The Life of Saint John Chrysostom

THE ASTOUNDING SAGA OF THE GREATEST HIERARCH OF THE CHURCH

Behold the forbearance and spiritual love par excellence of a saint tested by fire and revealed as purest gold.

Palladius renders the magnificent portrait of a man who stood above the world in the realm of the eternal. Chrysostom’s austere ascetical struggles, his salvific preaching to the thunderous acclaim of his flock, and his elevation to the pinnacle of the Church as Archbishop of Constantinople, startlingly juxtaposes the treacherous intrigues of heretics plotting against him culminating in violence, mayhem, and murder on the night of Holy Pascha: the city in flames, the saint’s ruthless banishment, and his martyric death in exile. Few hagiographies are as gripping and spiritually edifying as Palladius’s portrayal of the greatest Shepherd of the Orthodox Church who ever lived.