“The Golden Orator.” Defender of the sacred images

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint John of Damascus (675–749), a Syrian theologian and writer. Born into a Christian Arab family, he rose to prominence as a high-ranking official at the court of the prince of Damascus, serving as the civil representative of the Christian community before the Arab authorities. Around the year 700, however, he resigned his post and entered the Monastery of Saint Sabbas near Jerusalem, devoting himself fully to ascetic discipline and literary work. At that time, the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian launched a fierce campaign against sacred images, the iconoclastic heresy, which regarded their veneration as idolatry. Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople defended the traditional practice, explaining the true nature of the honor accorded to holy images, but was deposed for his stance. It was then that John of Damascus raised his voice with three celebrated treatises in defense of icons, rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God: the Discourses Against Those Who Calumniate the Holy Images. For this he suffered calumny and persecution. Nevertheless, the Church, at the Second Council of Nicaea (787), vindicated not only his theological insight and learning but also his sanctity. He died in Jerusalem. For John of Damascus, “images are the catechism of those who cannot read.” In 1890, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church.