.620 catechetical lectures, and then St. Augustine. 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:51.279 So those are the four prominent ones on how pastors 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:55.769 trained Christians. adults who were becoming 00:09:55.769 --> 00:10:01.690 Christians and preparing them for baptism. To 00:10:01.690 --> 00:10:05.750 make a very long story short, he gained such 00:10:05.750 --> 00:10:08.529 a reputation as this golden -mouthed preacher 00:10:08.529 --> 00:10:13.570 that he was called to be the Bishop of Constantinople, 00:10:13.850 --> 00:10:18.549 the new capital of the Roman Empire. And when 00:10:18.549 --> 00:10:22.769 he went there, this was a new... growing city, 00:10:22.909 --> 00:10:26.769 this capital. He brought with him not only his 00:10:26.769 --> 00:10:32.970 legacy of preaching, but also the liturgy, which 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:36.330 was the form of the liturgy which was used in 00:10:36.330 --> 00:10:39.509 the church in Antioch. Because you had different 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:42.570 families of liturgies and how the Christians 00:10:42.570 --> 00:10:47.470 celebrated the liturgy and the services. And 00:10:47.470 --> 00:10:50.870 so he brought those, and we have the liturgy. 00:10:51.230 --> 00:10:54.070 that's called the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. 00:10:54.850 --> 00:10:58.269 Because what he did, he didn't sit down one Saturday 00:10:58.269 --> 00:11:02.110 and compose the liturgy that we are celebrating 00:11:02.110 --> 00:11:08.909 today. No, he revised and standardized this liturgy. 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:11.970 So it has come down to us as one of his legacies, 00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:16.570 the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. We mention 00:11:16.570 --> 00:11:19.500 his name. at the conclusion of every one of the 00:11:19.500 --> 00:11:30.799 liturgies that we celebrate. His legacy. He reformed 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:34.639 many of the practices among the clergy and the 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:40.720 people when he got to Constantinople. And he 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:48.399 made a number of enemies among the clergy, as 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:52.100 well as among the nobility, because at that time 00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:55.460 it was prominent the nobility, the high -ranking 00:11:55.460 --> 00:11:58.440 clergy, and then the big shots in the government 00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:02.360 would get together periodically in other people's 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:06.320 homes and have banquets. Nothing immoral, of 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.720 course. They would just get together for a nice 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:12.779 meal and a party. And, of course, the bishop 00:12:12.779 --> 00:12:16.000 of Constantinople would be one of these that 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:19.399 would throw parties. John Chrysostom comes along 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:22.399 because of his monastic background, says, nope, 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:27.159 those days are over. So a lot of the clergy, 00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:29.379 the people thought, boy, he's really a party 00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:34.879 pooper. So that was one thing. Then he preached 00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:41.379 against ostentatiousness on the part of clergy 00:12:41.379 --> 00:12:45.639 and people. You know, use your money appropriately. 00:12:47.389 --> 00:12:49.970 Instead of buying all kinds of clothes and rich 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:53.690 things, give your money to the poor to build 00:12:53.690 --> 00:12:57.190 hospitals. So that was one of the things. And, 00:12:57.230 --> 00:13:05.289 of course, that kind of reforming resulted in 00:13:05.289 --> 00:13:08.230 him not being popular in some quarters. Most 00:13:08.230 --> 00:13:10.809 of the people loved him, no question about it. 00:13:10.929 --> 00:13:15.690 But the powers that be drove him into exile in 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:21.860 wintertime. and he's trudging his way to Armenia 00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:26.379 in exile, middle of winter, frost, rain, cold. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:34.240 He died on his way into exile. So what's the 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:39.879 legacy of all this? Number one, I, and probably 00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:43.480 most of the priests that preach sermons to you, 00:13:43.659 --> 00:13:49.379 will look up in a book, like this, what did John 00:13:49.379 --> 00:13:53.080 Chrysostom have to say about today's gospel? 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:57.779 So indirectly, John Chrysostom talks to each 00:13:57.779 --> 00:14:01.340 and every one of you nowadays. This wealth of 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:06.039 explanation of the scriptures, that's his legacy 00:14:06.039 --> 00:14:11.019 to us. Plus the love and enthusiasm that he showed 00:14:11.019 --> 00:14:15.179 for God in his treatise on how to be a good priest. 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:20.299 how to be a good bishop, and also his legacy, 00:14:20.539 --> 00:14:24.299 the divine liturgy which we celebrate. So this 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:30.820 man is without a doubt, we can say he was one 00:14:30.820 --> 00:14:34.840 of the greatest saints of the early church. So 00:14:34.840 --> 00:14:40.039 we who are the heirs of his wisdom and eloquence 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:45.250 and love for God celebrate his feast today. and 00:14:45.250 --> 00:14:51.110 we ask him to intercede for his children, his 00:14:51.110 --> 00:14:55.730 descendants in the church, us, now and throughout 00:14:55.730 --> 00:14:57.289 our life. Amen.