Arcadius was Roman emperor from 383 to his death in 408. He was the eldest son of the Augustus Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius. Arcadius ruled the eastern half of the empire from 395, when their father died, while Honorius ruled the west. A weak ruler, his reign was dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.
Gregory of Nazianzus, also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople and theologian. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained orator and philosopher, he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
John Chrysostom was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, his Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet Χρυσόστομος means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church, although both Origen of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo exceeded Chrysostom.
Simon Magus, also known as Simon the Sorcerer or Simon the Magician, was a religious figure whose confrontation with Peter is recorded in Acts. The act of simony, or paying for position, is named after Simon who tried to buy his way into the power of the Apostles.
Hagia Sophia, officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The building was erected three times by the Eastern Roman Empire. The present Hagia Sophia is the third, built in 537 AD. Although its title was accepted as an orthodox church, a mosque, a museum and then a mosque again, the building carried the title of Catholic cathedral for a long time after the fourth crusade. In other words, after the construction of the Orthodox Church, then the Catholic Cathedral, then the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul on 29 May 1453, it was converted into a mosque; after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, it became a museum in 1935, then a mosque again in 2020.
Gennadius II was a Byzantine Greek philosopher and theologian, and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464. He was a strong advocate for the use of Aristotelian philosophy in the Orthodox Church.
Divine Liturgy or Holy Liturgy is the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite, a liturgical rite developed from the Antiochene Rite of Christian liturgy which is that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. As such, it is used in the Eastern Orthodox, the Greek Catholic Churches, and the Ukrainian Lutheran Church. Although the same term is sometimes applied in English to the Eucharistic service of Armenian Christians, both of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of the Armenian Catholic Church, they use in their own language a term meaning "holy offering" or "holy sacrifice". Other churches also treat "Divine Liturgy" simply as one of many names that can be used, but it is not their normal term.
Lamb of God is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." It appears again in John 1:36.
Severus the Great of Antioch, also known as Severus of Gaza or Crown of Syrians, was the Patriarch of Antioch, and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, from 512 until his death in 538. He is venerated as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox Church, and his feast day is 8 February.
In Christianity, a martyr is a person considered to have died because of their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".
Issachar Jacox Roberts was a Southern Baptist missionary in Qing China notable for being in direct contact with Hong Xiuquan and for denying him Christian baptism.
The Codex Alexandrinus, designated by the siglum A or 02, δ 4, is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the fifth century. It contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices. Along with Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible.
Christian views on slavery are varied regionally, historically and spiritually. Slavery in various forms has been a part of the social environment for much of Christianity's history, spanning well over eighteen centuries. In the early years of Christianity, slavery was an established feature of the economy and society in the Roman Empire, and this persisted in different forms and with regional differences well into the Middle Ages. Saint Augustine described slavery as being against God's intention and resulting from sin. In the eighteenth century the abolition movement took shape among Christians across the globe.
The Patrologia Graeca is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857–1866 by J.P. Migne's Imprimerie Catholique, Paris.
The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World, was the calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church from c. 691 to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was also the official calendar of the Byzantine Empire from 988 to 1453 and of Kievan Rus' and Russia from c. 988 to 1700. This calendar was used also in other areas of the Byzantine commonwealth such as in Serbia, where it is found in old Serbian legal documents such as Dušan's Code, thus being referred to as the Serbian Calendar as well. Since Byzantine is a historiographical term, the original name uses the adjective "Roman" as it was what the Eastern Roman Empire continued calling itself.
Christianity in the 4th century was dominated in its early stage by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), and in its late stage by the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire.
The status of women in the patristic age, as defined by the Church Fathers, is a contentious issue within Christianity because some people believe that the patristic writers clearly sought to restrict the influence of women in civil society as well as in the life of the Church. However, others believe that the early fathers actually tried to increase the dignity of women.
This is a timeline of the presence of Eastern Orthodoxy in Greece from 33 to 717 AD. The history of Greece traditionally encompasses the study of the Greek people, the areas they ruled historically, as well as the territory now composing the modern state of Greece.
Severian, Bishop of Gabala in Syria, was a popular preacher in Constantinople from around 398/399 until 404. He became the enemy of John Chrysostom and helped condemn him at the Synod of the Oak.
Wendy Mayer is an Australian scholar in late antiquity and religion who is a research professor and associate dean for research at Australian Lutheran College, dean of research strategy for the University of Divinity, and honorary research fellow at the University of South Africa. She is known for her work on John Chrysostom and on early Christian preaching.
