Legacy and Reception

How the bishop deposed and exiled to death in 407 became, within a generation, the vindicated saint whose relics were carried in imperial triumph to Constantinople in 438 — and how “Golden Mouth” became the Church’s preacher above all: patron of the Divine Liturgy that bears his name, author of the homily read every Pascha, one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, and a figure the modern academy has steadily reassessed.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

This section turns from Chrysostom’s own works and his catastrophic fall to his afterlife in the Church and in scholarship. Two complementary stories are told.

The first is the story of vindication and veneration. The man condemned at the Synod of the Oak (403) and dead in exile near Comana (407) was not left condemned. The Johannite schism — the faithful who refused communion with the bishops who had deposed him — forced a reckoning: his name was restored to the diptychs under Atticus (c. 412–417), and in 438, under Theodosius II and the archbishop Proclus, his relics were translated to the Church of the Holy Apostles amid a public imperial penance. The Fourth Crusade carried much of the relics to Rome (1204); in 2004 Pope John Paul II returned a portion to Patriarch Bartholomew. His feasts and the calendar note that displaced his September 14 repose are treated in relics-and-rehabilitation.md.

The second is the story of his reception. The epithet “Chrysostom” no one used in his lifetime; its emergence, the medieval dispute that the Three Hierarchs feast settled, his standing in Orthodox worship (the Liturgy, the Paschal Homily, the pre-communion prayers), his homiletic influence East and West, and the modern scholarly reckoning (Kelly, Mayer, Wilken) with the translation history are treated in golden-mouth-legacy.md.

Section Contents

• Relics and Rehabilitation — the resolution of the Johannite schism; the 438 translation of relics and Theodosius II’s penance (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.36); the name restored to the diptychs; the 1204 removal to Rome and the November 2004 return; the feast days and the calendar note on September 14.
• Golden Mouth Legacy — the epithet “Chrysostomos” and when it is first attested; the Three Hierarchs feast and the dispute it settled; his place in Orthodox life; his homiletic influence East and West; and modern scholarship and the translation history.

See Also

• Synod of the Oak and Exile — the deposition and death that the rehabilitation reversed
• The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom — the most pervasive form of his legacy
• Adversus Judaeos — the part of his reception that is not celebrated
• St. Basil the Great — The Three Hierarchs — the parallel treatment of the shared January 30 feast
• St. Athanasius — Legacy and Reception — a parallel Father’s afterlife in Church and academy
• The Church Fathers — Chrysostom among the Fathers

References

• Kelly, J. N. D. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom — Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
• Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Ecclesiastical History 5.36, trans. NPNF II/3.
• Mayer, Wendy, and Pauline Allen. John Chrysostom (The Early Church Fathers). London: Routledge, 2000.
• Orthodox Church in America. “Translation of the relics of Saint John Chrysostom” (January 27); “Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople” (November 13). oca.org.