Eikon

John Scholasticus

Our Father among the Saints John III Scholasticus, Patriarch of Constantinople

Patriarch · Bishop · b. early 6th century, at Sirimis near Antioch — d. 577, at Constantinople

Commemorated 21 February — Repose of the patriarch and canonist

John Scholasticus (early sixth century – 577) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 565 to 577 and one of the founders of Byzantine canon law. Born at Sirimis near Antioch and trained as an advocate — whence his surname Scholasticus, "the lawyer" — he was ordained priest at Antioch and sent as its representative (apocrisiarius) to the imperial capital, where the emperor Justin II raised him to the patriarchal throne on the death of Eutychius. As a presbyter he had compiled the first systematic Greek collection of the Church's canons, the Synagoge in fifty titles, and afterward a Nomocanon, joining the sacred canons to the relevant civil laws — works that shaped the whole later tradition of Eastern church law. His patriarchate fell in the reign of Justin II and Tiberius; the introduction of the hymn of the Cherubikon into the Divine Liturgy is associated with these years. He reposed in 577 and is commemorated on February 21.

Origins and training in the law

John was born in the opening decades of the sixth century at Sirimis, a village in the territory of Antioch in Syria, the son (the notices say) of a priest. He was educated in the law and practised as a scholastikos — an advocate or jurist — at Antioch, and it is from this profession that his lasting surname comes: he is "John the Lawyer," John Scholasticus, to distinguish him among the many Johns of the patriarchal lists. In time he left the courts for the Church and was ordained priest at Antioch.

The canonical collections

It was while a presbyter at Antioch, before ever he thought of Constantinople, that John did the work for which the Church of the East is most in his debt. He gathered the scattered canons — the disciplinary and doctrinal rulings of the apostolic tradition, the ecumenical and local councils, and the canonical letters of the fathers — and arranged them, no longer merely in the order in which they had been given, but by subject, under fifty heads or "titles," so that a bishop or judge could find at once all that the Church had decreed on any matter. This Synagoge canonum in fifty titles (the Collection in Fifty Titles) was the first systematic, topically ordered corpus of Greek canon law, and it became the foundation on which all later Byzantine canonical scholarship built.

To it he afterward added — most likely during or after his elevation to the capital, where the machinery of Justinian's legislation lay to hand — a work joining the canons of the Church to the civil laws (nomoi) of the empire touching ecclesiastical affairs: the Nomocanon in fifty titles, the archetype of that peculiarly Byzantine genre, the nomocanon, in which sacred and imperial law are set side by side. Through these two collections John Scholasticus stands at the head of the science of Eastern canon law, and his name is cited with honour by the great canonists who came after.

Patriarch of Constantinople

John's legal eminence and his standing at Antioch brought him to Constantinople as the apocrisiarius — the resident representative — of the patriarch of Antioch at the imperial court. There, on the death or deposition of the patriarch Eutychius in 565, the emperor Justin II (565–578), newly come to the throne after Justinian, chose John to be Patriarch of Constantinople. He governed the Church of the capital for some twelve years, through the reign of Justin II and into that of Tiberius. His patriarchate was not without its shadows — he was drawn, as patriarchs of that age were, into the emperor's policy toward the Monophysites of Syria and Egypt, and later tradition, sympathetic to the persecuted, laid some of the imperial pressure at his door — but his personal life was held blameless, and the Church numbers him among the saints. It is to these years, under Justin II, that the tradition assigns the entrance into the Divine Liturgy of the hymn sung at the Great Entrance, the Cherubic Hymn (Cherubikon), "Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim."

Repose

John Scholasticus fell asleep in the Lord at Constantinople in the year 577 and was succeeded by the restored Eutychius, whom he had displaced twelve years before. He was buried in the capital, and his memory is kept on February 21.

Feast and commemoration

John is kept on February 21 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 6) as a synaxarion commemoration of the day, together with the venerable Timothy of Symbola, whose office the Menaion appoints, and with Eustathius of Antioch, George of Amastris, and Zacharias of Jerusalem. No proper hymnody is appointed to him; the common of a hierarch is used. He is not to be confused with John IV the Faster, the ascetic patriarch of Constantinople of the next generation (†595, kept September 2), with whom his nearness in time and see makes confusion easy: John Scholasticus is John III, the lawyer and canonist of 565–577; John the Faster is John IV, of 582–595.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4

A rule of faith and an image of gentleness, a teacher of temperance, the truth of things showed thee to thy flock; therefore by humility thou didst gain the heights, and by poverty riches. O Father and Hierarch John, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

John Scholasticus is depicted, where he appears in the calendar sequences, in the settled type of a Byzantine patriarch: an aged, grey-bearded bishop vested in the sakkos or the phelonion and the omophorion, blessing or holding the Gospel-book. No distinctive attribute marks him out from the general run of hierarchs. No pre-modern, identity-verified image of John Scholasticus has been located for storage in this collection; the entry is noted as wanting an icon.

Sources

  1. The chroniclers of the reign — John of Ephesus (Ecclesiastical History), Evagrius Scholasticus (Hist. eccl. V), and the later Byzantine chronicles — for John's elevation by Justin II in 565, his patriarchate, and his death in 577.
  2. John Scholasticus, the Synagoge canonum in fifty titles and the Nomocanon in fifty titles — his own surviving works, the primary witness to his canonical achievement and the foundation of Byzantine church law.
  3. Synaxarion of Constantinople and Greek Menaion, February 21 — the synaxarion notice of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, verified live via glt.goarch.org.
  4. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, February 21 (consulted live) — the birth at Sirimis near Antioch, the training in law, the ordination and compilation of the canonical works, and the patriarchate of 565–577.
  5. On the introduction of the Cherubic Hymn under Justin II: the Byzantine liturgical histories (associated with the reign in which John's patriarchate fell).