This week in Christian history: Thomas Goodwin dies, Gregorian calendar adopted, John Chrysostom becomes bishop
John Chrysostom becomes bishop – Feb. 26, 398
This week marks the anniversary of when St. John Chrysostom, a prominent early church orator and leader, became bishop for the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Born in Antioch in 347, John was so known for eloquent preaching that he was given the name Chrysostom, which derives from a term meaning “golden-mouthed.”
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John succeeded Nectarius, who died the previous year. Emperor Areadius selected John to fill the role, and Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, oversaw the ceremony.
“The change for Chrysostom was as great as it was unexpected,” according to Catholic Encyclopedia. “His new position was not an easy one, placed as he was in the midst of an upstart metropolis, half Western, half Oriental, in the neighborhood of a court in which luxury and intrigue always played the most prominent parts.”
Eventually, backlash to his efforts to reform church authority and his criticism of the royal family led to his being exiled to Armenia in 404, where he died three years later.
